From jotarun at yahoo.co.uk Sat Sep 1 08:13:09 2001 From: jotarun at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Jo=20and=20Tarun?=) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 03:43:09 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] 419 scam... In-Reply-To: <200108311822.UAA18283@mail.intra.waag.org> Message-ID: <20010901024309.87280.qmail@web9102.mail.yahoo.com> The nigerian email is part of scam is known as 419 scam... for more info check out http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/ If someone one on this list is greedy enough to get rooked, best of luck. I enjoy reading these mail-frauds, they don't conform to a pattern. I love them Tarun reader-list-request at sarai.net wrote: Send Reader-list mailing list submissions to reader-list at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to reader-list-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at reader-list-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Reader-list digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Durban conference (Arun Mehta) 2. Re: Sklyarov arraignment has serious implications (Arun Mehta) 3. Re: Sklyarov arraignment has serious implications (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) 4. job-market or brain-market? (Boud Roukema) 5. A New Website on Syhlleti Language (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) 6. Validity of the UGC-NET Exam (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:01:41 +0530 To: reader-list at sarai.net From: Arun Mehta Subject: [Reader-list] Durban conference http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/opinion/26HEAN.html?todaysheadlines Says the great poet Seamus Heaney: there is genuine healing power rather than mere rhetorical uplift in Mr. Mandela's espousal of the aims of the Durban conference, and the conference could well adopt as its sacred text something he wrote in his book, "Long Walk to Freedom": "It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, black and white. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken away from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity." I am wondering if the role of media in racism is being properly examined at Durban? The role of business? For instance, I am told that many companies, even large ones, run by traditional Indians (I won't say the "m" word), won't hire Muslims. Arun Mehta, B-69, Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi -- 110024, India. Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103. http://www.radiophony.com mehta at vsnl.com _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:13:42 +0530 To: "Dr. Raj Mehta" , Udhay Shankar N , india-gii at cpsr.org, CYBERCOM at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU, cyberlaw-india at yahoogroups.com, reader-list at sarai.net From: Arun Mehta Cc: linux-india-general at lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Sklyarov arraignment has serious implications I would like, at national level, an examination of India's policy on intellectual property. There was a time, when we, pretty much alone in the world, were fighting against extending the concept of IP to processes, where really what was being patented was information, not a product. It is widely believed, that all this was at the instigation of the Indian drug industry, that did make money from copying foreign drug designs. However, the issues we raised then, and got no support for, were good ones. Some of those are coming up again as part of the Aids controversy in Africa and South America. Others are raising similar questions in the IT arena. Just when the Indian position finally could get international support, our own approach seems to be one of total withdrawal from our earlier position. How did this happen? I think Sarai, a univ or one of the LUGs could do worse than to organise a 2-day workshop, with presentations on the current positions and historical perspectives from all the concerned industry and social sectors, producing a paper at the end that puts forth what we consider to be a sensible IP policy for India. At 8/30/2001, Dr. Raj Mehta wrote: >I think this is going to take both court and political pressure >to get it changed. I explained this "head in the sand" aspect >of security when the Mellenium Copyright Act passed with that >absolutely asanine provision embedded in it. Of course the banning >of certain bandwidths and decoding of broadcasts was the first step >and it's entrenched, likely with all too much precedent to support >it as well. > >With Microsoft in the lead - as I've explained how it affects OfficeXP, >and ultimately all of the dot-net product line -- there are enormous >funds potentially arrayed in support of the "law". > >I honestly don't think that the population of the United States is >wise enough to understand the problem, enmasse. Certainly there are >voices crying out, and need to be. The actual strategy needed is >to make this MORE EXPENSIVE to the SFPA members to have enforced than >it would be to get it revoked. Frankly, I haven't seen that answer >yet, but it would appear to be the only long-term answer. > >As for this first "sacrificial lamb" on the alter of "We want your >business - literally - in our pocket", I really don't have an answer, >either. I hold out a lot of hope for the EFF legal team. The UN is >already as close to getting kicked out of NYC as it has ever been, so UN >"Human Rights" arguments aren't going to carry any weight. > >Here are some comments about creation of circumvention devices and reverse >engineering in context to the MCA: > > 1. The "copy protection" provisions against reverse engineering > in the MCA are the equivalent of making it illegal to point > out to anyone that when your neighbor draws a photo of a lock > and tapes it to his front door, that he hasn't truly secured > his house. As long as we take it back to software, and he > declares it to be part of his "copy protection scheme", however > ineffective the security of it is, and however ELSE it is > misrepresented as providing security (even in other uses within > the same software), it is illegal to speak of it, or even > discover it, and CERTAINLY illegal to exploit it. > > This is what's going on in this "test case" and poor Mr. Sklyarov > is an inflation of the old ITAR, but this time DRIVEN by shoddy > business, rather than shoddy government. > > 2. Remember, there dosn't have to be any security actually involved. > It's moved out of the technical realm, and into the economic and > law realm. > > Here's an example: > > You remember the ROT-13 encoding, commonly used for fun on FidoNet > and even still, on the internet, once in a while. > > A B C D E F G H I J K L M a b c d e f g h i j k l m > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > N O P Q R S T U V Q X Y Z n o p q r s t u v w x y z > > merely replace each character in the original with the corresponding > one, and you've done "ROT-13" encoding of the data. The security > stands against casual raeding by SOME people - and that only. > > Suppose I write an E-Mail program, and sell it as a program > for exchanging 'secure e-mail', but based on simple ROT-13 > encoding of the messages. If I also use that ROT-13 to store > a user password, then I can declare the whole code body that > does the ROT-13 to be part of the copy protection. > > At that point, it is illegal under the MCA for anyone to > "reverse engineer" that copy protection. Since it is declared > to be a copy protection scheme. Others also cannot make > compatible software. If I can get suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H the > public to buy it, and use it, it is now illegal for anyone to > "discover" that ROT-13 is not secure - to announce that - to > build other software that is compatible with it.... (e.g. > Sklyarov's software). > > 3. Microsoft has had a steady move to defining all formats in XML. > They have been almost industry leaders in XML, and especially > in XSL (Styleheets in XML). Even their HTML generated, e.g. > by Word98 is broken without the externally referenced stylesheet > files, which are referenced with a local-hard-drive file:// > URL - NOT a publically accessible over-the-net URL. > > Both XML and XSL are intended to be used to define file formats. > All Microsoft has to do with dot-net, is insure that the XSL > and XML "keys" sit on their website or other networked facilities, > or even distribute them WITH the "leased" software, and have > those be the ONLY way that you can get at your data. > > By divorcing their traditional sneakiness from anti-trust > actions, and making them part of that MCA protected "Copy > Protection Scheme", they have swung the law over to their > side to re-enforce their traditional monopolistic lock. > > >SCENARIO: > > San-Jose, California Dec 21, 2003. -- Fourteen respondants today > were convicted of violation of the Mellenium Copyright Act, their > XML and XSL files confiscated, and they were ordered to pay an > undisclosed out-of-court settlement to Microsoft (MSFT). The XML > and XSL files defined the format that their own data was stored in. > But, in July 2002, Microsoft had announced that those very files, > when dynamically produced by its Office-XP and successor products, > were the core of its "Copy Protection" which protects them from having > companies terminate their leases of the software, while still being > able to get at their business records. > > While these XML and XSL files are merely readable text descriptions > of the data, because they are considered part of the "Copy Protection" > of the entire XP line, they may not be reproduced, read, copied > nor recreated, under the provisions of the MCA. Plesee Mr. Gates, > don't sue me for disclosing that they're just text files! I'm > counting on my "freedom of the press" rights to protect me but, > my stating it, after that declaration of July 2002, makes it as > much a violation as those respondants actually PRODUCING the > files. > >SCENARIO: > > Philadelphia - Jan 7, 2004 -- The well known and respected security > firm known as "L0pht Heavy Industries" was handed over to Microsoft > today -- in effect. The damages awarded to Microsoft (MSFT) for > L0pht's continuing to point out flaws in Microsoft's software exceeded > the net worth (and possibly the gross assets) of the security company. > Microsoft proved their case in district court, that many of these > flaws actually exist in code that Microsoft has considered to be > part of their "Copy Protection Scheme". It is well known, after > last months convictions in San Jose, that reverse-engineering any > such provisions is a violation of the MCA, and publishing the > results of such findings is a 2nd violation. > >raj > > > >At 02:34 PM 8/30/01 -0500, Udhay Shankar N wrote: >> From LWN: >> >>http://lwn.net/2001/0830/ >> >> >> >>The U.S. government, clearly, is serious about this prosecution. >>Somebody, somewhere, wants to put an immediate and forceful stop to the >>creation of "circumvention devices" and the exposure of third-rate >>encryption schemes. The raising of the stakes may be an attempt to >>intimidate Mr. Sklyarov into pleading guilty to a lesser charge, or >>perhaps the government wishes to make an example of him that nobody can >>ignore. One way or another, we are now seeing the degree of repression >>that the U.S. is willing to apply to ensure that certain kinds of >>software are not written. >> >>It is time for the free software community worldwide to get serious as >>well. This is a threat we can not ignore. If this prosecution is >>successful, we will certainly see an increasing number of attempts to >>control, with force, how we can use our computers and what software we >>can write. >> >>It takes very little imagination to picture a future where the >>general-purpose computer has been replaced by a "trusted computing >>platform" and systems which do not "seal data within domains" are treated >>as "circumvention devices." At what point, exactly, does Linux become an >>illegal device under the DMCA? In a world where programmers face 25-year >>sentences for code that was legal where they wrote it, this vision should >>not be seen as overly paranoid. >> >>It is time to get serious. How can that be done? >> >> >> * Write code. The wide distribution of PGP years ago had a profound >> effect on attempts to restrict cryptographic software. Free software is >> difficult to control; there is no easy target like the one Elcomsoft >> provided with its proprietary offerings. The more code that is out >> there, the freer we all will be. >> >> * Attend protests. Many will be happening on August 30, of course, to >> mark the arraignment. But we will have to make ourselves seen and heard >> for a long time thereafter. See the event calendar on the >> FreeSklyarov.org site for the definitive list of events. >> >> * Pressure the political system. U.S. citizens should be writing to >> their congressional representatives asking them to apply pressure for >> Dmitry Sklyarov's release, and to push for a repeal of the DMCA. Web >> pages exist to help you find your House and Senate representatives. Note >> that snail mail tends to be more effective than email. >> >> Those of you outside the U.S. can raise awareness within your >> governments, and work to ensure that DMCA-like legislation is not passed >> in your country. DMCAish laws have been proposed in numerous countries; >> now is the time to show where such laws lead. The DMCA should not be >> allowed to infect countries beyond the U.S. >> >> * Tell people about what is going on. Write letters to the local >> newspaper. The Sklyarov case remains unknown to much of the >> non-technical population; that needs to change. >> >> * Contribute money. A legal defense fund has been set up to help pay >> Dmitry's expenses. The EFF is also expending considerable resources on >> this case (and others), and could benefit from your membership. >> >>It is also time to consider pulling Adobe's name back into this whole >>affair. It is Adobe that started this particular prosecution; the company >>should not, at this point, be able to get out with one simple joint press >>release with the EFF. Adobe started this thing; it should help end it. >> >>The free software community is faced with a challenge that is far more >>daunting than that of creating a top-quality, free operating system. Most >>of us are well out of our competence and comfort when dealing with this >>sort of oppressive politics. But this issue is going to come to us, >>whether we choose to address it or not. We can win this fight; even in >>the U.S., justice can usually be made to prevail. But it is going to take >>an effort beyond just putting "free Sklyarov" in our .signature files. >> >> --__--__-- Message: 3 To: arunmehtain at yahoo.com (Arun Mehta) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 02:41:17 -0700 (PDT) Cc: rajm at alumni.stanford.org, udhay at pobox.com, india-gii at cpsr.org, CYBERCOM at MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU, cyberlaw-india at yahoogroups.com, reader-list at sarai.net, linux-india-general at lists.sourceforge.net From: rishab at best.com (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Reply-To: rishab at dxm.org Organization: Deus X Machina Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Sklyarov arraignment has serious implications arun, it's not clear but if i read you correctly then you're wrong about india's patent law. to clarify: india has always had _process_ patents, and only during the uruguay round of the GATT adopted TRIPS etc which would extend patent coverage to _products_. this was despite the _opposition_ of much of the drug industry in india (though of course favoured by the MNCs, and later any indian drugs companies who had their own innovative products). the difference is that with only _process_ patent protection, a drug like viagra, say, is not protected as a product, but only one specific process to manufacture it is protected. a widespread practice in the indian drug industry has been to simply find a slightly different process to make the same _product_, thereby being outside the patent (in india). with _product_ patents as well, it is the final formulation of viagra that is (also) protected, regardless of the process used to reach there. > I would like, at national level, an examination of India's policy on > intellectual property. There was a time, when we, pretty much alone in the > world, were fighting against extending the concept of IP to processes, > where really what was being patented was information, not a product. It is > widely believed, that all this was at the instigation of the Indian drug > industry, that did make money from copying foreign drug designs. one reason the AIDS drugs controversy has not arisen in india (despite the fact that it was caused at least in part by an indian company's offer - i think cipla - to sell clones of drugs patented by MNCs to the south african govt at low cost providing the govt. took all the legal liability of patent violation) is that AIDS is not (yet) as big a problem in india and the govt has no similar mass-drug-purchase activities. and that afaik south africa started implementing its TRIPS committments well before it was required to do so. (there is a 'grace period' till i believe 2005 of which india is taking full advantage). that said, certainly it would be a good idea to hugely increase the awareness of IPR issues in india, especially the positive (to india) aspects, since various nutcases have pretty much taken over indian brainspace with the so-called imperialist nature of IPRs. (sloppy patent systems that allow the healing properties of turmeric to be patented before overturning them haven't helped IPR's PR either.) the economist had a special some weeks ago on how IPR can help developing countries, and this holds true for india over almost anywhere, given that the false stereotype of the land of'maharajas and snake charmers' has been replaced abroad by the (equally false) stereotype of the land of programmers. it is also a good idea to increase awareness of the issues as india follows some western countries in reforming _copyright_ - as opposed to patent - law to dramatically reduce other liberties that are very much needed in india (e.g. DMCA etc in the US). -rishab --__--__-- Message: 4 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:31:40 +0200 (CEST) From: Boud Roukema Reply-To: Boud_Roukema at camk.edu.pl To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: [Reader-list] job-market or brain-market? Dear R.Chaudhuri, > (1)That one gets acquainted to new words & interesting > concepts(atleast for some of us) within the throng of postings sent by > electronic mail to Members on the Sarai Readers List.For Exmple:"the > complex interiority of a person" was oneof them; Here is a word/concept that's come up in a discussion at: http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=186 We hear a lot about the "job market", e.g. for students. The reality may be the "brain market": it's business & industry that make the biggest profits from university education - since they "buy brains" and earn high monetary profits from them (much more than the brains' average salaries), surely they ought to fund the training of these brains - so that student fees remain unchanged. Boud --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 10:44:27 -0700 (PDT) From: SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY To: reader-list at sarai.net Cc: mithi at silchar.com Reply-To: mithi at silchar.com Subject: [Reader-list] A New Website on Syhlleti Language Dear Readers of the Sarai family, There is a new website on Syhlleti dialect of Bangla, based in Silchar. You could surf www.syhlleti.org. Contact the webmistress of this site at webmistress at syhlleti.org. It is trying to build a global cyberspace devoted to Syhllet and Syhlleti words,culture. === message truncated === --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Get your free Yahoo! address at Yahoo! Mail: UK or IE. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010901/7f1eaf2a/attachment.html From thescribblerin at yahoo.co.in Sat Sep 1 11:52:59 2001 From: thescribblerin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Jyotirmoy=20Chaudhuri?=) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 07:22:59 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #156 - 6 msgs In-Reply-To: <200108311822.UAA18283@mail.intra.waag.org> Message-ID: <20010901062259.99449.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> Sagnik, Please do not use attachments. Use inline texts. I got stuck once . They supposedly carry viruses. Jyoti ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in/ groups.yahoo.com From ragu at vsnl.com Sat Sep 1 12:54:58 2001 From: ragu at vsnl.com (Raghavendra Bhat) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 12:54:58 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [Fwd: he who controls the bootloader] In-Reply-To: <43600.145.18.124.232.999168383.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> References: <43600.145.18.124.232.999168383.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <20010901125458.A14091@GNUhead> [Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 12:46:23PM +0200] patrice at xs4all.nl : > http://www.byte.com/documents/s=1115/byt20010824s0001/0827_hacker.html > Hackers use a boot-loader called GNU GRUB, the Grand Unified Boot Loader. Do visit the site http://www.gnu.org/software/grub for an interesting FAQ. The GNU Grub can be embedded into your Hard Disk and it has its own shell. You can call it a small, functional *free* OS and it can parse file-systems and one can boot file-systems of different Operating Systems. It has a OS-chooser menu interface. I have GRUB embedded into my HDD.....I was able to boot a remote Ham Radio Digital gateway computer and was able to embed GRUB onto it too. Thanks to the GNU GPL license, the program is getting better and better :-) -- GPG: 1024D/F1624A6E ragOO, VU2RGU Helping to keep the Air-Waves FREE Amateur Radio Helping to keep your Software FREE the GNU Project Helping to keep the W W W FREE Debian GNU/${kernel} From mehta at vsnl.com Sat Sep 1 15:09:45 2001 From: mehta at vsnl.com (Arun Mehta) Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 15:09:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] job-market or brain-market? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010901091700.026667f0@202.54.15.1> At 8/31/2001, Boud Roukema wrote: >We hear a lot about the "job market", e.g. for students. > >The reality may be the "brain market": it's business & industry that >make the biggest profits from university education - since they "buy >brains" and earn high monetary profits from them (much more than the >brains' average salaries), surely they ought to fund the training of >these brains - so that student fees remain unchanged. I think business and industry is open to "fund the training of brains" -- but we have to address, for that, a deeper problem. I have been reading this fascinating book called "Schools that Learn" by Peter Senge and others, which points out, among countless valuable insights into the education system, that one of the problems with our modern education system is that it is a product of the industrial revolution. The industrialists needed trained people to run their machines, in large numbers and quick. What they were in the business of doing, was to take production out of the community, and put it into a separate space called the factory. Faced with an education problem, they did precisely that: took education out of the community and put it into a new factory called a school, which works just like an assembly line -- if all the holes you needed to have punched in class 5 don't work out, you get thrown off the line: the education system has no place for you. Particularly in IT, it is rather easy to take education back into the community -- which includes industry. The means of production, the machinery, isn't terribly expensive. Students all over the world produce terrific software, which, if marketed properly, could easily fund the costs of education. Unfortunately, most of our faculty doesn't have the ability or desire to work with industry in this way, and over time, the reputation educational institutions have, in being able to deliver, has suffered. I don't see a fundamental problem here, just one of attitude, in terms of wanting to work with industry, and another of the requisite skills, which again our educational institutions don't teach, but could. Arun From supreet Sat Sep 1 14:09:17 2001 From: supreet (Supreet) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 10:39:17 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #156 - 6 msgs In-Reply-To: <20010901062259.99449.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com>; from thescribblerin@yahoo.co.in on Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 07:22:59AM +0100 References: <200108311822.UAA18283@mail.intra.waag.org> <20010901062259.99449.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20010901103917.A4773@sarai.net> On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 07:22:59AM +0100, Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri wrote: > Sagnik, > Please do not use attachments. Use inline texts. I got You cannot enforce any rule on type msgs to be send or not. Usually attachments are checked for viruses by SMTP servers. You could also use such a tool, if your computer is particularly prone to viruses. Even if a mail contains a virus, That cannot get executed by itself. If it does you are definately using Outlook* and you should change over to something more sane that. > stuck once . They supposedly carry viruses. > Jyoti > > ____________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in/ groups.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list From menso at r4k.net Sat Sep 1 19:30:59 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 16:00:59 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #156 - 6 msgs In-Reply-To: <20010901103917.A4773@sarai.net>; from supreet@sarai.net on Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 10:39:17AM +0200 References: <200108311822.UAA18283@mail.intra.waag.org> <20010901062259.99449.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> <20010901103917.A4773@sarai.net> Message-ID: <20010901160059.U36809@r4k.net> On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 10:39:17AM +0200, Supreet wrote: > On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 07:22:59AM +0100, Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri wrote: > > Sagnik, > > Please do not use attachments. Use inline texts. I got > You cannot enforce any rule on type msgs to be send or not. You mean with the current mailsystem you are using? Piping it all through procmail before sending it to all receipients again will allow you to strip all attachments and set additional headers (such as a Reply-To:) The question is what list policy on this is: are extended mail formats such as HTML and RTF allowed? Does the list administrator allow for attachments that are in a binary and/or proprietary format? etc. It might be nice to get a clear policy on this and install appropriate filters: this is not the first time this discussion is being held. > Usually attachments are checked for viruses by SMTP servers. I believe it's usually on the POP server, else the people in your company still receive the virusses and you don't want that. Lately there has been a lot of discussion about this in Holland after yet another virus outbreak (Sir Cam it was I believe). According to Dutch Law email falls under 'briefgeheim' which means that nobody is allowed to 'open' your email just like nobody is allowed to open the traditional mail you might send. Since email is more like a postcard then a letter (it's missing the envelope, PGP is a pretty a good one) it doesn't really seem to make that much sense. The general attitude of the company I work for and 99% of the other ISP's in the country was that, although it's a nice idea, it's not our job. If someone sends you a deaththreat or explosive through tradittional mail you can't sue the mail company for that either. > You could also use such a tool, if your computer is particularly > prone to viruses. Indeed, virus scanning should be done on the client side imho. > Even if a mail contains a virus, That cannot get executed by itself. If it > does you are definately using Outlook* and you should change over to > something more sane that. Now *that* is taking the easy way out instead of addressing the issue of attachments to the list :) Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From geert at desk.nl Sun Sep 2 03:22:55 2001 From: geert at desk.nl (geert) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 07:52:55 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Technology in schools (and for helping children) Message-ID: <010901c13332$5cae6940$c900000a@bigpond.com> From: "Anthony Healy" To: "Link List" Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 2:11 PM Subject: [LINK] Technology in schools (and for helping children) > Illiterate street children in Delhi taught themselves to use desktop > applications and access the internet when a computer was left stuck in the > wall of a building. Children were intrigued by the icons on the computer and > gradually figured out how to use the computers and access the internet. This > was part of an experiment funded by the Indian Government, local > institutions and the World Bank. > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1502000/1502820.stm > > > Schools are banning palms and other PDA's because they disrupt classes. > > http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,45863,00.html > > > Linux vendor wants to establish a non-profit organization to provide low > cost software to the education market. > > http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/daily_news/17082-1.html > > > Regards, Tony Healy From kshekhar at bol.net.in Mon Sep 3 14:34:13 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:34:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 8.9.2001: Transportation Justice Message-ID: Dear Friends: Our next meeting will be a special session, co-hosted with the India Centre for Human Rights and Law, NAGAR, Shivaji Park Dakshata Samiti, Critical Mass Mumbai, Citispace, Mahikavati Sahakari Macchimar Society, Maharashtra Macchimar Kruti Samiti, Clean Air, Walkers Ecological Movement, and others. The construction of various fly-overs, bridges, and roads continues apace throughout Greater Mumbai. This despite various investigations and reports having proven that such transport infrastructure only supports the 12% of the urban population which uses private and semi-private modes of transportation, while the remaining majority of 88% of citizens use public modes of transportation. Since the release of "An Enquiry into the Bandra-Worli Sea Link Project" by the Indian Peoples Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights (India Centre for Human Rights and Law, Mumbai, July 2001), numerous citizens groups and associations have decided to come together to protest this unjust and unsustainable situation. This meeting is meant to discuss, debate, and strategise for transportation justice, and an integrated transport management policy, which meets the needs of the majority of commuting citizens in Mumbai. PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN VENUE FOR THIS SPECIAL JOINT MEETING. It will be held on SATURDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2001, from 10.00 A.M. to 12.00 P.M., at the YMCA, 12, Wodehouse Road (Nathalal Parekh Marg), Colaba, Bombay 400039, near Regal Cinema. Phone: 2021316, 2020079. (NOTE: The Mumbai Study Group remains a non-partisan forum whose purpose is to foster constructive discussion on urban issues, and which avoids strict adherence to any political or ideological positions. However, as we feel that this is an important debate in which our invitees might wish to be involved, we have decided to co-host this meeting. However, any resolutions made or decisions taken in this meeting will not involve or commit the Mumbai Study Group as an entity.) ABOUT THE MUMBAI STUDY GROUP The MUMBAI STUDY GROUP meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, at the Rachana Sansad, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, at 10.00 A.M. Our conversations continue through the support extended by Shri Pradip Amberkar, Principal of the Academy of Architecture, and Prof S.H. Wandrekar, Trustee of the Rachana Sansad. Conceived as an inclusive and non-partisan forum to foster dialogue on urban and global issues, we have since September 2000 held conversations about various historical, political, legal, cultural, social and spatial aspects of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Our discussions are open and public, no previous membership or affiliation is required. We encourage the participation of urban researchers and practitioners, experts and non-experts, researchers and students, and all individuals, groups and associations in Mumbai to join our conversations about the the city.The format we have evolved is to host individual presentations or panel discussions in various fields of urban theory and practice, and have a moderated and focussed discussion from our many practical and professional perspectives: whether as architects or planners, lawyers or journalists, artists or film-makers, academics or activists.Through such a forum, we hope to foster an open community of urban citizens, which clearly situates Mumbai in the theories and practices of urbanism globally. Previous sessions have hosted presentations by the following individuals: Kalpana Sharma, Associate Editor of The Hindu; Kedar Ghorpade, Senior Planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority; Dr Marina Pinto, Professor of Public Administration, retired from Mumbai University; Dr K. Sita, Professor of Geography, retired from Mumbai University, and former Garware Chair Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Dr Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), Mumbai; Rahul Srivastava, Lecturer in Sociology at Wilson College; Sandeep Yeole, General Secretary of the All-India Pheriwala Vikas Mahasangh; Dr Anjali Monteiro, Professor and Head, and K.P. Jayashankar, Reader, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Unit for Media and Communications; Dr Sujata Patel, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Pune; Dr Mariam Dossal, Head, Department of History, Mumbai University; Sucheta Dalal, business journalist and Consulting Editor, Financial Express; Dr Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Culture and Communications at New York University; Dr Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University, and member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective; Dr Sudha Deshpande, Reader in Demography, retired from the Department of Economics, Mumbai University and former consultant for the World Bank, International Labour Organisation, and Bombay Municipal Corporation; Sulakshana Mahajan, doctoral candidate at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., and former Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Rachana Sansad. Previous panel discussions have comprised of the following individuals: S.S. Tinaikar, former Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Sheela Patel, Director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), and Bhanu Desai of the Citizens' Forum for the Protection of Public Spaces (Citispace) on urban policy making and housing; Shirish Patel, civil engineer and urban planner, Pramod Sahasrabuddhe and Abhay Godbole, structural engineers on earthquakes and the built form of the city; B. Rajaram, Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation, and Dr P.G. Patankar, from Tata Consultancy Services, and former Chairman of the Bombay Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) on mass public transport alternatives; Ved Segan, Vikas Dilawari, and Pankaj Joshi, conservation architects, on the social relevance of heritage and conservation architecture; Debi Goenka, of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, Professor Sudha Srivastava, Dr Geeta Kewalramani, and Dr Dipti Mukherji, of the University of Mumbai Department of Geography, on the politics of land use, the city's salt pan lands, and the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Act. We invite all urban researchers, practitioners, students, and other interested individuals to join us in our fortnightly conversations, and suggest topics for presentation and discussion. For any more information, kindly contact one of the Joint Convenors of the Mumbai Study Group: ARVIND ADARKAR, Architect, Researcher and Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Phone 2051834, ; DARRYL D'MONTE, Journalist and Writer, 6427088 ; SHEKHAR KRISHNAN, Coordinator-Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), 4462728, ; PANKAJ JOSHI, Conservation Architect, Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, and PUKAR Associate, 8230625, . From sreejata at yahoo.com Tue Sep 4 20:37:44 2001 From: sreejata at yahoo.com (sreejata roy) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 08:07:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] FW:Yellow Band- In-Reply-To: <20010901160059.U36809@r4k.net> Message-ID: <20010904150744.4680.qmail@web11505.mail.yahoo.com> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Yellow Band Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 13:04:07 +0300 From: "Amnon Ribak" To: Harald.Benz at iao.fhg.de, brunsveld at pentascope.nl,"Markus Buechi" , ydagon at trainvision.com,zeev.gantz at ecitele.com, shazan at netvision.net.il, justman at rjmc.net,christoph.meier at iao.fhg.de, music at watson.ibm.com,"Nancy Ozeri" , "Bob Schloss" ,"Dominique Seban" , zsegal at trainvision.com,shlomo at yuvalim.com, "Matthew Simpson" ,ron at vistaspinner.com, sprara at us.ibm.com, a.woodcock at coventry.ac.uk,zarchi at ginegar.net, Wilkinson.P at btinternet.com Please take a few minutes to read and act on this email. Thanks. On May 23rd 2001 the Taleban authorities in Afghanistan confirmed that all Hindus will be required to wear a strip of yellow cloth sewn onto a shirt pocket in order to identify themselves. They claim that the measure is for their "protection". The world has faced this before, in 1939 the world was required, at great cost, to rid itself of Hitler's tyranny, it is not hard to spot his child. Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to relive it. The Taleban's record on respecting other religions gives great cause for concern that their ultimate aim, upon which they are intent, is "religious cleansing". They have already demonstrated their disdain and intolerance for other religions and traditions by the desecration and destruction of the ancient Buddhist statues, our collective heritage, within the Afghanistan. Whatever your religion, or even if you have none, we hope that you will agree that this fundamentally wrong. Remember, "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". Please do not do nothing, add your voice. DIRECTIONS: PLEASE COPY this email on to a new message, add your name and those of your household who wish to participate to the bottom and forward it to everyone on your distribution list. If you receive this petition and you find that you will be the 251st name on it, please e-mail a copy of it to: alastair at om-int.com. It will then be forwarded to the UN. Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill the petition as you will be denying your friends, and theirs, their legitimate voice. Instead return it to alastair at om-int.com To The Secretary General, Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations. We the undersigned are appalled by the decision of the Taleban government of Afghanistan to require all Hindus to wear a piece of yellow cloth sewn onto a shirt pocket in order to identify themselves. An individual's communion with God, however they find him, is a matter of personal conscience and must not be the subject of intimidation or persecution. The right of everyone to worship as they wish is fundamental and inalienable. The United Nations was founded in order to defeat Hitler and his henchmen who required the same from another religion with all it's horrific consequences. It is completely unacceptable that nearly 60 years later history is repeating itself. We ask the following: 1. That the Taleban government is made aware in the strongest possible terms that the world will not countenance this perversion of human rights. 2. That prior to the United Nations and/or it's constituent members granting recognition of the Taleban government this obscene policy is reversed. 3. That the United Nations widen the terms of the trade sanctions currently in force. 1. Alastair Mitton - London UK 2. Robert Mitton - London UK 3. Paulette Budd - London UK 4. Andrew Peake - London UK 5. Pippa Howell - London UK 6. Cecile Kusters - Arnhem, the Netherlands 7. Sarah Malpas - London UK 8. Susan Donnelly - Newcastle UK 9. Paul Donnelly - London UK 10. Pauline Bartholomew - London UK 11. Is0bel McMillan London UK 12. Fiona Adamson 13. Minka Emina Kulenovic La Jolla, US 14. Cath Dolan, London, England 15. Liz Murphy, Murcia, Spain 16. William M. Rueter, Wisconsin, US 17. Jaclyn A. Knapper, Tennessee, US 18. Louise Morris, Tennessee, US 19. Joe Stoud, Matsuyama, Japan 20. Keiko Stroud, Matsuyama, Japan 21.Larry Asher, Nepal 22. Phyl Asher, Nepal 23. Reiny de Wit, Nepal 24. Helen Johnston, Nepal 25. Isaac Thompson, Northern Ireland 26. Anne Thompson, Northern Ireland 27. Paul Carter, Vancouver, Canada 28. Lois Carter, Vancouver, Canada 29. Bronwyn Short, Vancouver, Canada 30. David Short, Vancouver, Canada 31. Mark Calder, Sydney, Australia 32. Graham Wintle, Surbiton, UK 33. Geoff Chivers, Surbiton, UK 34. Derek Nathan New Malden UK 35. Mary Nathan New Malden UK 36 Rosalind Preston, London UK 37 Marlena Schmool, UK 38 Ephraim Borowski, Glasgow, UK 39. Ruth Warrens, London, UK 40. Anthony Warrens, London, UK 41. Ian Goodman, London, UK 42. Liz Lightstone, London, UK 43 Elizabeth Simpson, London UK 44. Dimitris Kioussis 45. John_Griffin 46. Hermann Bujard, Heidelberg, Germany 47. Regine Bujard, Heidelberg, Germany 48. Konrad Beyreuther, Heidelberg, Germany 49. Ursula Beyreuther, Heidelberg, Germany 50. Horst Simon, Heidelberg, Germany 51. Michael Brand, Dresden 52. Dorothea Brand, Dresden 53. Christoph Lorra, Dresden 54. Martin Stocker, London, UK 55. Walter St�hmer, G^ttingen, Germany 56. Nathan Dascal, Tel Aviv, Israel 57. Tony Segal, London,UK 58. Malcolm Molyneux, Blantyre, Malawi 59. Liz Molyneux, Blantyre, Malawi 60 Kevin Marsh Kilifi, Kenya 61 Chris Newbold 62. Mats Wahlgren 63. Eric J. Peterman, New York, NY USA 64. Ronald A. Morris, New York, NY USA 65. Elaine I. Morris, New York, NY USA 66. Samuel S. Perelson. New York, NY USA 67. Ruth Perelson, New York, NY USA 68. Batya Dashefsky, Jerusalem Israel 69. Charlotte Gerber Turner, Morristown, New Jersey, USA 70. Rivka Bernstein, Raanana, Israel 71. Shmuel Bernstein, Raanana, Israel 72. Loren Lyon, Florida USA 73. Judith Lyon, Florida USA 74. Lisa Zimmerman 75.Uzi Shvadron 76. Amnon Ribak, Israel 77. Andree Woodcock, UK -------------------------------------------------------- Amnon Ribak __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Tue Sep 4 21:16:37 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 17:46:37 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] FW:Yellow Band- In-Reply-To: <20010904150744.4680.qmail@web11505.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, sreejata roy wrote: ... > 2. That prior to the United Nations and/or it's > constituent members > granting recognition of the Taleban government this > obscene policy is > reversed. Surely there are other obscene policies of the Taleban that should be reversed too, before UN recognition? Such as massive prostitution of women and removal of nearly all of women's fundamental human rights? Just check out http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/afghanistan > 3. That the United Nations widen the terms of the > trade sanctions > currently in force. ... Are chain letters an efficient use of internet resources? I agree with the cause: but AFAIK (as far as I know), the method is generally not welcomed on the Net. A much better method would be a web site which collects signatures. And how about other actions which directly support grass-roots opposition to the Taleban? See http://www.rawa.org From ravis at sarai.net Wed Sep 5 00:37:40 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 00:37:40 Subject: [Reader-list] Desire, Commodities, Media and Hacking (fwd) Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010905003740.00986178@mail.sarai.net> from nettime ----------------------------------------- THE LENS OF IMAGES Desire, Commodities, Media and Hacking David Cox, September 2001 d.cox at mailbox.gu.edu.au Images are themselves a lens on the culture which makes them. Walter Benjamin was both right and wrong about art in the age of mechanical reproduction. He was correct in stating that as images proliferate, their overall commercial value in depreciates. He was wrong in assuming that manufactured images are worth less than their 'real world' referent. As manufactured goods accelerate away from the decade in which they were made, they themselves gain a kind of new cultural value. Some commodities seem to accrue more cultural gravitas than others. The dodgiest of global trade in junk, the antique market bears testimony to the ways in which even the most trivial of manufactured items can become obscure objects of desire once made to enter the domain commodity relations. Culture is What I Say it Is If desire is expressed through the commodity, and the commodity is that which is supposed to stand in for desire, to desire an end to commodity society is the desire to embrace that which consumer society deems no longer useful or valuable. Alongside this is the desire to re-inscribe certain specific things with new and unauthorised types of cult value. The culture hacker collects things which seem to have no value. She makes of the world around her a quilt of emblems of her own desire. She anticipates a world in which control and governance have shifted away from the surrogate mercantile type of economy to an economy of desire itself. The act of deciding what will become a cult item to oneself personally, is the first step toward emancipation from the Empire of Signs. Surely, others will come to see the significance of the enshrined emblems of personal liberty as self evident tokens of a broader idea of libertarian social and cultural possibility. Desire is Free The hacker society is one which values desire above commodities, it makes the search for pleasure the same as the rejection of the mainstream culture itself. It is anti-suburban, anti middle class and pro urban. It yearns for experiences, which affirm the centrality of the creative act as a social relation between people of like mind. Where ideas, pleasure and fun and mystery and desire fuel the work of the media hacker, her world is one of constant uncertainty. Intertextuality, the migration of meanings from one context to another. is the catalyst of social change for the media maven. Play with them long enough, and you'll see that meanings arrive on the back of shots and sounds as stowaways. You stow away with those meanings too, a refugee from the Society of the Spectacle. Choose (a) life In culture jammer cinema, its the selection which makes the shot. It is both choosing and looking but not just the act of choosing, rather the noble decision to make choosing the centre of ones life. The decision to make looking for elements to play with results in the media hacker viewing problems facing her with curiosity, a sense of experimentation. No barrier should be taken seriously. No limit to access to the principle of free expression. You find some old films, you make a new film out of them. You find some old cassettes, you chop up the bits and make a new work out of them. Old media are windows on the times they come from. Images are like lenses onto other times and other places. History Speaks While the Guy Holding it Drinks a Glass of Water Media speak as if the ventriloquists doll of history. Looking at the sea of ancient images which constitute the western imagination, it is easy to see why so many museums are becoming theme parks. In a corporatised urban space, the notion of a civic use for cultural memory is potentially subversive. Implicit within the old-school idea of the museum is that the centre of civic life lies with local governance. Sponsorship and theme-parking does away with such troublesome notions of government in the service of a population, for its own sake. We must construct our own museums of cultural memory. If we don't remember the period before the Dark Times, nobody will. Bradbury at 451 degrees knows more than you do, honey. We're burning up to tell you like it was, like it is, like it may yet be. The Worm Hole Theory of Collage William Burroughs insisted that his cut-up works of writing had properties of prediction about them. Implicit within this idea is that collage is a kind of dimensional travel, where intended meanings become disrupted so radically that the act of reworking words in a newspaper article or shots in a film actually disrupts the time/space continuum. Try showing a collage work to anyone not up with radical postmodernism and just sit back and wait for the questions about authorship, ownership, copyright and other methods of psychological police torture in the service of the State and Capital. Assembly Instructions - Read Carefully Jamming is more than a sytlistic technique. It is more than a simple set of artistic practises. It is for its most central practitioners, an entire philosophy of life. It means looking at the world as a kit of parts. The beatnik sensibility is one in which only the relation between images and sounds makes sense, not the parts themselves. The relationships, the moment between notes, the silence in a jazz riff, the double splice and the katchink sound it makes as it moves through the projector. The distortion on the tape, the hiss, the crackle. The hole damn pop sensibility. Text is Picture is Sound is Authority is Negotiable. William Burroughs knew of the power of words as images. His ideas about the provisionality of meaning, and the dependence ideas have upon the cultural contexts in which they emerge have yet to be fully Understood, dealt with let alone let loose sufficiently widely enough to overthrow society!!! The intensity of a shot well cut with a sound also well selected will rock audiences for a long time to come. Hacking is the spirit of play the spirit of letting the material speak to you. Listening and looking for patterns hidden in the material. OKAY BUBBA, SQUEEZE THAT MONKEY!!! To quote Ren 'n' Stimpy before they went commercial. Familiarity and Defamiliarisation through Detournment of Everyday Experience. Encyclopaedias are often surrealistic juxtapositions of things organised alphabetically, imagine a film whose sequence of events matched that of the encyclopaedia! Aardvarks, to Zoetropes, that's all she wrote. Jamming Retail: Shops as Museums of the Present. You search for things as if you were in the biggest thrift store in the world. The world is a bit thrift store. K-Mart is no longer a shop to buy things in. It is the museum of the present, for the archaeologist of the below $40 consumer item. Everything is on special, and in all but price itself, is free. You look at the world as if it were some other place at some other time. You turn your alienation into an asset. Suddenly the culture of the lower middle class becomes an urban toolkit of survival and of anti-boredom. Things on the street, in gutters, behind fences, thrown away packaging become the fuel for a free imagination, accumulating in the growing database of ways to be free, as well as on the mantelpiece at home. "Price Check, aisle four, hardware, manchester and adult males!!!" Store detectives are too busy masturbating while looking at security camera monitors to really stop desire in its tracks. Database vs Narrative: Complementary Philosophies of Media Database is about the connections between related but separated elements. Searches provide lists of elements. Narrative is about linearity, sequential series of events, it is about organic growth, root like from the bottom up, from the top down, any which way but loose-lipped. A culture jammed event is a combination of database and narrative. Database provides the navigational basis for searching for things, indexing, cross indexing elements, while narrative provides the structural framework for those database philosophy inspired found elements. The web, search engines, videogames are databases of experience you navigate through. Narrative, by contrast is about hearing events out, having them unfold in a predetermined sequence. When you combine the logic of database and apply them to narrative you have a potent combination of forces. Look at all the videotapes on your shelves. All the books. Go to your cd collection. Now imagine that they were all in a database and you were able to combine every track of every cd, every scene of every film, and every chapter of every book into new works, determined by say, your favorite bits of each type of media. As the entire lot is now able to be reworked into new combinations, cultural reworkings become not only possible, but necessary. As we move toward a database culture in which all texts are made available to all others, the empire of signs starts to crack as surely as the Berlin wall. Twas booting killed the beast. To refine texts into fragments for later recombination is the philosophy and working approach of the idea hacker. To see all the world as a sea of samples is the privilege of the free. Academia tries hard enough, but is stymied by its own working methodology, its own beurocracy. A cultural studies department with no time tables in a permanent Burning Man would be the closest thing yet to New Babylon. Database as non sequentialism for its own sake Database offers the technological means as well as the methodological basis for searching, indexing, seeing patterns between media elements. Narrative offers the moral container within which those elements can be organised in such a way that they reinforce the broader moral standpoint. Hacker culture is about living ones life as if authority had already been done away with, as if ones own liberty were a birthright and access to all things were not only possible, but to be expected. The ultra rich and the ultra poor are both familiar with what it is to be on the outside of society. With a database, you know about ways in which search criteria can be applied, for example by key-word, by date, by numerical index and so on. Database is a natural extension of the quality of computers, but only hackers can redeem computers from the shackles of work, and all that goes with it. Where the provisionality of meaning proliferates, there you will find the possiblity of life beyond commercial society. The mainstream world expects meanings, like people themselves, to remain behind the counter, within boundaries, within their pre-determined cultural office dividers. In the early 1990s when a nightclub in Melbourne screened ultra-realistic ads warning people of the dangers of drink driving in the context of sado masochism, the shit hit the fan. Infuriated that their social realist ads depicting supposedly real traffic accidents were being detourned to satisfy the desire of a cultural minority. Napsterising Everything, For All Time Guy Debord insisted that plagiarism was a key to liberty. He even went so far as to to say that progress implies it. If the future of our world lies in the belief that all meanings should be stripped of any claim to authenticity then museums, universities, and other last remaining bastions of modernist essentialism whould allow students to copy texts freely, Copying music, films, books, indeed any type of media can only ultimately assist in the eventual devaluation of ideas as commercial entities. What if suddenly the Napsterisation of all ideas were made possible. All films, all music, all books, all texts became enterable within the realm of database? Once made database elements, the constant generation and regeneration of meanings could technically at least, be enterable into a kind of Nelsonian Xanadu realm in which all films and all texts could be perpetually reworked and recombined. You might have noticed that when downloading files from Napster, you would often get cut off. This would result in most files being only partial songs, or sounds. We have a generation emerging who are Quite happy to have only bits of songs, bits of films, bits of texts. The fragments are horny! They want to get it on and procreate. All I am saying is give the pieces a chance! David Cox. David Cox B.Ed, Grad Dip (Hons) Lecturer in Digital Screen Production, School of Film, Media and Cultural Studies Nathan Campus Griffith University Brisbane Queensland 4111 Australia Telephone: ph: +61 7 38755165 Mobile: 0438 050863 Fax: +61 7 38757730 Email: d.cox at mailbox.gu.edu.au personal web site: http://www.netspace.net.au/~dcox/dcox.html # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net From kshekhar at bol.net.in Thu Sep 6 11:35:49 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 11:35:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 8.9.2001: Transportation Justice Message-ID: Dear Friends: Our next meeting will be a special session, co-hosted with the India Centre for Human Rights and Law, NAGAR, Shivaji Park Dakshata Samiti, Critical Mass Mumbai, Citispace, Mahikavati Sahakari Macchimar Society, Maharashtra Macchimar Kruti Samiti, Clean Air, Walkers Ecological Movement, and others. The construction of various fly-overs, bridges, and roads continues apace throughout Greater Mumbai. This despite various investigations and reports having proven that such transport infrastructure only supports the 12% of the urban population which uses private and semi-private modes of transportation, while the remaining majority of 88% of citizens use public modes of transportation. Since the release of "An Enquiry into the Bandra-Worli Sea Link Project" by the Indian Peoples Tribunal on Environment and Human Rights (India Centre for Human Rights and Law, Mumbai, July 2001), numerous citizens groups and associations have decided to come together to protest this unjust and unsustainable situation. This meeting is meant to discuss, debate, and strategise for transportation justice, and an integrated transport management policy, which meets the needs of the majority of commuting citizens in Mumbai. PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN VENUE FOR THIS SPECIAL JOINT MEETING. It will be held on SATURDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2001, from 10.00 A.M. to 12.00 P.M., at the YMCA, 12, Wodehouse Road (Nathalal Parekh Marg), Colaba, Bombay 400039, near Regal Cinema. Phone: 2021316, 2020079. (NOTE: The Mumbai Study Group remains a non-partisan forum whose purpose is to foster constructive discussion on urban issues, and which avoids strict adherence to any political or ideological positions. However, as we feel that this is an important debate in which our invitees might wish to be involved, we have decided to co-host this meeting. However, any resolutions made or decisions taken in this meeting will not involve or commit the Mumbai Study Group as an entity.) ABOUT THE MUMBAI STUDY GROUP The MUMBAI STUDY GROUP meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, at the Rachana Sansad, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, at 10.00 A.M. Our conversations continue through the support extended by Shri Pradip Amberkar, Principal of the Academy of Architecture, and Prof S.H. Wandrekar, Trustee of the Rachana Sansad. Conceived as an inclusive and non-partisan forum to foster dialogue on urban and global issues, we have since September 2000 held conversations about various historical, political, legal, cultural, social and spatial aspects of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Our discussions are open and public, no previous membership or affiliation is required. We encourage the participation of urban researchers and practitioners, experts and non-experts, researchers and students, and all individuals, groups and associations in Mumbai to join our conversations about the the city.The format we have evolved is to host individual presentations or panel discussions in various fields of urban theory and practice, and have a moderated and focussed discussion from our many practical and professional perspectives: whether as architects or planners, lawyers or journalists, artists or film-makers, academics or activists.Through such a forum, we hope to foster an open community of urban citizens, which clearly situates Mumbai in the theories and practices of urbanism globally. Previous sessions have hosted presentations by the following individuals: Kalpana Sharma, Associate Editor of The Hindu; Kedar Ghorpade, Senior Planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority; Dr Marina Pinto, Professor of Public Administration, retired from Mumbai University; Dr K. Sita, Professor of Geography, retired from Mumbai University, and former Garware Chair Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Dr Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), Mumbai; Rahul Srivastava, Lecturer in Sociology at Wilson College; Sandeep Yeole, General Secretary of the All-India Pheriwala Vikas Mahasangh; Dr Anjali Monteiro, Professor and Head, and K.P. Jayashankar, Reader, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Unit for Media and Communications; Dr Sujata Patel, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Pune; Dr Mariam Dossal, Head, Department of History, Mumbai University; Sucheta Dalal, business journalist and Consulting Editor, Financial Express; Dr Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Culture and Communications at New York University; Dr Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University, and member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective; Dr Sudha Deshpande, Reader in Demography, retired from the Department of Economics, Mumbai University and former consultant for the World Bank, International Labour Organisation, and Bombay Municipal Corporation; Sulakshana Mahajan, doctoral candidate at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., and former Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Rachana Sansad. Previous panel discussions have comprised of the following individuals: S.S. Tinaikar, former Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Sheela Patel, Director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), and Bhanu Desai of the Citizens' Forum for the Protection of Public Spaces (Citispace) on urban policy making and housing; Shirish Patel, civil engineer and urban planner, Pramod Sahasrabuddhe and Abhay Godbole, structural engineers on earthquakes and the built form of the city; B. Rajaram, Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation, and Dr P.G. Patankar, from Tata Consultancy Services, and former Chairman of the Bombay Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) on mass public transport alternatives; Ved Segan, Vikas Dilawari, and Pankaj Joshi, conservation architects, on the social relevance of heritage and conservation architecture; Debi Goenka, of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, Professor Sudha Srivastava, Dr Geeta Kewalramani, and Dr Dipti Mukherji, of the University of Mumbai Department of Geography, on the politics of land use, the city's salt pan lands, and the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Act. We invite all urban researchers, practitioners, students, and other interested individuals to join us in our fortnightly conversations, and suggest topics for presentation and discussion. For any more information, kindly contact one of the Joint Convenors of the Mumbai Study Group: ARVIND ADARKAR, Architect, Researcher and Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Phone 2051834, ; DARRYL D'MONTE, Journalist and Writer, 6427088 ; SHEKHAR KRISHNAN, Coordinator-Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), 4462728, ; PANKAJ JOSHI, Conservation Architect, Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, and PUKAR Associate, 8230625, . From raqs at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in Thu Sep 6 15:06:44 2001 From: raqs at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in (Raqs Media Collective) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 15:06:44 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] A Concise Lexicon of/ for the Digital Commons Message-ID: A Concise Lexicon of / for the Digital Commons by Raqs Media Collective / September 2001 Access The facility to log on and log in to a space or a network where people and meanings gather. To be present, to have the ability, the key, to decode a signal, to open doors, to be able to download/upload on to any system of signs and signals - be it the Internet, a book, an art work, or a dinner party. There can be no excess of access. Bandwidth Describes the dimensions that are necessary for messages, signals and communications to get through. The greater the bandwidth of a system, the higher the number of messages, and higher the quantum of information that it can accommodate at any given time. It follows from this that access is a function of bandwidth. More people can make themselves heard when there is room for them to speak and be spoken to. Bandwidth translates into content-rich information, streams of video, audio, and text flowing into each other. It also translates at the moment into cash. The hard cash and control that comes from selling pictures and sounds and numbers to more and more people. Code That which carries embedded within it a sign. A code is always a way of saying something to mean something other than that which is merely said. A code can be 'opened', in the sense that it can be accessed and entered, as opposed to 'broken'. An open-access culture of communication 'reveals the source' of its codes. A closed culture of communication blocks access to its codes. "Free code" is code which welcomes entry, and is open to change. "Free Code" needs to be shared for it to grow. Code connotes community, a community of "encoders, decoders and code sharers". Like eggs, code is sometimes best had scrambled. Data Information. Can mean anything from numbers to images, from white noise to noise to sound. A weather report, a portrait, a shadow in surveillance footage, a salary statement, birth and death statistics, a headcount in a gathering of friends, private e-mail, ultra high frequency signals, sale and purchase transactions and the patterns made by pedestrians as they walk in a city - all of this can be and is data. Data, like coal, uranium and other minerals vital to the running of the world economy is mined, processed, refined and sold at a high price. Battlefields, early twenty first century inter-personal relationships and stock exchanges have been known to be hypersensitive to data traffic. Data mining is a major emerging industry in Delhi. The miners lead very quiet days, and spend long nights coding in low temperature zones called "Data Outsourcing Centres". Contrarily, the word 'Data' (dãtã) in Hindi/Sanskrit is taken to mean "giver", which suggests that one must always be generous with information, and make gifts of our code, images and ideas. To be stingy with data is to violate an instance of the secret and sacred compacts of homophonic words from different cultural/spatial orbits ('dãtã' in Hindi and 'data' in English) as they meet in the liminal zone between languages, in the thicket of the sound of quotidian slips of the tongue. Errors in transmission and understanding too carry gifts and data. Ensemble The conceit or delight in togetherness in an increasingly anomic, fragmented world. Playing or working together to create finished or unfinished works. Chamber musicians, criminals, code-hackers and documentarists form ensembles. Artists try to. Effective ensembles are high bandwidth assemblies that build into their own architecture portals for random access into themselves. They are, when they are at their best, open systems that place a premium on shared information within them. They can at times maintain high levels of secrecy while seemingly appearing to be transparent. Here, confidentiality is an index of practices in gestation. Mined data is, sometimes, restored to natural states of information entropy in data dissembling ensembles, which have been found to work best at night in media labs. The Raqs Media Collective is an ensemble and everything it does is an ensemble of existing or anticipated practices. Fractal The self-organising design of repeating, replicating structures, often found in snowflakes, tree branch growth patterns, molecular structures and free code. Every part of a fractal pattern carries within it the signature or the emboss of the whole. A single fractal iteration carries within it the kernels of all others of its kind. Every fractal is a rescension of every other fractal that has grown from within it. In the same way a fragment of free code, or free cultural code, carries within it a myriad possibilities of its own reproduction and dispersal within a shared symbolic or information space. Fractals best describe the geometry of the matrices that are formed when data is shared instead of being just mined and shipped by a community of coders. Fractals are the fruit trees of the unconscious designing mind. Gift Something freely given, and taken, as in free code. Gift givers and gift takers are bound in networks of random or pre-meditated acts of symbolic exchange. The code begets the gift as the form of its own survival over time. In this way a gift is a quiet meme. Reciprocity begets reciprocity. The principle of the gift demands that the things being given be price-less, in other words so valuable as to be impossible to quantify in terms of the possibilities of abstract generalised exchange. The gift must at the same time, be easy to bear and keep, easy to use and there must be no guilt involved in its destruction or dispersal when its use value either changes or demands re-distribution in order to be effective. Gifts open doors to our own possibilities of generosity. In this way they facilitate access to the things we did not even know we had. And, there is such a thing as a free lunch, although it requires the pursuit of a special recipe. Heterogeneous That which begins in many places, like the story of a person's life. Diverse, dispersed, distributed, as in the authorship of culture, and in the trajectories of people who come to a site. Interpretations and ideas embrace greater freedom only when they encompass heterogeneity. In this, they are like most intimacies and some kinds of fruitcake. The richer they are, the more layers they have. Iteration An articulation, when seen as an event, is an iteration. Utterances, whispers, manifestoes, graffiti, stories, rumours and fragments of poetry found in the streets - each of these are iterations. The organised rendition of a stretch of code is also an iteration. Iteration implies a willingness to say something, and access to the means of saying it, and a time in which it can be said. Every iteration resonates through orbiting memes that are set off on their vectors by the fact of an utterance. An iteration is the kernel of a rescenscion. It needs to be said, and then said again. Journal A record of the everyday. Annals of matters varied and quotidian. Data from day to day to day. On reams or scraps of any material that can carry the emboss of time. The material may vary from newsprint to video to sound to binary code, or a combination of the same, and the journal may transmogrify from being a witness, to a participant in that which is being recorded. The extent and scale of 'participation' depends on the frequency of entries into the journal, and the number of correspondents it can muster. The higher the frequency of entries or number of correspondents, the greater is the intensity of the inscription of a time on a journal. A densely, thickly inscribed journal is one that is usually open access in terms of writing, reading and publishing. Why else would strangers want to write in? An open journal expects to be published anywhere at all. An open journal actively practices xenophilly. When a journal becomes more than a gazetteer of a moment it turns into a history. It then begins to make sense of itself as much as it does about a time that it spans. Conversely, every history begins life as a journal. Kernel The core of a work or an idea. The central rescension, of a narrative, a code, a set of signs or any other structure that invites modification, extrapolation and interpretation, by its very presence. Here, the term core must not be confused with 'origin' or with any other attributions of originality, which mean little within an open access system. It is almost impossible to determine the origins of a code, because the deeper we go into the constitutive elements of a code, the more it branches out to a series of nodes within and outside a given system of signs. It is more meaningful to talk of the 'custody', rather than the 'origin' of any system of signs. A kernel is often the custodian of a line of ideas that represents within itself a momentarily unique configuration. Kernels embody materials in states of intense concentration. This is because they have to encapsulate a lot of information, or nourishment, or structure building materials, within very limited dimensions. The density of information within a kernel is a key to its own extensibility. The more the thread that is rolled into a tight ball, the more it can be unwound. Kernels, by their limitedness and compactness, are portable, not cumbersome. As in the kernels of certain fruits, they may be hard to crack, but once they have been opened, they yield delicious and nourishing stuff. Kernels lend themselves to easy reproduction, but are fragile and often in need of protection. This protection may also come in the form of an outer layer of interpretation, which states the purposes and nature of the kernel, so that it is not prised open to answer every basic query about itself. Liminal Interstitial, vestibular and peripheral. Far from the centre, close to the border. A zone both between and without larger structures. Liminal spaces and moments are those into which large stable structures leak animated data about themselves and the world. Things happen in liminal zones. A city carries within it the contradiction of liminal zones located in its centre, because inner cities are the city's farthest borderlands. Liminal fringes are often the most conducive environments for the culture of memes. This is because exiled images, ideas and meanings from several stable structures mingle in the corridors between them. Here, bereft of identities and other certainties, they are free to be promiscuous and reproduce. They infect each other with recombinant strands of thought and image. At the same time, the perspective of liminality brings intimacy to bear on an exclusion. Being liminal is to be close to, and yet stand outside the site of the border of any stable system of signs, where meaning is frayed from being nibbled at on the edges. Nothing can know the centre better than the sideways glance of peripheral vision. Liminality may be acquired from prolonged exposure to the still air of airport departure lounges, thick and over-boiled tea at the Inter State Bus Terminus on the ring road in Delhi, or the sub-liminal flicker of a cursor in an e-mail message. Meme The life form of ideas. A bad idea is a dead meme. The transience as well as the spread of ideas can be attributed to the fact that they replicate, reproduce and proliferate at high speed. Ideas, in their infectious state, are memes. Memes may be likened to those images, thoughts and ways of doing or understanding things that attach themselves, like viruses, to events, memories and experiences, often without their host or vehicle being fully aware of the fact that they are providing a location and transport to a meme. The ideas that can survive and be fertile on the harshest terrain tend to do so, because they are ready to allow for replicas of themselves, or permit frequent and far-reaching borrowals of their elements in combination with material taken from other memes. If sufficient new memes enter a system of signs, they can radically alter what is being signified. Cities are both breeding grounds and terminal wards for memes. To be a meme is a condition that every work with images and sounds could aspire towards, if it wanted to be infectious, and travel. Dispersal and infection are the key to the survival of any idea. A work with images, sounds and texts, needs to be portable and vulnerable, not static and immune, in order to be alive. It must be easy to take apart and assemble, it must be easy to translate, but difficult to paraphrase, and easy to gift. A dead meme is a bad idea. Nodes Any structure that is composed of concentrated masses of materials which act as junction points for the branching out of extensible parts of the overall system may be described as nodal. The concentrations or junctions being the nodes. A nodal structure is a rhizomic structure, it sets down roots (that branch out laterally) as it travels. Here, nodes may also be likened to the intersection points of fractal systems, the precise locations where new fractal iterations arises out of an existing pattern. A work that is internally composed of memes is inherently nodal. Each meme is a junction point or a node for the lateral branching out of the vector of an idea. In a work that is made up of interconnected nodes, the final structure that emerges is that of a web, in which every vector eventually passes through each node, at least once on its orbit through the structure of the work. In such a structure it becomes impossible to suppress or kill an idea, once it is set in motion, because its vectors will make it travel quickly through the nodes to other locations within the system, setting off chains of echoes and resonances at each node that trace a path back to the kernel of the idea. These echoes and resonances are rescensions, and each node is ultimately a direct rescension of at least one other node in the system and an indirect rescension of each junction within a whole cluster of other nodes. Nodes, when written, perhaps erroneously, as 'no-des' gives rise to an intriguing hybrid English/Eastern-Hindi neologism, a companion to the old words - 'des', and 'par-des'. 'Des' (in some eastern dialects of Hindi, spoken by many migrants to Delhi) is simply homeland or native place; 'par-des' suggests exile, and an alien land. 'No-des' is that site or way of being, in 'des' or in 'par-des', where territory and anxieties about belonging, don't go hand in hand. Nodes in a digital domain are No-des. Orbit A path that describes the continuous movement of anything within a structure. Because the movement within it is continuous, it (an Orbit) is also impossible to define in terms of origin or destination. What is possible to determine at any given moment is the vector of an orbit. A meme, when orbiting within a structure of signs, is neither travelling away from its origin, nor is it travelling towards a destination. This is why, in an open access system, which is composed of memes, it is meaningless to talk in terms of authors and audiences, rather one can only speak of the node where one got on to an idea, and the junction where one got off, perhaps to enter the vector of another orbiting meme. Sometimes a work of interpretation, like certain comets and other stellar objects, can have an eccentric orbit. This means that there is always a likelihood of a cluster of signs and images from afar, brushing past objects on its path, entering the orbits of other constellations, when it is least expected to. The sky of meaning is full of shooting stars. Portability The feature of a system or work that best describes its ability to move quickly through different spaces and mediums. A sign or a meme that can travel well between image, sound and text media is portable. A work, which while it speaks of one site, is understood in another location, is portable. A work that describes many locations in the course of its interpretative orbit is also portable. A portable work is rich in memes, which act as engines for its movements, and is endowed with compact kernels that can travel well without danger of being cracked open. Briefcases, languages, post cards, Swiss knives, computers, jests, stories and shoes are portable. Gifts, because they change hands, must always be portable. Monuments can never be. The life histories of some (itinerant) individuals and (nomadic) communities make them approximate the condition of portability. Quotidian Common but not commonplace. The memorable nature of the everyday. Memory walking down a street and turning a corner. Memory buzzing in a hard disk. Ubiquitous, the dirt in a site, the fog in a liminal zone, that which is thickened through repetition. Milk, computers, onions, computers, pyjamas, computers, carpal tunnel syndrome, computers, accidents, computers, sex, computers, bread, computers, night, computers, class, computers, skin, computers, love, computers, money, computers, headaches, computers, police, computers, buses, computers, bicycle, computers, radio, computers, horoscopes, computers, matrimonials, computers, funerals, computers, biscuits, computers, conversations, computers, silences, computers. The quotidian is that which makes a journal turn, over time, into a history, because it induces the search for patterns and meanings in an otherwise tangled mass of time, in memes iterated beyond reasonable limits. Routine, yet random, the quotidian nature of anything demands fleeting moments of lucid engagement with the real world, which now includes within it the world that is forged every time any fingers do a qwerty dance on a keyboard. The quotidian is a measure of all things, rare and commonplace. Rescension A re-telling, a word taken to signify the simultaneous existence of different versions of a narrative within oral, and from now onwards, digital cultures. Thus one can speak of a 'southern' or a 'northern' rescension of a myth, or of a 'female' or 'male' rescension of a story, or the possibility (to begin with) of Delhi/Berlin/Tehran 'rescensions' of a digital work. The concept of rescension is contraindicative of the notion of hierarchy. A rescension cannot be an improvement, nor can it connote a diminishing of value. A rescension is that version which does not act as a replacement for any other configuration of its constitutive materials. The existence of multiple rescensions is a guarantor of an idea or a work's ubiquity. This ensures that the constellation of narrative, signs and images that a work embodies is present, and waiting for iteration at more than one site at any given time. Rescensions are portable and are carried within orbiting kernels within a space. Rescensions, taken together constitute ensembles that may form an interconnected web of ideas, images and signs. Site Location, both as in the fact of being somewhere, and also, as in the answer to the question of "where", that "somewhere" is. Hence, situation. In a system of signs, site - understood in the sense of the kernel of a situation - is not necessarily a place, although a place is always a site. A site can be a situation between and through places. A website is an address on the Internet that always implies a relation of desire between hosts and visitors. In other words, it doesn't really mean anything for a place to exist (virtually) if it is left un-visited. In this way, a site can be both located as well as liminal. Real as well as potential. A system of signs (a work) that carries the markings of a location on a map may be situated in the relation that a map has to the world. It may be situated between the map and the world. This situation may be a special characteristic of the work's portability, in that, although mobile the work always refers to the relation between sites that fall on its orbit. In this way, marking a site as an address calls for the drawing up of relations between a location and the world. A site is a place where the address is. A site is a place where the work belongs. A situation between these two locations (where the work is and where it belongs) is a site where the work orbits. A site is also a place where people need to wear hard hats to protect them from random falling bodies, travelling in eccentric orbits. Tools Things that help make things. Ideas, instruments, concepts, ways of doing things, and ways of being or acting together that are conducive to creative work. In the context of an online environment, a community or an ensemble of people is as much an instrument as a software application. Conversely, a tool emerges when a group of people discover a method that helps them act together to create something. Again, a work that acts as a navigation aid, a browser or interface in a web of memes, is also a tool with which to open and search for other tools. Ubiquity Everywhere-ness. The capacity to be in more than one site. The simple fact of heterogeneous situation, a feature of the way in which clusters of memes, packets of data, orbit and remain extant in several nodal points within a system. The propensity of a meme towards ubiquity increases with every iteration, for once spoken, it always already exists again and elsewhere. It begins to exist and be active (even if dormantly) in the person spoken to as well as in the speaker. Stories, and the kernels of ideas travel in this way. A rescension, when in orbit, crosses the paths of its variants. The zone where two orbits intersect is usually the site of an active transaction and transfer of meanings. Each rescension, carries into its own trajectory memes from its companion. In this way, through the encounters between rescensions, ideas spread, travel and tend towards ubiquity. That which is everywhere is difficult to censor, that which is everywhere has no lack of allies. To be ubiquitous is to be present and dispersed in 'no-des'. Sometimes, ubiquity is the only effective answer to censorship and isolation. Vector The direction in which an object moves, factored by the velocity of its movement. An idea spins and speeds at the same time. The intensity of its movement is an attribute of the propensity it has to connect and touch other ideas. This gives rise to its vector functions. The vector of a meme is always towards other memes, in other words, the tendency of vectors of data is to be as ubiquitous as possible. This means that an image, code or an idea must attract others to enter into relationships that ensure its portability and rapid transfer through different sites and zones. The vectors of different memes, when taken together, form a spinning web of code. Web An open fabric woven of strands and knotted at usually regular, but equally possibly irregular, intervals. Intricately structured, accessible and yet endowed with complex networks of coded messages. The world wide web is a zone in which a digital constellation of memes can find an orbit. A web of code is used to harvest meanings, just as a web of threads is used to harvest fish. Xenophilly Friendliness and hospitality towards others, a human quality that best describes the moral economy of an ideal digital domain. The search for connectedness, and the desire to travel along the vectors from elsewhere. The meaning of the hyphen that transforms 'no-des' into a positive value. Yarn Fabrics, and stories, are made from yarn. A yarn is a snatch of reality that travels by word of mouth. Or it is shipped along with lots of html cargo. It is said that each fragment of code contains rumours and gossip, or yarns about the makers of the code. Yarns collect in basement cyber cafés, in stairwells of cinemas, in call centres and behind the opaque surface of the walls of an apartment whose address is Error 404, which can be anywhere and everywhere at once. In these places, yarn collectors stitch different stretches of code–fabric to make long bolts of data, which are then taken apart by hackers, and distributed into many orbits. Yarns can adjust the amount of information they bear in relation to the width of bandwidth. That is why yarns are good kernels. Zone A site, within a location, or a work, that demands an attenuated awareness because of the porosity of the lines that demarcate its existence. A zone is differentiated from a grid that frames a site because its borders are fluid and accessible, or because they witness a lot of traffic. It is difficult to distinguish the centre from the liminal periphery of a zone. Alertness about where one stands is a prerequisite for entering any zone. A zone may also be described as the overlap between orbits in a work, where memes transfer material from one orbit to another, where logic likes to fuzz. The zone of a work extends to the outer circumference of the orbit of its ideas. Zones are places where serendipity might be commonplace, and the commonplace serendipitous. They are best entered and exited at twilight on shunting cars along abandoned railroads that connect different data stations. The timing of twilight may vary, depending on one’s longitude, but twilight lingers longer in the zone of the web. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 30997 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010906/908a9ee0/attachment.bin From raqs at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in Thu Sep 6 17:24:42 2001 From: raqs at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in (Raqs Media Collective) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 17:24:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: A Concise Lexicon of/ for the Digital Commons In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Readers, The earlier posting of the concise lexicon is the beginning of a 'dictionary', a lexical resource on the commons, that could grow with what other people have to say. We look forward to new words and meanings forming new constellations. best raqs -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 283 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010906/e31903be/attachment.bin From geert at desk.nl Fri Sep 7 07:22:45 2001 From: geert at desk.nl (geert) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 11:52:45 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Werkstattgespraech zu Open Source Software und Entwicklungslaender Message-ID: <029501c1374a$9b454400$c900000a@bigpond.com> From: "Volker Grassmuck" Werkstattgespräch "Kommerzielle Software oder Open Source Software - wo liegt die Zukunft für die Entwicklungsländer?" http://bas.cs.tu-berlin.de/gtzwkp.html 10.09.2001 Technische Universität Berlin Fakultät IV Franklinstr. 28/29 10587 Berlin Raum: FR 5516 u.a. mit Bernd Mahr, Till Jaeger und Egon Troles. Moderation Jörg Meyer-Stamer und Nazir Peroz Veranstalter: Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Carl Duisberg Gesllschaft e.V. (CDG) und die TU Berlin, Fakultät IV - Elektrotechnik und Informatik ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Wizards of OS 2 -- offene Kulturen & Freies Wissen October 11-13, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin http://wizards-of-os.org http://waste.informatik.hu-berlin.de/Grassmuck ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| From sreejata at yahoo.com Fri Sep 7 23:21:40 2001 From: sreejata at yahoo.com (sreejata roy) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 10:51:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] The Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Message-ID: <20010907175140.19238.qmail@web11501.mail.yahoo.com> Please Distribute on September 21, 2001 from 3:30 to 5:00 in Shanks 160 The Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Speaker series presents: And now for something completely different the New Media Enterprise By: Deena Larsen About the Paper: Computers have done more than transform our lives--they've provided a completely new form of literature. Not since Gutenberg made text easily available to the masses has an information technology so changed our social, psychological, and literary landscapes. If you haven't seen the new literature, come find out what the fuss is all about. If you have seen and experienced it, come see the latest symbiociations, where text, sound, motion, and structure come together. About the Author: Deena Larsen is an author in several forms of electronic literature in a variety of theoretical and literary genres. She is also one of the leaders of the Electronic Literature Organization, and works with several other projects such as organizing collaborations between writers and programmers , and electronic literature and arts efforts worldwide. more information at http://www.chisp.net/~textra/ This event is cosponsored by the Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities, and the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture. (if you would like to bring a large group, class, or otherwise, or for more information about the speaker series, please contact cddc at vt.edu) For faculty and graduate students interested in other aspects of the authors work, there may be a more informal presentation on saturday, please rsvp with suggested times if you are interested. _______________________________________________ Cddc mailing list Cddc at listserv.cddc.vt.edu http://listserv.cddc.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/cddc __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com From reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com Sat Sep 8 02:28:28 2001 From: reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 20:58:28 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Repl:To concise lexicon by riveting riverines of cant clusters&glossary galaxies Message-ID: Dear lexicon wallahs, This is very interesting that words or alphabet concepts do not have to be only compiled or collected for dictionaries with cryptic meanings.They can also be new constellations of what people utter and purposely stutter (or fumble with). Yes,I often find people having the crucial words on the tips of their tongue but clutch on to it to say their takiya -kalam:"You know." Another example: when I was a student and that jumma chumma song of Sridevi was a great hit,colleagues would trail off juicy gossip with unsaid words and a murmur of "you know jumma"....I don't know if this was to vex the listener/make his or her brains work overtime/or to sound fashionable or With it/Or merely just a force of habit. However this would be only as long as the next hit film or bestseller arrived into town.Then there was a scrambling for the new trendy phrases. Even the word 'trendy' actually seems to change garbs all the time.In my schooldays one used(the rather clumsy expression) :"Hep".Until we had messages from English Videshis,that it was "Hip".Then college days the same word began to be said as:"Mod".Now I hear young lissome creatures in my class(South Delhi Polytechnic for Women)cry out,"Ma'am ,this is cool!"My junior colleagues at the same time curtly pronounce,"No,Ma'am it is passe." While my children's grandparents on hearing the same thing(evoke colonial memories of bowler hats and sun bonnets,very sensible gear actually...) "I say,You mean all that is old hat?" All this seems to culminate into the fact that not only new words may emerge with time but even within a community people unconsciously verbalise a variant vocabulary creating subtle codes for sequestered clubs. Anthropologists and Desmond Morris's of India(Human behaviour scientists) ofcourse would also tell us that familiar events or experiences shared in a family create scotch phrases or favourite funnies,frequently expressed and often incomprehensible to a visitor. Yes,in tentative conclusion this could emerge into quite a curious activity,trailing these carousing comets and classifying them into characteristic constellations. Yrs.Sincerely, R.Chaudhuri. >From: Raqs Media Collective >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Subject: [Reader-list] Re: A Concise Lexicon of/ for the Digital Commons >Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 17:24:42 +0530 > > >Dear Readers, > >The earlier posting of the concise lexicon is the beginning of a >'dictionary', a lexical resource on the commons, that could grow with >what other people have to say. We look forward to new words and meanings >forming new constellations. > >best >raqs _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From sagnikc at epatra.com Fri Sep 7 22:32:00 2001 From: sagnikc at epatra.com (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 22:32:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] A New Website of Mainstream Current Affairs Weekly Message-ID: <200109071702.WAA16867@suvi232.pugmarks.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010907/c4ec85bb/attachment.html From geert at xs4all.nl Sat Sep 8 04:21:57 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 08:51:57 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] spectre, a new list from/for deep europe Message-ID: <01a601c137ef$b319abc0$c900000a@bigpond.com> Dear Readers, in early 1996 the Syndicate mailinglist was founded and for a good five years functioned as an important trading ground for ideas and information about European new media culture (and increasingly also beyond 'Europe'). Its main focus was to establish an exchange between former West and former East Europe. The list boomed and almost crashed during the Kosovo crisis in 1999. This arts and culture got intensely tense between those who favored the NATO bombing and intervention and those who criticized it. Syndicate carried a lot of first hand reports from the region at time. Never having recovered from this controversy something slowly went wrong with the list. Like reader the list was open and unmoderated, unprotected. Dialogue faded away. Announcements took over. Silence set in. Then a few net.artists started to use the list as their forum and posted immense ammounts of self-promoting ascii art posting, full of hatred. Syndicate got deserted and in a matter of weeks was destroyed by a hand full of people. You can see it for yourself: http://www.v2.nl/mail/v2east/. In my opinion it's a good lesson what can happen to list. Now a new initiative has been launched by the same people called Spectre. It's an interesting read what they learned from this bitter case of so-called net.art destroying a community: SPECTRE is an open, unmoderated mailing list for media art and culture in Deep Europe. Initiated in August 2001, SPECTRE offers a channel for practical information exchange concerning events, projects and initiatives organized within the field of media culture, and hosts discussions and critical commentary about the development of art, culture and politics in and beyond Europe. Deep Europe is not a particular territory, but is based on an attitude and experience of layered identities and histories - ubiquitous in Europe, yet in no way restricted by its topographical borders. SPECTRE is a channel for people involved in old and new media in art and culture. Importantly, many people on this list know each other personally. SPECTRE aims to facilitate real-life meetings and favours real face-to-face (screen-to-screen) cooperation, test-bed experiences and environments to provoke querying of issues of cultural identity/identification and difference (translatable as well as untranslatable or irreducible). WHAT IS (A) SPECTRE? 1. "There's a spectre haunting Europe ..." (K. Marx/F. Engels) 2. S.P.E.C.T.R.E.: Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (James Bond 007 movies) 3. spektr was a module of the MIR space station focussing on the research of micro gravity 4. Les Spectres de Marx (J. Derrida) 5. Craig Baldwin's latest movie: Spectres of the Spectrum (2000) 6. to be continued... NETIQUETTE ON SPECTRE: - no HTML, no attachments, messages < 40K - meaningful discussions require mutual respect - self-advertise with care! SUBSCRIPTION POLICY: SPECTRE is initially hosted by Inke Arns and Andreas Broeckmann . Requests for subscription have to be approved by hosts. Subscriptions may be terminated or suspended in the case of persistent violation of netiquette. Should this happen, the list will be informed. The list archives are publicly available, so SPECTRE can also be consulted and followed by people who are not subscribed. *Subscribe http://post.openoffice.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre or mail to: spectre-request at mikrolisten.de subject=subscribe *Unsubscribe mail to: spectre-request at mikrolisten.de subject=unsubscribe From fmadre at wanadoo.fr Sat Sep 8 17:02:23 2001 From: fmadre at wanadoo.fr (Frederic Madre) Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 13:32:23 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [OT] some facts In-Reply-To: <01a601c137ef$b319abc0$c900000a@bigpond.com> Message-ID: <4.2.2.20010908125509.0193f860@pop.wanadoo.fr> At 08:51 08/09/2001 +1000, geert lovink wrote: >in early 1996 the Syndicate mailinglist was founded and for a good five >years functioned as an important trading ground for ideas and information >about European new media culture (and increasingly also beyond 'Europe'). >Its main focus was to establish an exchange between former West and former >East Europe. The list boomed and almost crashed during the Kosovo crisis in >1999. This arts and culture got intensely tense between those who favored >the NATO bombing and intervention and those who criticized it. meanwhile such discussions were terrifyingly clamped down on the nettime list which became dominated by the pro bombing posters some of them being ardent supporters of the dangerous UCK/KLA nettime became a vanity mailing list for its arrogant moderators "In my opinion it's a good lesson what can happen to list." and that is where our common history ends. >Syndicate >carried a lot of first hand reports from the region at time. Never having >recovered from this controversy something slowly went wrong with the list. >Like reader the list was open and unmoderated, unprotected. unlike nettime it was (and is) lively and friendly >Dialogue faded >away. Announcements took over. Silence set in. Then a few net.artists >started to use the list as their forum and posted immense ammounts of >self-promoting ascii art posting, full of hatred. Syndicate got deserted and >in a matter of weeks was destroyed by a hand full of people. You can see it >for yourself: http://www.v2.nl/mail/v2east/. mr lovink this is false here are the facts someone complained about nn (as usual) there was some discussion (as usual) nothing happened, too many people said they liked her and that the problem was not too much nn but not enough of the others talking (as usual) then (I was offline in NL) the admins decided to unsub her but all they sent was a majordomo system message that said that she was unsubbed so, when I came back I asked 'did she unsub herself or was she removed ?' there was some discussion (as usual) finally they admitted to having removed her and then more people complained about this decision that was not discussed on the list and not explained after a while the admins said something like 'ok, there are more people that want her back, so, we'll put her back and we're going away' (that a was stunning decision) suddenly there were no admins anymore new people said they wanted to be admin I supported them. there were tons of private mail between a handful of people and syndicate is on a new server and all is well there are 400 subscribers and you are all welcome to join! http://anart.no/sympa/info/syndicate > In my opinion it's a good lesson what can happen to list. yes, according to the unbiased facts, it truly is! > Now a new initiative has been launched by >the same people called Spectre. It's an interesting read what they learned >from this bitter case of so-called net.art destroying a community: come on, most of the people involved were not net artists and if they were: so what ?! sorry i believe this is off topic but i value the syndicate list as much as this one (reader) mostly as an outsider that wishes to learn more than impose his own culture even if i have some internet mileage too. >SPECTRE is an open, unmoderated mailing list for media art and culture in >Deep Europe. farewell, f. From reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com Sat Sep 8 19:09:41 2001 From: reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 13:39:41 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] A little suggestion in response to info on:New website /Mainstream Mag. Message-ID: Dear Mithi/Sorry Sagnik, It was wonderful to know that Mainstream weekly has entered cyberage and can be accessed digitally.However there may be many of us on the readers-list,residing outside the Rajdhani or subcontinent and not equally familiar or acquainted with this magazine. Perhaps it would be quite pertinent if you could briefly mention something about it's contents and origins or even history...of the weekly. Yours affy, Reyhan Pishi. >From: SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY >To: reader-list at sarai.net >CC: mithi at silchar.com >Subject: [Reader-list] A New Website of Mainstream Current Affairs Weekly >Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 22:32:00 +0530 > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY Subject: [Reader-list] A New Website of Mainstream Current Affairs Weekly Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 22:32:00 +0530 Size: 2500 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010908/40de4ed6/attachment.mht From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Sun Sep 9 09:58:50 2001 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (Sagnik Chakravartty) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 21:28:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Info about Mainstream Current Affairs Weekly Message-ID: <20010909042850.52746.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> Dear friends, I am a regular member of reader-list.My alternative email is mithi at silchar.com. Please put this info on sarai reader list. MAINSTREAM Current Affairs Weekly was founded 1962 by Nikhil Chakravartty. It reflected on the issues of the day. In its pages, people from all walks of life wrote on subjects as diverse from politics to arts. Subhadra Joshi,Bansi Kaul,Alkazi,Govind Vidyarthi,Mohan Kumaramangalam,Rashid Talib regularly contributed articles in its pages in its formative years. It played a leading role during the emergency when its editor Nikhil Chakravartty wrote about freedom of the press.He played a leading role in opposing the emergency. Mainstream's journey still continues.... Those who wish to subscribe to Mainstream can do so . Life subcription is available in India for Rs 5000 for individuals and Rs 8000 for institutions. Please add Rs 20 to inland outstation cheques towards bank charges;all remittances to Perspective Publications Private Limited. Bye- With best regards- Sagnik Chakravartty __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com From mithi at silchar.com Mon Sep 10 15:20:04 2001 From: mithi at silchar.com (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 02:50:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] A National University devoted to Journalism Message-ID: <20010910095004.B1A1436F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010910/16c09916/attachment.pl From aiindex at mnet.fr Mon Sep 10 22:44:24 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 18:14:24 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] US pulls the plug on Muslim websites Message-ID: The Guardian (UK) Middle East dispatch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ US pulls the plug on Muslim websites Islamic groups have condemned a government crackdown on a Texan telecoms company as part of a "witch-hunt", writes Brian Whitaker Monday September 10, 2001 Five hundred websites - many of them with an Arab or Muslim connection - crashed last Wednesday when an anti-terrorism taskforce raided InfoCom Corporation in Texas. The 80-strong taskforce that descended upon the IT company included FBI agents, Secret Service agents, Diplomatic Security agents, tax inspectors, immigration officials, customs officials, department of commerce officials and computer experts. Three days later, they were still busy inside the building, reportedly copying every hard disc they could find. InfoCom hosts websites for numerous clients in the Middle East, including al-Jazeera (the satellite TV station), al-Sharq (a daily newspaper in Qatar), and Birzeit (the Palestinian university on the West Bank). It also hosts sites for several Muslim organisations in the United States, among them the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. In addition, InfoCom is the registered owner of ".iq" - the internet country code for Iraq. A coalition of American Muslim groups immediately denounced the raid as part of an "anti-Muslim witch-hunt" promoted by the Israeli lobby in the United States. Mahdi Bray, political adviser to the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said: "We have deep concerns that this once again is an attempt to rush to judgment and to marginalise the American Muslim community. There is a pattern of bias that often permeates all of these types of investigations." The FBI, meanwhile, insisted the search had nothing to do with religion or Middle East politics. "This is a criminal investigation, not a political investigation," a spokeswoman said. "We're hoping to find evidence of criminal activity." Several Muslim groups have linked the raid to an article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 13. Written by Daniel Pipes, director of the foreign policy research institute in Philadelphia, it called on the US to "support Israel in rolling back the forces of terror" by shutting down websites belonging to the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Holy Land Foundation. "The federal authorities should use the tools it already has in closing down these websites and organisations," the article said. Daniel Pipes appears regularly in the US media, where he is regarded as an authority on the Middle East. Arab-Americans, on the other hand, regard him as a Muslim-basher and a staunch supporter of Israel. In one magazine article Pipes wrote: "Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene... All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most." In 1995, after the Oklahoma bombing (for which former war hero Timothy McVeigh was eventually executed) Pipes wasted no time in pinning the blame on Muslim extremists. He told USA Today: "People need to understand that this is just the beginning. The fundamentalists are on the upsurge, and they make it very clear that they are targeting us. They are absolutely obsessed with us." It is unlikely, however, that the FBI could have obtained a warrant to search InfoCom on the basis of Daniel Pipes's remarks in the Wall Street Journal. They would have to demonstrate "probable cause" to a judge, but in this case the reasons may never be known because the judge ordered the warrant to be sealed. InfoCom's lawyer, Mark Enoch, said that whatever the company was suspected of, the FBI had "bad information"; InfoCom was innocent of any wrongdoing. According to the New York Times, citing unnamed government officials, the purpose of the search was to discover whether InfoCom has any links to the militant Palestinian organisation, Hamas. Under an anti-terrorism law introduced in 1996, it is illegal in the US to provide "material support" for Hamas or other organisations on the state department's banned list. Although Israeli sympathisers in the US have been clamouring for prosecutions, there have been no major cases so far and some lawyers question whether the 1996 law is constitutional. Just across the road from InfoCom's offices, in Richardson on the outskirts of Dallas, is the headquarters of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). Apart from their physical proximity, InfoCom and HLF are intimately connected through two brothers: Ghassan and Bayan Elashi. The Elashis are of Palestinian origin and of a religious disposition. Ghassan is chairman of HLF and vice-president (marketing) of InfoCom. InfoCom is a small but apparently successful company with a global business in computers, networking, telecommunications and internet services. Established in 1982, it moved to the area of Texas known as "Telecom Corridor" nine years ago. Its business in the Middle East has been expanding largely because of its expertise in Arabic-language databases. It recently won a contract in Jordan for a website where people can buy and sell cars. Asked about the company's ownership of ".iq", the Iraqi national internet address, Ghassan Elashi said: "We were one of the pioneers of the internet at a time when all the upper domain names were available for everyone. We searched the lists and found Iraq was available for registration." To avoid any trouble over sanctions, InfoCom informed the state department that it had registered ".iq", Elashi said. The state department replied with a "ridiculous" list of restrictions which mean that the company has never been able to make use of the Iraqi domain. He said he had no idea what the task force was looking for in raiding InfoCom's offices, though the staff were giving them full cooperation. He added: "Over the last four to five weeks we have experienced some unusual hacking - mostly by pro-Israeli hackers." The HLF, on the other side of the street, is a tax-exempt charity established in 1989. Most of its efforts are focused on helping Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon and the occupied territories, but it has also sent humanitarian aid to Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya, as well as earthquake relief to Turkey and flood relief to Mozambique. According to its website, the HLF has provided sponsorship for more than 1,800 Palestinian orphans and 450 families living in refugee camps. It has funded several medical projects, including Dar al-Salam hospital in Gaza, al-Razi hospital in Jenin, al-Ahli hospital in Hebron and a rehabilitation center for the handicapped located in Amman, Jordan. In Lebanon, it provided safe water supplies for 72,000 refugees in the Palestinian camps. For several years the HLF has been the target of attacks by Israeli sympathisers. A letter sent to news organisations by New York senator Charles Schumer accused it of "raising millions of dollars for the Palestinian cause in the Middle East, some of which has been knowingly channelled to support the families of Hamas terrorists." A more specific claim, mentioned on the website of a Jewish organisation, the Anti-Defamation League, is that it has provided "monthly stipends to the families of terrorist suicide bombers in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza". The evidence against the HLF presented by the League in a 1998 press release was somewhat tenuous. It said that Israel had banned a Jerusalem-based organisation called the Holy Land Foundation (which it described as the "apparent counterpart" of the Texas charity) on the grounds that it was a front for Hamas. Also, the League said, the Texas-based Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) had urged its members to send donations to the HLF. The League noted that the IAP had also "distributed official Hamas literature in the United States" and that its fundraising letter described the Palestinian struggle as "jihad" - "a term regularly used by Hamas". More recently, HLF and several other Muslim charities have become the target of a $600m (£409m) lawsuit by the parents of David Boim, an Israeli-American student who was shot dead in the West Bank in 1996. Using the 1996 anti-terrorism law, the family are claiming compensation from the charities, alleging that they provided "material support" to Hamas and were therefore responsible for David's death. Ghassan Elashi dismisses all these allegations. "The Holy Land Foundation is as clean as crystal water," he says. "We have never been bothered by any government agencies." But to the alarm of America's Arab and Muslim minorities, there are signs that the climate may be changing. Assistant New York state attorney general Karen Goldman has recently been pressing for a tax audit of HLF to "enforce the laws applicable to exempt organisations". Another Muslim charity, the Islamic African Relief Agency, is engaged in a legal dispute with the state department after it revoked US aid grants worth $4.2m. It is, of course, a duty of governments to ensure that charities maintain financial probity. The concern is that some charities may be getting singled out for discriminatory reasons. The catch-all nature of the 1996 law against providing "material support" to banned organisations is also arousing controversy. "It makes any support whatever a crime," one Arab-American said last week. "Simply giving blankets to the wrong kind of hospital could be a violation of the law." Email brian.whitaker at guardian.co.uk Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 -- From aiindex at mnet.fr Mon Sep 10 22:45:32 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 18:15:32 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Left Perspectives In South Asia Message-ID: Exclusive report on South Asia Citizens Web http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex [Last Updated on 9 Sept. 2001] ____________________________________________ LEFT PERSPECTIVES IN SOUTH ASIA Meena Dhanda & Pritam Singh [The paper below has been published in The British Association for South Asian Studies Bulletin Vol.4 No.1 Winter 2001 ] At the Annual Conference of the British Association of South Asian Studies held at the Bath College of Higher Education on April 11-13, 1997 , a panel discussion on Left Perspectives in South Asia was convened by Pritam Singh on April 11. The panelists were: Yogendra Yadav (Center for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi), Ranjan Poudyal (London School Of Economics and Save the Children Fund, Kathmandu), Mohammed Waseem (St. Antonyís College, Oxford and the University of Islamabad), Jairus Banaji (Wolfson College, Oxford and the Union Research Group, Bombay), Surinder Jodhka (Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford and the University of Hyderabad) and Robin Archer (Corpus Christi College, Oxford). In planning the format of the panel discussion, no guidelines were given to the panelists except to try to focus less on past introspection and more on futuristic thinking. This was done deliberately, in order to enable the spontaneous articulation of their engagement with and reflections on the 'Left' in their own country. All the panelists had a chance to revise their contributions in the written comments they put forward for the preparation of this report. I It is rare for Left scholars and activists from South Asia to be able to meet each other and exchange ideas and experiences on issues of mutual interest. The panel discussion at Bath was expected to make a contribution to enriching our understanding of the Left in different countries in South Asia. A comparative assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Left in different countries of South Asia could be mutually beneficial to the Leftist political forces in these countries. In organizing the panel, the aim was to get at least one commentator on each of the five countries of South Asia- Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. As we did not succeed in arranging a speaker on Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, this aim was only partially fulfilled. [ Full text of the above (47k long) paper is available to all at the recently updated South Asia Citizens Web Site. The exact URL for the paper is: http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/leftperspectives01.html ] From aiindex at mnet.fr Mon Sep 10 22:59:41 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 18:29:41 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] IT pioneer from the US dies Message-ID: ## author : bruces at well.com ## date : 30.08.01 --------------------------------------------------------------------- News Releases | MIT News Office | Search | Comments | MIT MIT Professor Michael L. Dertouzos dies at 64; IT pioneer who made technology accessible AUGUST 29, 2001 Contact Information CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT Professor Michael L. Dertouzos, who had a rare gift for putting complicated technology into human terms and making it accessible to non-technical audiences, died Monday night (Aug. 27) at Massachusetts General Hospital. Born in Athens, Greece, Dertouzos was 64. Dertouzos joined the MIT faculty in 1964 and became director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) in 1974. Under his leadership, LCS became one of the largest research labs at MIT with 400 faculty members, graduate students, and research staff. LCS dedicated itself to the invention, development and understanding of information technologies, always within the context of their human utility. "We made a big mistake 300 years ago when we separated technology and humanism," Dertouzos said in an interview in Scientific American. "It's time to put the two back together." MIT President Charles M. Vest said, "Michael was larger than life. He was at once a leader, builder, visionary and caring human being. Few individuals have so personally and profoundly shaped their institutions and professional fields. Yet he did so in a manner that respected and involved all of his colleagues. I will miss his personal friendship and counsel very much." "Michael was a leader in every sense of the word. He knew how to motivate people; he was passionate about his work and passionate about the people he worked with. For many of us, this is more like losing a family member than losing a colleague," said John V. Guttag, head of the department of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. LCS members and alumni have been instrumental in the development of numerous innovations, among them time-shared computers, RSA encryption, the X Window system, the ArpaNet and the Internet. Most recently, LCS spearheaded the $50 million Oxygen project in 1999 in conjunction with MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab. Oxygen is intended to make computers easier to use, "as natural a part of our environment as the air we breathe." Victor W. Zue, associate director of the Lab, commented, "Michael fervently believed that developing technology is not enough by itself. One must also strive to demonstrate that it is good for something. Under his stewardship, LCS has been mindful of balancing technical excellence with social relevance." The Lab is currently the North American home of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an open forum of companies and organizations that helps promote the Web's evolution and ensure its interoperability. Dertouzos was instrumental in bringing the W3C and its director, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, to LCS. Tim Berners-Lee said, "If it hadn't been for Michael, there would not probably have been a World Wide Web Consortium. He was a spring of enthusiasm, capability, insight, and experience which drove a half-formed idea of W3C into an international reality. Ever since, Michael's strength of leadership, clarity of thought and warmth of heart have been a constant support and nourishment and inspiration. He will be dearly missed." In the LCS director's statement, Dertouzos wrote with characteristic enthusiasm for human progress through technology: "We feel extraordinarily privileged to have a hand in shaping the Information Revolution -- the third major socioeconomic movement of our world. "But our quest goes beyond utilitarian increases in human productivity to the broader ways in which information can help people. We find ourselves in the junction of two interrelated challenges: Going after the best, most exciting forefront technology; and ensuring that it truly serves human needs. It is this mixture of forefront technology and human utility that is the hallmark of LCS research." Professor Harold Abelson of electrical engineering and computer science, who co-authored a paper with Dertouzos, said: "Michael was a leader of mythic proportions, both at MIT and worldwide. Much of what we take for granted in computing at MIT -- including Project Athena and the World Wide Web Consortium -- is a direct result of his leadership, his vision, and his entrepreneurial skill." Dertouzos played a key role in creating Project Athena, which he suggested be named after the Greek goddess of wisdom. Stephen A. Ward, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at LCS and a former doctoral student of Dertouzos, said, "Michael Dertouzos brought a unique combination of intuition, humanity, and style to our faculty. Michael's impact on MIT and his mentorship of students and colleagues stand as an indelible monument to his leadership, vision and personality. He will be remembered as one of the greats of MIT and computer technology." Dertouzos, whose father was an admiral in the Greek navy, was raised in Greece. His earliest memories were of war-torn Athens and of people starving in the streets, an experience that deeply affected him for the rest of his life. As a teenager, Dertouzos dreamed of going to MIT, but when he won a Fulbright scholarship it was to the University of Arkansas, where he earned the BS and MS degrees. After selling soft drinks and working with shaft-angle encoders at Baldwin Piano, he applied to the MIT doctorate program. Upon receiving the Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1964, he joined the faculty as an assistant professor and became a full professor in 1973. True to the MIT spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, Dertouzos holds patents on a graphical display system, an incremental photoelectric encoder, a graphic tablet, and on a parallel thermal printer. A PROLIFIC AUTHOR ON HUMANS AND COMPUTERS Dertouzos is the author of eight books. His latest, "The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do for Us" (HarperCollins), published this year, introduced the concept of "human centered computing." Computers, he wrote, should serve people, not the other way around. Today's machines are overloaded with excessive features, inadequately address our needs, and demand too much of our attention, he declared. "Michael argued eloquently for human-centered computing. He thought deeply about how information technology could help everyone, not just the technical elite," said Guttag. In the best-selling "What Will Be" (HarperCollins), published in 1997 when the Internet was first beginning to take hold, he wrote about the many ways in which information technology would transform our lives. In 1986, Dertouzos was asked to chair the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, to examine why US firms were losing competitiveness to their overseas industrial rivals. The result was "Made in America," co-authored by Richard K. Lester and Robert M. Solow (MIT Press), which became one of the most influential business books of the 1980s, with over 300,000 copies in print. "Michael's books were one example of his educational skills. He was fearless in entering the arena of other pundits attempting to forecast the future of computers and their application. Among his colleagues he was known for his concern for the big picture," said Fernando J. CorbatÛ, professor of electrical engineering, emeritus, at MIT, and the inventor of time-shared computing. AN EYE TO THE FUTURE An avid sailor and woodworker, Dertouzos spent much of the past quarter century studying and forecasting future technological shifts -- in describing, for experts and ordinary citizens alike, what could be. In 1976, he predicted the emergence of a PC in every 3-4 homes by the mid-1990s. In 1980, he first wrote about the Information Marketplace, a vision of networked computers that has transformed the world economy. An eloquent speaker, who was admired for his integrity and his disdain for hype, Dertouzos was frequently sought out by the media, industry and government agencies for his expertise and insight on the relationship between computers and their human users. During the Carter Administration, Professor Dertouzos chaired a White House advisory group that redesigned the White House information systems. In 1995, he represented the US in a delegation to the G7 Conference on the Information society. In 1998, he was co-chairman of the World Economic Forum on the Network Society in Davos, Switzerland. "Michael had a broad understanding of technology and a teacher's knack for explaining ideas. One direction in which this shone was his skill in interfacing with government sponsors of research. He was skillful in evoking the best research ideas from within the laboratory; he could educate without being condescending," CorbatÛ said. In his final interview, printed in the August 22 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dertouzos spoke about the qualities that he most valued in teachers, qualities which were a fundamental part of his own approach to his interactions with the MIT community: "Don't forget the impact that love has on education," Dertouzos said in explaining his skepticism of computer-based distance education. "If you are loved by your teacher -- and I mean this in the most innocent and Platonic sense -- if your teacher really cares for your well-being -- and you know that because your teacher will ask about you, will scold you for not doing the right thing, and will give you stories about why you should do this or do that -- the learning can be unbelievably different." Dertouzos, a resident of Weston, married Hadwig Gofferje in 1961. They divorced in 1993. In 1998 he married Catherine Liddell, who survives him along with his two children, Alexandra Dertouzos Rowe and Leonidas M. Dertouzos of Boston, and a granddaughter, Kiera Ann Rowe. A funeral service will be held in Athens on September 4th, followed by a memorial service at MIT. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Athens College, 342 Madison Avenue, Suite 16161, New York, NY, 10173. --END-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTACT: Patti Richards Senior Communications Officer, MIT Phone: 617-253-8923 Email: prichards at mit.edu From jskohli at fig.org Tue Sep 11 01:14:27 2001 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 01:14:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] DMCA Sequel: The SSSCA Message-ID: <3B9D181B.F6CC901@fig.org> Congress Plans DMCA Sequel: The SSSCA Posted by michael on Saturday September 08, @10:00AM from the no-turing-devices-for-you dept. Declan McCullagh writes: "If you thought the DMCA was a nightmare, wait 'til you find out what Congress is planning this fall. The sequel is called the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act," and it requires PCs and consumer electronic devices to support "certified security technologies" to be approved by the Commerce Department. Backers of the SSSCA include Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), who heads the powerful Senate Commerce committee, and, reportedly, Disney. Wired News has a report, and I've placed the SSSCA draft text (new! more criminal penalties!) online here. D'ya think that maybe Congress doesn't like OSS very much?" This is only a draft, not even introduced as a bill yet, but it sends chills down my spine - this is the big one. If passed, it would require all personal computers to have digital rights management built in, under penalty of law. Check right Here http://sites.inka.de/risctaker/sssca-draft.pdf -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs. From menso at r4k.net Tue Sep 11 06:02:00 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 02:32:00 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Why D.M.C.A. ends net & computer security Message-ID: <20010911023200.C12357@r4k.net> Hi all, For some time now the Digital Millenium Copyright Act has been in effect, from 1998 to be precise. In the beginning the results of this new law were quite unclear and not much written about. In short the DMCA does the following: "The DMCA gives publishers the power to prevent you from printing a page, loaning a book to your friends or in some cases, even reading it out loud. For example, if you purchase and download an electronic book from the Internet and figure out how to circumvent the reader software so that you can print it out to read in the bathroom, the DMCA makes what you have done a federal crime, and if you tell anyone how you did it, you can be looking at a fine of up to $500,000 and 5 years in prison. This has happened." Source: http://www.cryogenius.com/dmca.htm Now, this is one of the consequences. For those not familiar with the recent Sklyarov case: Sklyarov discovered that the 'encryption' used to secure E-Books by adobe and several others was stuff your kid sister might come up with to prevent others from reading her diary. He held a talk about this on DefCon, a big US hacker conference held each year and... got arrested. According to the D.M.C.A. Sklyarov had no business giving this talk. The D.M.C.A. makes it illegal to distribute "circumvention technology", such as systems that break copyright protection schemes. Now that we've reached the core of the problem, let me continue to explain why this is a major threat to all computer and data security. The way computer security tends to work is that someone or some company releases a program or OS and says "This is secure". Then, a big amount of people work with them, find flaws in them, discover that they are not secure. Some people have even made their jobs out of this and get paid by companies to check if the systems they are using are secure or not. This is a good thing: instead of someone selling you a doorlock and saying it is uncrackable you actually get worlds most skilled thieves that give a go at it and, when it fails, explain what they did and how it can be prevented. This is a good thing since you'll now know that the lock isn't as perfect as they told you it would be and you can take extra measures to prevent people from entering your building. In computer terms this means that you, for example, buy a firewall system that's supposed to be 100% secure. You put your trust in this product to secure your own or customer data, your networks, etc. Then someone finds a flaw in the product, which is a bad thing. The person who found the flaw figures that others will find it too and might abuse it. So he/she notifies the rest of the world about the flaw he found and how it can be solved. Pretty sweet system indeed. Now with the D.M.C.A. the situation is more as follows: You buy a lock that is supposed to be 100% secure to prevent people from entering your house. People who buy this lock or work for companies who bought the lock are curious to just how secure it is. One of them opens the lock to see how it works internally and finds a way to open it with a paperclip when inserted under the right angle. "This sucks! Millions of people rely on this lock and it is no good," this person thinks and he starts notifying others about it. Then he receives a letter from the company that builded the lock which says: "It has come to our attention that you have opened a lock and written a paper on how it's internals work. That information is copyrighted." He gets a $500.000 fine and 5 years in prison for what he did. As you can see the D.M.C.A. kills the security system of lots of people checking to see if a product really is secure and will cause a major new risk in computer and network security. While the system administrators might not know about a certain security bug, thousands of hackers already might and they are pounding at your door as we speak. Already people are not publishing new bugs they found in so- called 'secure' products because of fear of prosecution. One of them is Niels Ferguson, a man who has proofed himself time after time: he has found serious flaws in earlier IPSEC implementations, helped develop the TwoFish algorithm and has now been working for Counterpane for the past several years. (Counterpane is a company started by Bruce Schneier, author of "Applied cryptography" and "Secrets & Lies" which explains computer security on a somewhat more theoretical level, a must read!) When a man like Niels Fergusson says he has found a new flaw, he has. He has found a flaw in HDCP. HDCP is a cryptographic system developed by Intel that encrypts video on the DVI bus. The DVI bus is used to connect digital video cameras and DVD players with digital TVs, etc. The aim of HDCP is to prevent illegal copying of video contents by encrypting the signal. According to Ferguson any IT person can do what he did and get the same result (retrieve the masterkey). When this is done the entire HDCP becomes useless. We all know that this key *will* be posted on the net sooner or later, probably around the time the HDCP is already being implemented in hardware and thus Intel cut's it's own fingers with the DMCA. Sleep tight, Menso More information: www.anti-dmca.org Anti DMCA site www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/ Niels Ferguson -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From monica at sarai.net Tue Sep 11 12:23:04 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 12:23:04 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Software from below? Message-ID: This is a version of the presentation I made at the Tech_2 workshop in Bristol (17-24 August 2001), in the session "Open Content, Open Tools". Tech_2 was a very fun and interesting one week getting together of techies (from the novice to the high end) and some other new media practitioners, who are interested in working with the community. For more details visit: www.tech2.southspace.org, and for documentation from other sessions (such as on Squid, IPSEC, etc.) visit: http://tronic.southspace.net. =================================== What I would like to open for discussion today is the process by which innovations in technology happen and are addressed, and more specifically, the role within that process of marginal voices. Before I elucidate our understanding of software, specifically social software and social mediations in terms of innovation, which has emerged quite concretely from our experience in the CyberMohalla Project, I would like to highlight two nodes which tend to animate any discussion on this issue, but which usually remain unarticulated in any systematic manner. These two nodes can be framed as the tensions firstly between print and manuscript cultures, and secondly between the internalist and the externalist explanatory frames in the history of science. Historically the hold of manuscript culture in society was broken by the arrival of print culture. Print culture has had an intense democratization and reachability to a larger public history as well as a rhetoric of it (which can hide the history of asymmetries within which it has grown and is located). But inspite of the incredible increase in access, the tradition of manuscript culture still continues. This is a culture that is constituted of closed knowledge communities (programmers, filmmakers, academics, architects, etc.) of which it is very exciting to be a part, but where entry into the group is severely marked. In this sense, there is always a tension between a knowledge-rich group and those who are outside it. For those who are on the outside, awe, suspicion, mis-recognitions and prejudice form the boundary between the two. The second debate is seen most explicitly in the history of science where there is a contestation between the internalist and the externalist schools. In their uncovering of the events of science, the externalists prioritise systems of patronage, access to resources, institutional frameworks, territoriality, economic values (such as productivity, efficiency, and market co-ordinates such as expansion and intensification), structures of security, migration patterns, cultural mobility etc. The internalist school, on the other hand, would privilege the internal extensibility and growth of an idea, the intuitive, the serendipitous, and the genius, whether individual or civilizational. This is a very useful debate to make us aware of the relationship between practice, imagination and technology, as well as the leaching of technology into the social bedrock. These are the hidden undertows on which debates on technology and its users develop. These debates can, at times, be very contentious and there may be those who rigidly withdraw from them, but these are also two nodes which can be engaged with very productively. An interesting example of this is a debate on free software that has happened on the Sarai Reader List. The debate began when some from the free software community espoused the use of Linux to set-up e-governance systems as an alternative to Microsoft, citing reasons of security and autonomy. They were challenged on the grounds that an unexamined partnership with the state would lead to the dissolution of the principles on which the free software model stands and can expand. (Those who are interested can check out the recent archives.) To raise some questions specific to our discussion: 1. From where does technological modification arise? What motivates it? 2. Is technological modification (especially of software) an urge from the user or does it emerge primarily from the subjective creator and/or the Market? 3. How do we locate the new and the unexpected within the repeatability and standardization of technology? 4. The silent question: How does the marginal speak into technological improvisation and innovation? And by marginal one here means those who are outside the rubric of that technological framework, i.e. those who are outside or at the receiving end of that discourse. I would like to share at this point our experiences from within the Cyber Mohalla project. I think you will see that all the questions that I have just raised are echoed in these, and I will then hopefully be able to open out a discussion on these questions by providing you with an experientially informed perspective. The premise of the CyberMohalla project is to work with a specifically urban, non-elite population and develop constructs, tools and processes which are able to facilitate for the participants three important things: creativity, expressivity and research into local history. The 10 participants are from a basti (an urban slum) from the heart of the city, and are aged between 14 and 19. Some of them still go to school, albeit irregularly, and some are school dropouts. They are proficient in Hindi, Urdu and some Persian, and have a minimal knowledge of English, even though they are very comfortable with the roman script. When they joined the project, they had no knowledge of computers, and had never used them. First there was an intensive workshop with the participants, which lasted 5 weeks and was held at Sarai. After these 5 weeks, Cyber Mohalla shifted to the basti and, in collaboration with an NGO that has been working in the area for 15 years, a small Media Lab - called Compughar, or Computer home - has been set up with three computers. From aiindex at mnet.fr Tue Sep 11 19:37:15 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 15:07:15 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Reading your mouse movements Message-ID: BBC News Online Monday, 10 September, 2001, 07:33 GMT 08:33 UK Reading your mouse movements Some mouse movements are common to all By BBC News Online's Alfred Hermida A website that can read your body language and know what you want before you have even clicked on anything may sound like science fiction. But this is what researchers in the US are working on. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, US, say they have developed a way to record mouse movements on a page and learn how people behave when they are on the internet. They found that certain movements of the mouse are common, allowing them to predict how someone uses the web. This sort of information would be invaluable to content providers who are looking for ways of increasing the effectiveness of their websites. "Just by looking at the way the mouse moves, I can tell whether you are reading a web page," says Ted Selker, an MIT professor focusing on context-aware computing. "I can tell because when you read a webpage, you do one of a couple of things. You either shovel the mouse off to the right so that it is out of the way, or you will walk down the page with your mouse," he told the BBC's Go Digital programme. Follow the Cheese The system developed by the team at MIT is called Cheese, since they are following the mouse, like a mouse follows cheese. This is incredible. Can you imagine if I can actually tell that you wanted to press a link but didn't Ted Selker, MIT It provides the means to find out exactly how people navigate a webpage. The researchers say that if you could analyse in real time how someone goes through a website, the content and navigation could be adapted to create a more personal experience. "This is incredible," says Mr Selker. "Can you imagine if I can actually tell that you wanted to press a link but didn't. "And 75% of the time, I can tell that you were looking at a website but you didn't click to buy a vacation but were thinking of taking a vacation, while doing your travel plans." "I can change the way the travel site prepares material for you based on what intentions and interests you've demonstrated through your actions that aren't even recorded in the links you followed." Current technology The system developed at MIT works by including mouse movement data automatically with embedded scripting. The information is analysed and stored on a server. This collection technique is implemented using current technology and does not require any additional software on the user's browser. For their study, the researchers took a group of 17 people familiar with computers and web browsing, but from diverse backgrounds. They recorded the mouse activity as people performed a list of tasks common in web browsing, such as ordering a CD. The data was evaluated by redrawing the mouse movements on each page for each user and then visually comparing the patterns on mouse behaviour. Predicting choice In one case, people were asked to buy a CD or DVD of their choice. We're working very hard to make those kind of natural simple communications that people make with their body through computer interfaces Ted Selker, MIT By studying the mouse movements, the researchers were able to predict what their second choice would have been. This was done by determining the link on which they hesitated longest before clicking their first choice. Some people occasionally moved the mouse straight to the link of interest without hesitation. The MIT team believe this behaviour shows that a user has visited the page before and is familiar with its layout. "People are extremely good at remembering graphic design," says Ted Selker. "So when you act like you know where you are going on a place where you have no reason to know, then we know you have been there before." Computer scenarios The researchers now plan to put together a website with content that would change according to mouse behaviour. The research by the team at MIT is part of their efforts to create a world where desires and intentions are enough to get computers to act on our behalf. They aim to do this by developing environments that use sensors and artificial intelligence to create so-called "virtual sensors" - adaptive models of users to create keyboardless computer scenarios. "We're working very hard to make those kind of natural simple communications that people make with their body through computer interfaces so that people spend less time and effort trying to laboriously remember what command to type," says Mr Selker. -- From kshekhar at bol.net.in Wed Sep 12 14:51:20 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:51:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: NY / Statement from the War Resisters League Message-ID: From: "Jairus Banaji" To: , , , , Subject: Fw: NY / Statement from the War Resisters League Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 12:44:06 +0530 X-Priority: 1 -----Original Message----- From: Harsh Kapoor To: aiindex at mnet.fr Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:31 AM Subject: NY / Statement from the War Resisters League http://www.warresisters.org/attack9-11-01.htm Statement from the War Resisters League New York, New York FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 11, 2001 As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters League, our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds if not thousands of New Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center. The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers who were there when the final collapse occurred. Of course we know that our friends and co-workers in Washington, D.C. have similar thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the parts of the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their doom on this day. We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an extended analysis until more information is available but some things are clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of billions on Star Wars is clearly the sham it was from the beginning, when terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means. We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S. develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target civilians, or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This would mean an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation of terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West Bank and Gaza. The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to the sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest supplier of "conventional weapons" in the world—and those weapons fuel the starkest kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy support for armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban—and the creation of Osama Bin Laden. Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past, condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya, the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear day to find our largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe. Let us seek an end of the militarism that has characterized this nation for decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice not through escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians—may these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on other civilians in other lands. We also condemn reflexive hostility against people of Arab descent living in this country and urge that Americans recall the part of our heritage that opposes bigotry in all forms. We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to violence, and a more just distribution of the world’s resources. As we mourn the many lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. **************** This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued by members of the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League at the national office, September 11, 2001: asif ullah Carmen Trotta Chris Ney David McReynolds Joanne Sheehan Judith Mahoney Pasternak Melissa Jameson Contact: David McReynolds, 212-674-7268 Joanne Sheehan, 860-889-5337 War Resisters League, 212-228-0450 War Resisters League 339 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10012 (212) 228-0450 fax (212) 228-6193 wrl at warresisters.org Believing war to be a crime against humanity, the War Resisters League, founded in 1923, advocates Gandhian nonviolence as the method for creating a democratic society free of war, racism, sexism, and human exploitation. _____ Shekhar Krishnan 9, Supriya, 2nd Floor Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road No.4 Dadar, Bombay 400014 India From aiindex at mnet.fr Thu Sep 13 04:37:14 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:07:14 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Feds use attack to push Carnivore Message-ID: Feds use attack to push Carnivore Just hours after what some commentators have dubbed a second Pearl Harbor, federal police reportedly increased internet surveillance. ISPs are reportedly quietly complying with FBI requests to monitor electronic communications. (09/12/01) http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46747,00.html From anjalimody at hotmail.com Thu Sep 13 09:36:03 2001 From: anjalimody at hotmail.com (anjali mody) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 04:06:03 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: FISK Message-ID: >From: Rachana Raizada >To: rachana_raizada at yahoo.com >Subject: Fwd: FISK >Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 20:49:27 +0100 (BST) > > > > Subject: FISK > > > > The wickedness and awesome > > cruelty of a crushed and > > humiliated people > > > > By Robert Fisk > > > > 12 September 2001 > > > > So it has come to this. The entire modern history of the > > Middle East � the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the > > Balfour declaration, Lawrence of Arabia's lies, the > > Arab revolt, the foundation of the state of Israel, four > > Arab-Israeli wars and the 34 years of Israel's brutal > > occupation of Arab land � all erased within hours as > > those who claim to represent a crushed, humiliated > > population struck back with the wickedness and > > awesome cruelty of a doomed people. Is it fair � is it > > moral � to write this so soon, without proof, when the > > last act of barbarism, in Oklahoma, turned out to be the > > work of home-grown Americans? I fear it is. America > > is at war and, unless I am mistaken, many thousands > > more are now scheduled to die in the Middle East, > > perhaps in America too. Some of us warned of "the > > explosion to come''. But we never dreamt this > > nightmare. > > > > And yes, Osama bin Laden comes to mind, his money, > > his theology, his frightening dedication to destroy > > American power. I have sat in front of bin Laden as he > > described how his men helped to destroy the Russian > > army in Afghanistan and thus the Soviet Union. Their > > boundless confidence allowed them to declare war on > > America. But this is not the war of democracy versus > > terror that the world will be asked to believe in the > > coming days. It is also about American missiles > > smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters > > firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and > > American shells crashing into a village called Qana and > > about a Lebanese militia � paid and uniformed by > > America's Israeli ally � hacking and raping and > > murdering their way through refugee camps. > > > > No, there is no doubting the utter, indescribable evil of > > what has happened in the United States. That > > Palestinians could celebrate the massacre of 20,000, > > perhaps 35,000 innocent people is not only a symbol of > > their despair but of their political immaturity, of their > > failure to grasp what they had always been accusing > > their Israeli enemies of doing: acting > > disproportionately. All the years of rhetoric, all the > > promises to strike at the heart of America, to cut off > > the head of "the American snake'' we took for empty > > threats. How could a backward, conservative, > > undemocratic and corrupt group of regimes and small, > > violent organisations fulfil such preposterous > > promises? Now we know. > > > > And in the hours that followed yesterday's annihilation, > > I began to remember those other extraordinary assaults > > upon the US and its allies, miniature now by > > comparison with yesterday's casualties. Did not the > > suicide bombers who killed 241 American servicemen > > and 100 French paratroops in Beirut on 23 October > > 1983, time their attacks with unthinkable precision? > > > > There were just seven seconds between the Marine > > bombing and the destruction of the French three miles > > away. Then there were the attacks on US bases in Saudi > > Arabia, and last year's attempt � almost successful it > > now turns out � to sink the USS Cole in Aden. And then > > how easy was our failure to recognise the new weapon > > of the Middle East which neither Americans nor any > > other Westerners could equal: the despair-driven, > > desperate suicide bomber. > > > > And there will be, inevitably, and quite immorally, an > > attempt to obscure the historical wrongs and the > > injustices that lie behind yesterday's firestorms. We > > will be told about "mindless terrorism'', the "mindless" > > bit being essential if we are not to realise how hated > > America has become in the land of the birth of three > > great religions. > > > > Ask an Arab how he responds to 20,000 or 30,000 > > innocent deaths and he or she will respond as decent > > people should, that it is an unspeakable crime. But they > > will ask why we did not use such words about the > > sanctions that have destroyed the lives of perhaps half a > > million children in Iraq, why we did not rage about the > > 17,500 civilians killed in Israel's 1982 invasion of > > Lebanon. And those basic reasons why the Middle East > > caught fire last September � the Israeli occupation of > > Arab land, the dispossession of Palestinians, the > > bombardments and state-sponsored executions ... all > > these must be obscured lest they provide the smallest > > fractional reason for yesterday's mass savagery. > > > > No, Israel was not to blame � though we can be sure that > > Saddam Hussein and the other grotesque dictators will > > claim so � but the malign influence of history and our > > share in its burden must surely stand in the dark with > > the suicide bombers. Our broken promises, perhaps > > even our destruction of the Ottoman Empire, led > > inevitably to this tragedy. America has bankrolled > > Israel's wars for so many years that it believed this > > would be cost-free. No longer so. But, of course, the > > US will want to strike back against "world terror'', and > > last night's bombardment of Kabul may have been the > > opening salvo. Indeed, who could ever point the finger > > at Americans now for using that pejorative and > > sometimes racist word "terrorism''? > > > > Eight years ago, I helped to make a television series > > that tried to explain why so many Muslims had come to > > hate the West. Last night, I remembered some of those > > Muslims in that film, their families burnt by > > American-made bombs and weapons. They talked > > about how no one would help them but God. Theology > > versus technology, the suicide bomber against the > > nuclear power. Now we have learnt what this means. > >____________________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk >or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 13 12:04:18 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:04:18 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On the Events in New York Message-ID: <01091312041800.01568@sweety.sarai.kit> A few thoughts about the images of the events of 11th september in New York, and elsewhere. Sitting in front of a New Delhi television, watching the destruction in NewYork, the first thought/feeling that crosses the mind is that of the solidarity of living in a time and place of danger. Day before yesterday it was New York. Today it could be anywhere. Everytime we walk into a cinema in New Delhi, the body search that precedes entry marks each one of us as a potential walk-in detonator. Everyone is in danger. Everyone is dangerous. The blurred identikit photgraphs of suspected "terrorists" on police posters in the streetcorners of New Delhi that we have grown accustomed to seeing over the past decade and a half could be my face, your face, anyone's face. The day the airplanes sought their target, was a day that television cameras sought their targets too. On BBC world I saw repeated telecasts of a few Palestinian boys, young men and one matronly looking woman flashing a V for victory sign. The time that this footage go on our TV screens, was far greater than the time that was given to randomly strung together images of spokesmen of different Palestinian and/or Islamist Groups disclaiming responsibility. If we were to stop in the middle of grief and outrage and think for a moment about an economy of images then the importance of an image that says "these are the kind of people that celebrate an act of terror at this scale" far outweighed, the images that suggested that "people with Arabic or Persian sounding names are as distressed by what has happenned". People with Arabic or Persian sounding names live all over the world. They are neighbours, colleagues, friends, relatives and lovers of all of us. The planes sought and found their targets. The cameras, the microphones, the spin doctors are now seeking theirs. Perhaps, soon the world will find itself being mobilized to fight a war that no one ever really realised the implications of . Once, in a far away and nearby country called Afghanistan, a whole generation was armed to fight for something called 'freedom". Amongst those who acted as the brokers of that war was one who is today 'freedom's' chief enemy. Osama bin Laden was once flush with the guns and money of those who seek to hunt him down today. It would be good to remember how easily and how flexibly the leaders of the 'free world' permutate those who are heroes one day, villains the next. Once upon a not so distant time, the mujahideen, the taliban were hailed as valiant men of faith fighting to keep the free world free. Today their description reads differently. As the cameras and the political pundits, in New York and In New Delhi, grease the machinery of retribution and call for the war to end terror, (as if war were anything but, terror itself writ large, and made legal) we, living in this city, and in other cities close by, in Lahore, Peshawar, elsewhere in South Asia, will find ourselves being dragged, inch by inch, into the centre-stage of the theatre of another new war. Perhaps those who rule us will fall in line, and scramble to be the scouts of this new operation, perhaps they will make new deals or renew old ones. We will watch the machine work. We will be the fuel. What can be said at this time? That, perhaps, the organization of people and the mobilization of images, to defend or conquer a territory - any territory - be it Afghanistan or America, be it Kashmir or Kosovo, New York or New Delhi, will always rebound back on people, both within that territory and elsewhere. That the greater glory of nation states, and civilisations is always visited upon ordinary people in the form of death. That all flages are shrouds. All that I can say is that the sooner we jettison martyrs, suicide bombers, generals, heroes, victims and presidents, the quicker, we can get on with our lives. Flags, states and beliefs are besieging life. Everyone is in danger, because everyone of us is imprisoned by passports, marked by the faiths we do not understand and masked by the cloth of flags. Each one of us is a target and anyone can be a flying or walking or sleeping bomb. From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 13 12:13:58 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:13:58 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Michael McDonough - New York Witness Message-ID: <01091312135803.01568@sweety.sarai.kit> ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Michael McDonough, New York architect Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 20:22:50 -0500 From: Bruce Sterling To: nettime s_server_in_return Subject: report from NYC... Date: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 5:36 PM From: Michael McDonough To: Bruce Sterling It started at 8:45 AM with the missile-like scream of something flying too low and fast across the city's heart, followed by a thump that shook the ground. Something is wrong. Minutes later, a second thump. The city empties into the streets. TVs come alive with live video feeds of the planes striking the south sides of the towers. I photograph the fires from my SoHo roof, capturing the north sides on film. The fire has penetrated the towers and is licking up the facades, bright orange tongues through inky black smoke. But the towers are not the towers, they are one tower and one smoky billow the size of an atomic cloud. People are jumping from the upper stories of the remaining tower. A short time later, now on the streets, my wife and I are talking to strangers, exchanging information got from blaring car radios. Mid-sentence, the second tower implodes before our eyes, only a few blocks away, glass shards blowing out from the smoky, collapsing core. Like nightmarish snow, they glisten and sparkle, then disappear. On a normal day, over 100,000 persons pass through the WTC. We have just seen a large number of them vaporized. Debris, chunks of the buildings the size of city buses and automobiles rain down onto the streets of Lower Manhattan. The collapses at first take the tops of the towers. In a matter of seconds, the remaining, lower reaches are infernos. The facades of the towers have fallen onto the surrounding streets. A woman in the hotel next to the towers reports seeing legions of firefighters, police, and medical personnel disappeared beneath the rubble in an instant. Now the explosions have killed not only those in the towers, but those trying to save them on the ground. Elsewhere in the city, as the day grinds on, businesses and shops are closed, locked tight with security gates in place. All civilian vehicular transportation in and out of the city stops. The tunnels are sealed off and empty. The bridges are available for those who want to hike out of the city. At early evening I walk the police cordons around lower Manhattan. On the local streets, urgent laser printed pleas for blood donations are taped to mailboxes and street lamps. Black SUVs with darkened windows scream through intersections in long lines, with sirens and flashing lights. Ambulances from New Jersey and Long Island, and Upstate New York--townships 60 miles and more outside of New York City--course the streets; 20, 30 at a time, they move, heading north to hospitals and triage centers. Military planes dart overhead, then disappear. The city is an uneasy silence broken on occasion by piecing, crackling sounds, warnings and urgent communications. Thousands of people stare blank-eyed and quiet as they watch the buildings all over downtown burn. Dozens of construction workers loaded on trucks--welding kits, steel barriers, men and material--head south, to ground zero. Fire engines line the west side arterial roads, empty, their occupants fighting the out-of-control fires on foot. Military vehicles start to appear. The trucks and cars near the center are shattered, crushed, lost in a hail of ash and metal and concrete. New fires start. Smoke billows easterly, against white smoke against the blue sky of our mid-September day. More buildings are burning. Another flaming, 40 story pile falls. We are helpless; we watch. Cars are burning. Mercury from a million fluorescent lights, PCBs from miles of electrical components, dioxin from football fields of synthetic carpets and miles of PVC piping placed throughout the complex, a toxic, now gray soup belching from the flaming, collapsing hulks. It is as if the city has lost its arms, and is staring blankly at where they used to be, finding flaming, smoking voids in their stead. Michael McDonough New York City 9/11 # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 13 12:16:45 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:16:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] No Enemies and in Mourning Message-ID: <01091312164504.01568@sweety.sarai.kit> Apologies for Cross Posting to those on Nettime ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Plane crashes Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 20:43:18 +0200 From: Gabriel Pickard To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net Just some quick thoughts that i had: Right away, when i heard about this news, i relativated it. "Well yes, of course it's dreadful, but we have to look, analyse the background of it all..." But i now believe that if we do not give in to that, the divide will become even stronger. Ever since Genoa, i have had the feeling that fear is there 'again'. Or something like that. I feel some conection to Genoa. We are now in the queer situation - how to react to the crushing and humiliating of entities that we deeply are opposed to. Mourn thyne enemies death? But they are not dead! certainly not. And that is why we _must_ forward peace with all the might we have. We do not have enemies! We don't want enemies. Otherwise (or even if we do our best): "cast into hell satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls" -- a "catholic prayer" - "Special Prayer - Attac on the US" I want no _such_ prayers! This "crash" will have many consequences. Yet, in a way, it will roll over the people like a breaker. And then seep in to build a picture. Let us help make this picture point to a better future. Mourning, GAbriel -- ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ° ----------------------------------------- http://www.demokratica.org Kooperate! ----------------------------------------- # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From ravis at sarai.net Thu Sep 13 12:41:01 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:41:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] hate Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20010913123948.00aa61a8@pop3.norton.antivirus> I got this from the new york times. Brings back memories of what life was like here in 1993 after the Babri Masjid demolition. ravi RELATIONS Arabs and Muslims Steer Through an Unsettling Scrutiny By SOMINI SENGUPTA On a quiet block in Brooklyn Heights yesterday, a small cluster of men and boys gathered inside a mosque for afternoon prayers. Outside, a man drove past slowly and yelled, "Murderers." In Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, during the peak late-morning shopping hours, just a few women visited stores in their long gowns and veils. Usually, on such a sunny morning, they would have been everywhere. But word had gone out across the country for women in hijab, as the identifying veil is called in Arabic, to stay in. At Bellevue Hospital Center, a Muslim father from New Jersey trolled for news of his 25-year-old son, last seen Tuesday morning on his way to work on the 103rd floor of 1 World Trade Center. And as a Sikh man was trying to flee Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, he found himself running not only from flames, but also from a trio of men yelling invective about his turban. The lives of ordinary Arab- and Muslim-Americans and surprisingly, those who are neither Arab nor Muslim but look to untutored American eyes as if they might be were roiled in these ways. American Muslim groups, vastly more integrated into American society today than they were at the time of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, were swift to denounce the terrorist acts. Around the country, interfaith prayer meetings have already been held in several cities, including one in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, last night, with Muslim leaders joining other clergy members to voice support for the victims. A coalition of Muslim advocacy groups in Washington exhorted Muslim doctors to aid victims and urged Muslim-Americans to donate blood. They urged mosques to take extra security measures and encouraged "those who wear Islamic attire" to consider staying clear of public areas. Some mosques closed their doors out of fear. The Islamic Center of Irving, a mosque in suburban Dallas, had its windows shattered by gunshots. One mosque in San Francisco found on its doorsteps a bag of what appeared to be blood. And in Alexandria, Va., a vandal threw two bricks through the windows of an Islamic bookstore; handwritten notes with anti-Muslim sentiments were found attached to the bricks. While Muslims' lives were clearly changed, also changed were the lives of people who had nothing to do with the Islamic world but who might appear alien to untutored American eyes. Indian women chose not to wear their flowing, pajama-tunic outfits. Sikh men, with their religiously prescribed beards and turbans, reported being accosted. They said they were apparently being mistaken as followers of Osama bin Laden, pictured on television with a turban of a different sort. In Providence, R.I., yesterday, a Sikh man in a turban was pulled off a Boston-to- Washington train by the police. In Richmond Hill, Queens, one Sikh man was beaten with a baseball bat; two others were shot at with a paint- ball gun. Police arrested two men. "Quite frankly, it's worse for us because they keep showing these pictures of bin Laden on television wearing a turban," said Mandeep Dhillon, a lawyer in Menlo Park, Calif., and an advocate for Sikh rights. "It's making us incredibly vulnerable." Amrik Singh Chawla, a financial services consultant who was chased by the three men in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, sprinted onto a train and landed in Brooklyn, where he slipped into a shop, stuffed his turban into his briefcase and wore his hair in a ponytail for the rest of the day. "I'm like terrified for my life now, not just seeing people flying out of buildings, but for my own life," Mr. Chawla said. In New York, police officers stood sentry outside many mosques. The most popular Arab and Muslim shopping strips one along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, another along Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens were lined with police. Outside a mosque on Steinway Street late yesterday morning, a man stood with a homemade placard that read, "Get out of our country." At a makeshift memorial at Union Square, a spat broke out over a favorable comment about Islam. Nowhere was the apprehension of ordinary Arab and Muslim New Yorkers as apparent as it was yesterday at the offices of the Arab- American Family Service Center in Cobble Hill. Its executive director, Emira Habiby-Browne, a Palestinian-American, had yanked the group's name off the front door early Tuesday morning. Yesterday afternoon, she had bolted all the doors that led to her office and holed up inside with a legal pad and a telephone. Two kinds of calls came in, she said. There were threats. One man said, for instance, "You should all die for what you've done to my country." There were requests for guidance. An Arab woman called, wanting to donate blood but afraid to step outside in her traditional hijab. Another stopped by the office, bewildered about how to speak to the parents of her son's friends or what to tell him about how to handle himself. Ms. Habiby-Browne spent much of the afternoon lining up her staff to head out to schools with large numbers of Arab children. Even her staff psychologist was wary of coming in. "My concern is the children when they go back to school," she said. "I don't know if they'll know how to respond." Indeed, she was already weary trying to come up with the right things to say. She had said them all before during the gulf war, during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, in the days after Oklahoma City. "Has anybody thought about the Arabs who work in the World Trade Center?" she wondered aloud. "This is a community like any other community. They vote. They pay taxes." Her throat was running dry at this point. "Arab-Americans who are here chose to be here." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010913/58be5e6b/attachment.html From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 13 15:55:05 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 15:55:05 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Digital Reality by Shannon Message-ID: <01091315550500.02184@sweety.sarai.kit> A telling comment on the nature of our times, a posting from Nettime by someone called Shannon Read and Ponder Shuddha ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: adjust and proceed Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 22:05:32 -0700 From: sn To: Greetings, Let me describe what I do for financial gain: I am a digital efx artist working in the film industry. By default. I've been doing this type of work for ten years. I work in what we call "cliented sessions" often where those involved in production sit at my side as I coax and prod them as they coax and prod me to produce digitally manipulated film images. Fairly standard. I had been working on the opening title sequence for a Michael Douglas film called "Don't Say a Word" on and off for the past six months. We had finally "finalized" the opening title sequence last week. There is an emergency session tomorrow morning. I will be coaxed and prodded to digitally remove the World Trade Center towers from two sequences within this main title opening. It will take me about the same time to do it as it did two jet planes to do it in real time for real. I am despondent. shannon # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com Fri Sep 14 00:43:22 2001 From: rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com (rehan ansari) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:13:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Some of my September, 11th 2001 Message-ID: <20010913191322.6705.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> On Tuesday, September 11--> By: Rehan Ansari September 13,2001 I woke up this morning to an absolutely gorgeous blue day outside my window in Brooklyn, New York and hysterical voices over the television. As I got out of my room, a housemate, Mark, walked in and said the World Trade Center Towers were burning and one of them had collapsed. I went with him to the television screaming in his room and within minutes saw the other twin tower give way. The event on the screen was so filmi, it didn't register. The doorbell rang frantically. It was Gabriel, a young woman asking for Heidi, another housemate. They both work for the mayor's office and September 11 being municipal election day, they were supervising polling booths and assigned Wall St. She had seen the WTC burning and had immediately started moving away from the area. She walked from Fulton Street in the financial district over the Brooklyn Bridge to this house in Fort Greene in Brooklyn (a walk that should been an hour-long stroll in normal circumstances). She was intensely worried that Heidi had not come back nor phoned her safety. Since the time she had left the area, the 110 storey buildings had essentially collapsed on everybody on Wall St. After letting a cup of tea compose me, I walked out of the house to a nearby park which gives a panoramic view of south Manhattan from across the East River. It was still a perfectly blue sky and the Fort Greene neighbourhood, a remarkable example of mid 19th century domestic architecture, as beautiful as ever. The highest point in the park has The Martyr' s Monument, a symbolic tomb of 11,500 men who died on British prison ships during the Revolutionary War. From the vantage point of the monument I saw a huge plume of black and brown smoke rising from where the WTC stood. The plume was going straight up in the air. I went back to the house to call everybody that I knew who was working in Manhattan. As I got in another co-worker of Heidi showed up, sweating profusely and covered with soot, asking if she made it back. We went inside and Chazz told me of the scene at the Brooklyn Bridge: people walking in unbroken numbers from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Paper was flying everywhere, burnt currency and, most of all, legal-sized paper. He swore some of the ash that was falling was human remains. He also asked where I was from. When I told him I was from Pakistan in New York for the summer he said, gently, that the xenophobia is going to begin and I better keep my face and accent from the streets. By the end of the day, with the media painting a picture in the face of unclaimed responsibility - somehow bin Ladin's operatives were more and more visible to surveillance and leaving trails everywhere as the day progressed, whereas they were invisible over the course of the planning of this incredible operation - I had shaved off my beard. From aiindex at mnet.fr Fri Sep 14 05:01:39 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 00:31:39 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] CALL FOR PAPERS: Futures of World Literatures and Literacies Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS: Futures of World Literatures and Literacies The Fifth Annual International Red River Conference on World Literature and the Fifth Annual Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing invite proposals for a joint conference, "Futures of World Literatures and Literacies:" April 25-28, 2002 North Dakota State University Fargo ND, USA Deadline for submission of proposals: November 30, 2001. The conference is being sponsored by the Department of English, North Dakota State University, Fargo ND, 58105. Proposals (300 words) for RRCWL should be directed to Kevin Brooks; proposals for GPACW should be directed to Elizabeth Birmingham. Please include your name, complete mailing address, and e-mail address. Proposals for panels must include an abstract for each presenter, as well as names, addresses, and e-mail addresses of all participants. Email and online submissions are welcome, but please include postal addresses. Send inquiries to: Kevin_Brooks at ndsu.nodak.edu or Elizabeth_Birmingham at ndsu.nodak.edu. The RRCWL and GPACW conferences will run concurrently; sessions within each conference will run consecutively. Featured speakers will be shared by both conferences. While we are particularly interested in proposals that address the conference theme, papers on all aspects of world literature and computers and writing will be considered. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: * New writers, new readers, re-readings, and new interests in literary and literacy studies. * Globalization and its impact on literature and literacy. * The future of oral and literate traditions. * The future (of the) human/body/text. * Neocolonialism, postcolonialism, and the shaping of world literatures and literacy practices. * Hybridity, difference, and commonality in global culture and online. * Curricular changes and innovations-world literature and electronic literacy courses in institutional contexts. * Hypertext, film, new media-what will literature and literacy become in the future? * Teaching in the 21st century: pedagogy and practice in world literature and e-literacies. * Access to and accessibility of world literatures and technologies of literacy. Featured Speakers Carolyn Guyer is author of the hypertext Quibbling, essays on writing in the new millennium, co-author with Michael Joyce of Lasting Image, and co-ordinator of the Mother Millennia Project-an online collection of stories about mothers from around the world. Cass Dalglish, Professor of English, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, and author of Nin, a novel which uncovers and recovers the writings of women from Sumerian tablets to the World Wide Web. Geoffrey Sirc, Horace T. Morse Distinguished Teaching Professor in Composition, University of Minnesota, is author of "Never Mind the Tagmemics, Where's the Sex Pistols" and many other essays. He works in composition, broadly defined, especially where art, technology, voice, and writing intersect. His book, _Composition as a Happening II_, will be published by NCTE. International scholars, including Canadians, are invited to apply for travel funds generously donated by the President of North Dakota State University. Go to http://www.ndsu.edu/RRCWL for further details about the conference. From jskohli at fig.org Thu Sep 13 01:18:40 2001 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 01:18:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [2600] DMCA Sequel:The SSSCA and its potential effects References: <3B9D181B.F6CC901@fig.org> Message-ID: <3B9FBC18.859F8E97@fig.org> Ideas: The SSSCA and its potential effects Sep 11, 2001, 16 :00 UTC (20 Talkback[s]) (3824 reads) Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) writes: 14:46 10/09/2001 This document is licensed under the GNU FDL Over here at Plastic I just read about the latest offering from the U.S. Congress. It's called the SSSCA, and it's brought to you by Sen. Fritz Hollings (for those of you informed about the DMCA, you know who he is). I'm not going to get into the details of what it is supposed to do and what it really does. I'm just going to dissect the possible effects of the law: 1. It will make free software in (at least) the domain of operating systems illegal. Yes, no more Linux. Why? Because a DRM scheme like the proposal for the SSSCA requires operating system-level support. And obviously, no self-respecting Linux advocate is going to write support for it. 16% of the global computer users will be left in the dark or forced to shell out the money for a license for an encumbered and government-approved operating system. Global? Isn't the law only valid in the States? Think again: first, the U.S. tends to export policy, technology and law to other countries, especially third-world ones. Second, most PC manufacturers (no matter their resistance to it) probably won't be able to afford to differentiate markets and will ship computers with the same restrictions to other parts of the globe. 2. It will make many DIY modifications to hardware illegal. You might stumble on a modification you really need, and upon performing it you might accidentally or intentionally disable the DRM scheme. 3. It will close access to and sharing of many of your electronic documents.As the tendency of the software industry goes, many a file format will be SSSCA-DRM enabled, and I bet you will have problems distributing your information or restoring it from backups. Even if you don't have problems, DRM will make the task of restoring backups cumbersome. 4. It will make anonymous speech nearly impossible. Since most of the file formats will be DRM-enabled, your information will be timestamped and associated with your personal creation ID. That is, if the scheme enforces personal IDs, which are required for a workable and enforceable DRM solution. So everywhere someone enjoys (or regrets) something you worked on, you can be sure he/she'll know you were involved. 5. It will outlaw many fair uses we know and enjoy. Look at Dmitry Skylarov. A tool for fair use enforcement is now deemed illegal. Continuing this trend, we should begin jailing Smith & Wesson employees (for the record and in interest of full disclosure, I am a strong advocate of people arming and defending themselves). 6. It will make unsanctioned content akin to pirate or outlaw content. Perhaps the most chilling effect that the SSSCA will have on free speech is that unsanctioned (read: not DRM-licensed but freely authored or in free-to-use formats) speech will be seen by future generations as something to run away from, surrounded by an aura of forbidden and bad, behavior that surely will be instituted by megacorporations, such as Disney, that are sponsoring the SSSCA. This can be expected, since the RIAA tried it with its "Home taping is killing music" propaganda campaign in the 1970's. It's in every media mogul's agenda. 7. It will stifle innovation, create entry barriers for small inventors and ensure megacorporation technology control, and widen the digital divide. The integration of the mandatory DRM technology will drive up the costs of hardware development, manufacture and distribution. This will ensure that low-capital startups will endure hard times, while guaranteeing market dominance for huge corporations who can afford to revamp their product lines. The same problem will be experienced in smaller countries who will have a larger barrier of entry into the U.S. market. I held some hope until today. Now I'm convinced that our grandchildren will enjoy the Right to read (TM) future. You can find the original and revised document at: http://www.usm.edu.ec/~amadorm/ -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs. From geert at xs4all.nl Fri Sep 14 02:51:34 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 07:21:34 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Jon Carroll: Thinking the unthinkable Message-ID: <01fe01c13ca2$dededac0$c900000a@bigpond.com> Thinking the unthinkable Jon Carroll Thursday, September 13, 2001 2001 San Francisco Chronicle URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/13 /DD176316.DTL WE ARE NOW pledged to destroy those responsible for Tuesday's terrorist attacks and those who "harbor" them. It is probable that the "harboring" refers to a government that has, by active support or merely by failure to act, allowed these thugs to operate unmolested within its borders. So we begin the scenarios. We say, "What if . . ." and move from there. Many are already doing it, because they are trained to do it or because they find it a useful distraction from grief. So suppose the culprit is Osama bin Laden. Suppose the nation in question is Afghanistan. What precisely have we have committed ourselves to do? Surely not merely more air strikes -- the Gulf War made us feel good for a while, and then it made us feel bad about feeling good, and still the same guy is in power and, as always, ordinary citizens are the ones suffering. That is partly Saddam's fault, but it is partly our fault too, because we wanted to have a war without having a war. I do not think, morally or strategically, that a warless war would work in Afghanistan. Even if we managed to hit bin Laden's SUV as it zigzagged from Kandahar to Gardez, the Taliban would remain in place. If we allowed the Taliban to remain in place, we would be breaking our own promise. Getting rid of the blight of the Taliban would be a service to the world. Its perversion of the ancient and noble religion of Islam, its attacks on personal freedoms, its indifference to suffering make it a coven of tin-pot Pol Pots. Good riddance; hard riddance. THAT MEANS A land war in Asia. History suggests that this is not a wise idea, because Asia usually wins a land war in Asia. Ask the Russians about Afghanistan; they had a common border and still managed to make a botch of it. We have no such border. Where would our staging areas be? Russia, remarkably, is perhaps our strongest friend in this particular fight; Putin's tearful message of support indicates precisely how weird the world has become. The common border is no more -- Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are there now. These are not exactly nations that scream "appropriate infrastructure." Also bordering Afghanistan are Iran and Pakistan, who are, well, not our little buddies. Indeed, the whole question of allies is a little dodgy. We've been in a yearlong Father-knows-best mode with the world community, trashing the ABM treaty, ignoring the Kyoto accord, boycotting the Durban conference. Our arrogance is much noted in Europe. How many British or French or German soldiers might be available to help us on our quest against harborers? People who feel suddenly vulnerable always wish they'd been a little nicer to their neighbors. BUT SUPPOSE THIS: Osama bin Laden moves his traveling bad-medicine show to Pakistan. Who, then, becomes the harboring nation? If it's Pakistan, then our friend India would be more than happy to get involved in toppling the regime. But if India got involved, then China would get involved, because China is certainly not interested in having the balance of terror between India and Pakistan resolved in either direction. Of course, before that there would be a flurry of conversations and a cascade of ever-more-difficult decisions. But if diplomatic solutions were not found, we'd have something like a world war. Our skills at diplomacy have faltered as our skills at intelligence have decayed. The virtues of speaking the language and understanding the culture have been replaced by the virtues of working the bureaucracy and telling Washington what it wants to hear. This is not a partisan issue; the Foreign Service corps has been on the decline for two decades under five administrations. It didn't seem to matter, because we were so strong we didn't need to be smart. Looking at the scenarios, I hope we can find some smart pills real darn quick. From aiindex at mnet.fr Fri Sep 14 05:02:01 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 00:32:01 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Slavoj Zizek - WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL! Message-ID: Unverified from Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL! Slavoj Zizek The ultimate American paranoiac fantasy is that of an individual living in a small idyllic Californian city, a consumerist paradise, who suddenly starts to suspect that the world he lives in is a fake, a spectacle staged to convince him that he lives in a real world, while all people around him are effectively actors and extras in a gigantic show. The most recent example of this is Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998), with Jim Carrey playing the small town clerk who gradually discovers the truth that he is the hero of a 24-hours permanent TV show: his hometown is constructed on a gigantic studio set, with cameras following him permanently. Among its predecessors, it is worth mentioning Philip Dick's Time Out of Joint (1959), in which a hero living a modest daily life in a small idyllic Californian city of the late 50s, gradually discovers that the whole town is a fake staged to keep him satisfied... The underlying experience of Time Out of Joint and of The Truman Show is that the late capitalist consumerist Californian paradise is, in its very hyper-reality, in a way IRREAL, substanceless, deprived of the material inertia. So it is not only that Hollywood stages a semblance of real life deprived of the weight and inertia of materiality - in the late capitalist consumerist society, "real social life" itself somehow acquires the features of a staged fake, with our neighbors behaving in "real" life as stage actors and extras... Again, the ultimate truth of the capitalist utilitarian de-spiritualized universe is the de-materialization of the "real life" itself, its reversal into a spectral show. Among them, Christopher Isherwood gave expression to this unreality of the American daily life, exemplified in the motel room: "American motels are unreal!/.../ they are deliberately designed to be unreal. /.../ The Europeans hate us because we've retired to live inside our advertisements, like hermits going into caves to contemplate." Peter Sloterdijk's notion of the "sphere" is here literally realized, as the gigantic metal sphere that envelopes and isolates the entire city. Years ago, a series of science-fiction films like Zardoz or Logan's Run forecasted today's postmodern predicament by extending this fantasy to the community itself: the isolated group living an aseptic life in a secluded area longs for the experience of the real world of material decay. The Wachowski brothers' hit Matrix (1999) brought this logic to its climax: the material reality we all experience and see around us is a virtual one, generated and coordinated by a gigantic mega-computer to which we are all attached; when the hero (played by Keanu Reeves) awakens into the "real reality," he sees a desolate landscape littered with burned ruins - what remained of Chicago after a global war. The resistance leader Morpheus utters the ironic greeting: "Welcome to the desert of the real." Was it not something of the similar order that took place in New York on September 11? Its citizens were introduced to the "desert of the real" - to us, corrupted by Hollywood, the landscape and the shots we saw of the collapsing towers could not but remind us of the most breathtaking scenes in the catastrophe big productions. When we hear how the bombings were a totally unexpected shock, how the unimaginable Impossible happened, one should recall the other defining catastrophe from the beginning of the XXth century, that of Titanic: it was also a shock, but the space for it was already prepared in ideological fantasizing, since Titanic was the symbol of the might of the XIXth century industrial civilization. Does the same not hold also for these bombings? Not only were the media bombarding us all the time with the talk about the terrorist threat; this threat was also obviously libidinally invested - just recall the series of movies from Escape From New York to Independence Day. The unthinkable which happened was thus the object of fantasy: in a way, America got what it fantasized about, and this was the greatest surprise. It is precisely now,when we are dealing with the raw Real of a catastrophe, that we should bear in mind the ideological and fantasmatic coordinates which determine its perception. If there is any symbolism in the collapse of the WTC towers, it is not so much the old-fashioned notion of the "center of financial capitalism," but, rather, the notion that the two WTC towers stood for the center of the VIRTUAL capitalism, of financial speculations disconnected from the sphere of material production. The shattering impact of the bombings can only be accounted for only against the background of the borderline which today separates the digitalized First World from the Third World "desert of the Real." It is the awareness that we live in an insulated artificial universe which generates the notion that some ominous agent is threatening us all the time with total destruction. Is, consequently, Osama Bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the bombings, not the real-life counterpart of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the master-criminal in most of the James Bond films, involved in the acts of global destruction. What one should recall here is that the only place in Hollywood films where we see the production process in all its intensity is when James Bond penetrates the master-criminal's secret domain and locates there the site of intense labor (distilling and packaging the drugs, constructing a rocket that will destroy New York...). When the master-criminal, after capturing Bond, usually takes him on a tour of his illegal factory, is this not the closest Hollywood comes to the socialist-realist proud presentation of the production in a factory? And the function of Bond's intervention, of course, is to explode in firecraks this site of production, allowing us to return to the daily semblance of our existence in a world with the "disappearing working class." Is it not that, in the exploding WTC towers, this violence directed at the threatening Outside turned back at us? The safe Sphere in which Americans live is experienced as under threat from the Outside of terrorist attackers who are ruthlessly self-sacrificing AND cowards, cunningly intelligent AND primitive barbarians. Whenever we encounter such a purely evil Outside, we should gather the courage to endorse the Hegelian lesson: in this pure Outside, we should recognize the distilled version of our own essence. For the last five centuries, the (relative) prosperity and peace of the "civilized" West was bought by the export of ruthless violence and destruction into the "barbarian" Outside: the long story from the conquest of America to the slaughter in Congo. Cruel and indifferent as it may sound, we should also, now more than ever, bear in mind that the actual effect of these bombings is much more symbolic than real. The US just got the taste of what goes on around the world on a daily basis, from Sarajevo to Grozny, from Rwanda and Congo to Sierra Leone. If one adds to the situation in New York snipers and gang rapes,one gets an idea about what Sarajevo was a decade ago. It is when we watched on TV screen the two WTC towers collapsing, that it became possible to experience the falsity of the "reality TV shows": even if this shows are "for real," people still act in them - they simply play themselves. The standard disclaimer in a novel ("characters in this text are a fiction, every resemblance with the real life characters is purely contingent") holds also for the participants of the reality soaps: what we see there are fictional characters, even if they play themselves for the real. Of course, the "return to the Real" can be given different twists: Rightist commentators like George Will also immediately proclaimed the end of the American "holiday from history" - the impact of reality shattering the isolated tower of the liberal tolerant attitude and the Cultural Studies focus on textuality. Now, we are forced to strike back, to deal with real enemies in the real world... However, WHOM to strike? Whatever the response, it will never hit the RIGHT target, bringing us full satisfaction. The ridicule of America attacking Afghanistan cannot but strike the eye: if the greatest power in the world will destroy one of the poorest countries in which peasant barely survive on barren hills, will this not be the ultimate case of the impotent acting out? There is a partial truth in the notion of the "clash of civilizations" attested here -witness the surprise of the average American: "How is it possible that these people have such a disregard for their own lives?" Is not the obverse of this surprise the rather sad fact that we, in the First World countries, find it more and more difficult even to imagine a public or universal Cause for which one would be ready to sacrifice one's life? When, after the bombings, even the Taliban foreign minister said that he can "feel the pain" of the American children, did he not thereby confirm the hegemonic ideological role of this Bill Clinton's trademark phrase? Furthermore, the notion of America as a safehaven, of course, also is a fantasy: when a New Yorker commented on how, after the bombings, one can no longer walk safely on the city's streets, the irony of it was that, well before the bombings, the streets of New York were well-known for the dangers of being attacked or, at least, mugged - if anything, the bombings gave rise to a new sense of solidarity, with the scenes of young African-Americans helping an old Jewish gentlemen to cross the street, scenes unimaginable a couple of days ago. Now, in the days immediately following the bombings, it is as if we dwell in the unique time between a traumatic event and its symbolic impact, like in those brief moment after we are deeply cut, and before the full extent of the pain strikes us - it is open how the events will be symbolized, what their symbolic efficiency will be, what acts they will be evoked to justify. Even here, in these moments of utmost tension, this link is not automatic but contingent. There are already the first bad omens; the day after the bombing, I got a message from a journal which was just about to publish a longer text of mine on Lenin, telling me that they decided to postpone its publication - they considered in opportune to publish a text on Lenin immediately after the bombing. Does this not point towards the ominous ideological rearticulations which will follow? We don't yet know what consequences in economy, ideology, politics, war, this event will have, but one thing is sure: the US, which, till now, perceived itself as an island exempted from this kind of violence, witnessing this kind of things only from the safe distance of the TV screen, is now directly involved. So the alternative is: will Americans decide to fortify further their "sphere," or to risk stepping out of it? Either America will persist in, strengthen even, the attitude of "Why should this happen to us? Things like this don't happen HERE!", leading to more aggressivity towards the threatening Outside, in short: to a paranoiac acting out. Or America will finally risk stepping through the fantasmatic screen separating it from the Outside World, accepting its arrival into the Real world, making the long-overdued move from "A thing like this should not happen HERE! "to "A thing like this should not happen ANYWHERE!". America's" holiday from history" was a fake: America's peace was bought by the catastrophes going on elsewhere. Therein resides the true lesson of the bombings: the only way to ensure that it will not happen HERE again is to prevent it going on ANYWHERE ELSE. -- From aizura at onlinecide.org Fri Sep 14 12:25:56 2001 From: aizura at onlinecide.org (Aizura) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:55:56 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians Message-ID: Hello all -- this is my first post to this list. The below was forwarded to me this morning... sorry about all the forwarding marks and bad wrapping. Aizura Hankin Melbourne, Australia http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=63288&group=webcast > >CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians to manipulate you (english) >by Marcio 10:32pm Wed Sep 12 '01 > > > . >I'd like to add some ideas from here, down south. >There's an important point in the power of press, specifically the >power of CNN. > >All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, >and one of them - as you well know - is CNN. Very well, I guess all of >you have been seeing (just as I've been) images from this company. In >particular, one set of images called my attencion: the Palestinians >celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating some cake and making >funny faces for the camera. > >Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! Those are images of >Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait! It's simply >unacceptable that a super-power of cumminications as CNN uses images >which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious an >issue. > >A teacher of mine, here in Brazil, has videotapes recorded in 1991, with >the very same images; he's been sending emails to CNN, Globo (the major >TV network in Brazil) and newspapers, denouncing what I myself classify >as a crime against the public opinion. If anyone of you has access to >this kind of files, serch for it. In the meanwhile, I'll try to 'put my >hands' on a copy of this tape. > > But now, think >for a moment about the impact of such images. Your people > is hurt, >emotionally fragile, and this kind broadcast have very high > possibility of >causing waves of anger and rage against Palestinians. > It's simply >irresponsible to show images such as those. > > Finally, I'd >like to say that we all regret and condemn all that has > happened in the >last days; but Nikos has a point here. I really don't > want to be >misunderstood here, but the truth is that US government had > shown no respect >for other countries in the last decades. In the 60s and > 70s they had >halped lots of military coups throughout the world > (including >Brazil in 64). Later, with Reagan and Bush Father, the > Washington >Consensus have been demolishing the bases of our economies, > making us more >and more dependant (and, many of us, prehocupied with > this situation). > > Your current >president quickly made things worse: Kioto Protocol, Star > Wars, Colombia >Plan, the exchange of rain forest for pieces of external > debt, tha >abandonment of the position of third party in negotiations > between IRA and >England, and between Palestinians and Israel. All those > mistakes in US >external politics made your country more hatred than > before, and, of >course, more vulnerable. > > Listen, I'm NOT >justifying the terrorist actions that took place in your > country; but it >seems to me that, if your leaders had come along another > path of thoughts >and actions, you wouldn't be suffering what you are > now. > > Best regards, >and the hope that everything is resolved for the best of > all of us > > Márcio A. V. Carvalho > State University >of Campinas - Brazil From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Fri Sep 14 19:41:42 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:11:42 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians References: <3BA20CE2.1C6B797D@t-online.de> Message-ID: <3BA21010.BD392B0C@t-online.de> philip pocock wrote: > > > Aizura wrote: > >> >CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians to manipulate >> you (english) >> >by Marcio 10:32pm Wed Sep 12 '01 >> > >> >Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! > >> If anyone of you has access to >> >this kind of files, serch for it. In the meanwhile, I'll try to >> 'put my >> >hands' on a copy of this tape. > > to be taken seriously, and this is very serious, one must have access > and proof before accusing. in open societies, one is innocent until > proven guilty. it does not always work in reality, very often not, and > the us is by far no exception, but a person such as yourself who > obviously cares about human rights should respect enough such basic > rights to wait until there is proof enough to make an uppercase > accusation in email. it is very disappointing to read such outlandish > accusatory statements. > > you undermine the credibility, now and future, of all those who > question honestly and professionally, cnn and any other arrogant > supermedia power for that matter. i hope you respect us here enough > not to burden our net way of mailing list news with junk like so many > tv networks. and surely there are many competitor broadcasters aside > from warner/aol who would be elated to tarnish cnn's reputation, and > use unscrupulously such an opportunity you offer with but a shred of > evidence to sink the believability figures of cnn.. why have they not > responded when your teacher informed the media community where such > tips travel fast? > you wrote indirectly for your correspondent: >> he's been sending emails to CNN, Globo (the major >> TV network in Brazil) and newspapers, denouncing what I myself classify >> as a crime against the public opinion. If anyone of you has access to >> this kind of files, serch for it. In the meanwhile, I'll try to 'put my >> hands' on a copy of this tape. > > doesnt sound like UPPERCASE proof to a thoughtful reader, even those > who hope you are right for some intolerant reason. > > the way to avoid war is to be free, and freedom is a mixture of > tolerance and responsibility, nothing more, unless it becomes a sort > of drug. if each acts and is free, then such statements, unfounded, > not even 50% founded, are unfree and cause hate, chaos, confusion and > that unfolds into oppression, intolerance, and war. we are each a cell > and if we are free cells, the more we are in number, like a virus or > tolerance and opennnes, starting from single cells as small as the > increments in calculus, all the more virulently open and tolerant and > responsible things will get, then war will be if not superfluous, less > of a threat. > > i am sure you are like us all just vertiginously consciuous > considering the gravity of the planet pulling on us all, so i do > understand your hastiness, but let us be more contemplative and send > each other love, and not point fingers without respect for all rights. > > > From henk at waag.org Fri Sep 14 21:52:56 2001 From: henk at waag.org (Henk) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:22:56 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] 'Terrorism': India's New 'Strategic' Chance? Message-ID: <20010914182256.S1062@waag.org> The following article is from the Transnational Institute website: http://www.tni.org/. All articles mentioned below are accesible from our home page at http://www.tni.org. Please check our website for additional links and statements. Regards, Henk (besides sysadmin at the Society for old and new media also sysadmin at TNI Amsterdam office). ========================================================================= - TNI fellow Mariano Aguirre: In his article "An Attack Against Politics and Democracy" Aguirre writes on the consequences that terrorism brings to politics and democracy. Available in English and Spanish. - TNI fellow Praful Bidwai: Two of Praful Bidwai's articles have been reproduced for this edition of TNI- News. The first, "Counter-terror Won't Work" is a plea for the United States to practice restraint and avoid unilateral retaliation; the second, "'Terrorism': India's New 'Strategic' Chance?" encourages India to condemn all types of terrorism. - TNI Senior Fellow Saul Landau: Writing from inside the United States, Saul Landau offers in "The day after" some critical comments on the issues of terrorism and US policy. - Also, a transcription of an ZNet interview with TNI Fellow Phyllis Bennis is available through our website. - Some reflections from TNI Communications Officer, Antonio Carmona Baez. ========================================================================== 'Terrorism': India's New 'Strategic' Chance? Praful Bidwai - TNI Fellow InterPress Service, 13 September 2001 The terrible tragedy that struck the United States with attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon has evoked a rush of genuine popular sympathy and heartfelt concern in India. Ordinary citizens with no special connection to the US are as horrified at the awesome magnitude of the violence and loss of innocent lives as the 1.5 million middle and upper class Indian families who have close relatives settled in America, some of whom are bound to be among the victims of the attacks. This sentiment finds resonance in the stances and attitudes of Indian policy-makers as these are emerging now. But many policy-makers and -shapers also see in the unfolding tragedy a chance to advance their own agenda: of winning support for the special and long-standing Indian preoccupation with "terrorism", and on that basis, forging a special relationship of proximity and "partnership" with the US, to the exclusion of (and at the expense of) Pakistan. The Cabinet of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee met within a few hours of the New York attacks. Vajpayee has since despatched a letter to President Bush, expressing horror at the New York and Washington attacks. This is noteworthy for its emphasis on the "terrible reminder" of the "destructive power of terrorism" globally, and of the need to combat it in all its forms. Equally significant is India's offer of full cooperation in identifying, tracking down and bringing to book the concerned terrorists. Home Minister Advani, known for his hardline Right-wing views, says the US attacks "vindicate" his government's stand that "terrorism" is the "greatest" and "biggest" problem facing many countries, in particular India. In a television interview, Advani dropped enough hints about special or unique "threats" from "Islamic terrorism". Equally important is the tone adopted by influential Indian policy-makers and-shapers outside, but close to, the government. In informal and off-the-record conversations, they openly espouse anti- or counter-"terrorism" as the logical plank of a whole new policy approach to "security". In particular, they specifically advocate a "strategic alliance" between India and the US, along with Israel. New Delhi has already resumed its strategic "dialogue" with Washington, which was interrupted by the May 1998 nuclear tests. Last month, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff Sheldon visited India. And, at this very moment, India's National Security Adviser and Vajpayee confidant Brajesh Mishra is on an official visit to Israel to meet his counterpart, Major General Uzi Dayan. This visit may only be a coincidence. But what is not coincidental is Israel's emergence as the Vajpayee government's major partner and adviser in training personnel for "counter-insurgency" operations in Kashmir and in supplying a range of military equipment. It is believed that Israel is already the second largest source of weapons for India. India is now on a buying spree and has doubled its defence spending over the past five years. Just as India attributes the Kashmir crisis largely to "cross- border terrorism" sponsored by Pakistan through support to secessionist militants, Israel too characterises the 11 months-old second intifadah as a revolt by Palestinian "terrorists". Both see their common interest in fighting "Islamic terrorists" and "fundamentalists", although some of the forces behind the insurgency they confront are secular and far from Islamicist, leave alone fundamentalist. However, it is the US that India has been energetically courting in recent years. Once non-aligned, and in fact a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, New Delhi since the mid-1990s has moved towards a close strategic-diplomatic relationship with Washington in keeping with a major change in its economic policy towards neo-liberalism and globalisation. The shift became especially apparent after President Clinton's visit to India in March 2000, and the lifting of most US sanctions imposed after the nuclear blasts. Since then, the two governments have moved closer towards a "strategic partnership", a process that received a big boost when George Bush took over as US president. New Delhi, capitalising on the Republicans' allergy to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (which it itself opposes), sought to introduce a special nuclear aspect into the Indo- US relationship by becoming the first nation to welcome Bush's May 1 speech where he outlined his new strategic plans based on Missile Defence, or a version of "Star Wars". India views the "strategic partnership" as valuable in its own terms: the US is now the world's sole superpower, and faces very little resistance in laying down the line whether as a global gendarme or the world's economic hegemon; India sees alignment with it as a guarantee of success of its own Right-leaning economic policy and strategic orientation. However, India also views this "partnership" through the Pakistan prism--a relationship that will help it isolate its long-standing rival in South Asia and ward off pressure on Kashmir, leaving it free to pursue its strategy of putting down the militancy with a heavy hand. Ever since the militancy erupted 12 years ago, India has been pleading with the US to recognise "terrorism" as a major global menace and as a common platform for a special alliance of "democracies". This is New Delhi's best chance to push that proposal. Or so a number of India's largely hawkish strategic "experts" and policy-makers believe. What they might not reckon with is the long- or middle-term consequences of such an approach, especially if the US links Osama bin Laden and the Taliban to the latest terrorist attacks, and targets Southwest and South Asia as the focus of an interventionist policy to counter and "hunt down" terrorists. Any further proximity between the US and India, with Israel thrown in, is likely to further embitter Pakistan which is an alienated former ally of Washington. Pakistan, used as a "frontline state" during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, is deeply embroiled in the present mess in that failing state, with enormous costs to itself in the form of three million refugees and narcotics trafficking. Pakistan's economy is in deep trouble and its society in the grip of sectarian strife. It could hardly be in India's interest to have an embittered, sullen, disoriented, but nuclearly armed, Pakistan right on its borders. Taunting and humiliating the neighbour, rather than build a healthy, cooperative, confidence-enhancing relationship with it, could prove a highly myopic policy, especially under the tutelage of the US. The US is far from popular in this part of the world because of its past conduct and its present overwhelming clout which is not exercised subtly. New Delhi, then, could come a cropper by pursuing the strategic "partnership" on the basis of a common platform against "terrorism". Copyright 2001 InterPress Service From aiindex at mnet.fr Fri Sep 14 23:23:17 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:53:17 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is actually fake Message-ID: fyi ======== COUNTERPUNCH.ORG reports that the CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is actually fake. Researchers at a Brazillian University have found identical footage from 1991. Also note, it was night-time in Palestine when the news arrived. Please distribute this news widely as that footage is inspiration for a lot of hateful feelings right now. --Naeem Mohaiemen Check out counterpunch's front page: http://www.counterpunch.org http://www.chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4395&group=webcast> From geeta.patel at verizon.net Sat Sep 15 00:25:15 2001 From: geeta.patel at verizon.net (Geeta Patel) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:55:15 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: No Message-ID: <00f601c13d4f$3a620e60$6401a8c0@inteva> ----- Original Message ----- From: Paola Bacchetta To: Geeta Patel ; Anjali Arondekar Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 9:13 AM Subject: Fw: No > > > > > > > ------------------------------------- > > No, Mr. Bush, Not Everyone Wants Bloodshed > > http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11501 > > > > As the calls for war grow louder, a different kind of response has been > building as well: outspoken citizens across the country cautioning against > rash, massive retaliation. > > ------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > From geeta.patel at verizon.net Sat Sep 15 07:44:51 2001 From: geeta.patel at verizon.net (Geeta Patel) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 22:14:51 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] petition Message-ID: <002901c13d8c$7e71fd80$6401a8c0@inteva> ----- Original Message ----- From: Kiran Asher To: Alberto Gaona Cc: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 5:09 PM Subject: Petition against global war and military action ;, Paul Conklin & Becky Marty:;, Benjamin Vivas , Carlos Rosero , charo at io.com, Claire Fontijn , Claudia Aburto Guzman:;, Claudio Padua , Constance Johnson , Dianne Rocheleau , Eastcott/Momatiuk , Ernesto Raez-Luna , Faith Smith , Gary Lawless and Beth Leonard , Geeta Patel , Heidi Rubio:;, Holly Payne:;, Jaime Rivas , Jan Redick , Jim Austin , Joanne Rappaport , Juana Camacho y Carlos Tapia: ;, kate-adams at utulsa.edu, Laura Jackson , Leslie Hill , Libia Grueso , Lisa Huff , Liz Redick , Magda Corredor , Matt Schlobohm , mehreenhosain at hotmail.com, hosain at hosains.freeserve.co.uk, hosainm at ghkint.com, Monica Espinosa:;, Jorge Munera:;, Nina Asher , Noemi Porro , "\"Pablo Leal\" " , Paru Parikh Zaveri , Patrick Rivers , Pilar Escobar , cestquoi at yahoo.com, Pradyumna Gogte , Rhonda Frederick:;, Rizvana Talreja: ;, Ron Harrity , Michelle Rowley , Sada and Anu Warrier:;, "Ghelani, Sandi " , Sara Eoff , Sigrid Vasconez , Tasqueen and Asad , Ulrich Oslender , Uma Asher:;, johnson14 at earthlink.net, Vik and Asha Asher , Vyvyane Loh , zacks at savemail.com, lanmad at yahoo.com, banu at u.arizona.edu, tpowers2 at hotmail.com Petition against global war and military action To sign this petition, 'copy and paste' this message to a new message and send to all the people you know in the "To...", "Cc..." or "Bcc..."box, go to the bottom of the petition and type in your name and then "Send". Remember, don't just hit 'forward'. 'Copy and paste' to avoid getting at the beginning of each line! Think of this petition as having two purposes: one, to get as many copies of it as soon as possible to all governments and especially to The President of the USA at the White House. But this petition can also be used to simply manifest your opposition to war and encourage others to express the same. USA president at whitehouse.gov vice.president at whitehouse.gov first.lady at whitehouse.gov mrs.cheney at whitehouse.gov To find your 2 Senators: http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm To find your Congressperson: http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html For a comprehensive lists ways to contact members of Congress and the President http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ http://www.house.gov/writerep/ http://www.congress.org UK email petitions are not accepted officially by the UK government but due to the urgency of the matter we still hope to show how many people think in the quickest possible way via this email petition. to find out how petitions are dealt with in the UK. http://www.number-10.gov.uk/default.asp?PageID=1990 EUROPE http://www.europarl.eu.int/petition/petition_en.htm to submit your petition for the European Government you have to go to this website, copy and paste the text below and fill in your details. UNITED NATIONS Mr. Kofi Annan Secretary General United Nations Email: ecu at un.org Being a member of our free western human society, in the light of the terrible events in New York and Washington I want to put forward the following demands to all governments in the world, as these are matters concerning the whole planet : 1 AVOID WAR 2 NO TO MILITARY ACTIONS NO MILITARY ACTIONS AGAINST INNOCENT PEOPLE (regardless of their nationality, language, belief, education or origin) DO NOT GO INTO WAR OR START A WAR! (because this is exactly what the terrorists want to achieve) MILITARY RETALIATION DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF FANATISM, BUT INSTEAD FUELS THE ANGER AND DEMANDS "COUNTER"-REVENGE AND PLAYS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE CAUGHT INBETWEEN INTO THE HANDS OF THE TERRORISTS AND THEIR LEADERS. 3 BRING INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE TO the RESPONSIBLE leaders for the terrorist attack 4 ISOLATE THE TERRORISTS WITH THE HELP OF MIDDLE EASTERN GOVERNMENTS 5 UNITED DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS AND FORCEFUL TALKS INSTEAD OF VIOLENCE ARE OF THE UPMOST PRIORITY. I undersign and support above demands: Signed your name and address Francisco Sotres-Bayon (New York) Desiree Gonzalo Diego mier y ter·n (mexico) Kitzia Barrera (mexico) Karen Cordero (Mexico/New York) Carl Good (Atlanta) Marcia Good Maust (South Bend) Kiran Asher (New Jersey, USA) Geeta Patel (Boston USA) =========================================================================== Home Office Institute for Research on Women Kiran Asher State University of NJ at Rutgers 333 Harper Place 160 Ryders Lane Highland Park, NJ 08904-2505 New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8555 (732) 545-4908 Phone: (732) 932-9072, Ext 614 Fax: (732) 932-0891 =========================================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010914/dd775f61/attachment.html From hansathap1 at hotmail.com Sat Sep 15 23:13:35 2001 From: hansathap1 at hotmail.com (Hansa Thapliyal) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 23:13:35 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: cycle of history Message-ID: got this from a friend who has been the other phone end of long disturbed conversations. any idea who the author is? my sister associated the last paragraph with the vigil on the indo pak border she was tellingme about only this evening, before we read this- apparently it happens every year, and the two lots of people are never alowed to go over to the ' other side' but they keep trying. hansa A beautiful poem I got from a friend in response to recent events.. PV September 1, 1939 > > > > > > I sit in one of the dives > > > On Fifty-second Street > > > Uncertain and afraid > > > As the clever hopes expire > > > Of a low dishonest decade: > > > Waves of anger and fear > > > Circulate over the bright > > > And darkened lands of the earth, > > > Obsessing our private lives; > > > The unmentionable odour of death > > > Offends the September night. > > > > > > Accurate scholarship can > > > Unearth the whole offence > > > >From Luther until now > > > That has driven a culture mad, > > > Find what occurred at Linz, > > > What huge imago made > > > A psychopathic god: > > > I and the public know > > > What all schoolchildren learn, > > > Those to whom evil is done > > > Do evil in return. > > > > > > Exiled Thucydides knew > > > All that a speech can say > > > About Democracy, > > > And what dictators do, > > > The elderly rubbish they talk > > > To an apathetic grave; > > > Analysed all in his book, > > > The enlightenment driven away, > > > The habit-forming pain, > > > Mismanagement and grief: > > > We must suffer them all again. > > > > > > Into this neutral air > > > Where blind skyscrapers use > > > Their full height to proclaim > > > The strength of Collective Man, > > > Each language pours its vain > > > Competitive excuse: > > > But who can live for long > > > In an euphoric dream; > > > Out of the mirror they stare, > > > Imperialism's face > > > And the international wrong. > > > > > > Faces along the bar > > > Cling to their average day: > > > The lights must never go out, > > > The music must always play, > > > All the conventions conspire > > > To make this fort assume > > > The furniture of home; > > > Lest we should see where we are, > > > Lost in a haunted wood, > > > Children afraid of the night > > > Who have never been happy or good. > > > > > > The windiest militant trash > > > Important Persons shout > > > Is not so crude as our wish: > > > What mad Nijinsky wrote > > > About Diaghilev > > > Is true of the normal heart; > > > For the error bred in the bone > > > Of each woman and each man > > > Craves what it cannot have, > > > Not universal love > > > But to be loved alone. > > > > > > >From the conservative dark > > > Into the ethical life > > > The dense commuters come, > > > Repeating their morning vow; > > > "I will be true to the wife, > > > I'll concentrate more on my work," > > > And helpless governors wake > > > To resume their compulsory game: > > > Who can release them now, > > > Who can reach the deaf, > > > Who can speak for the dumb? > > > > > > All I have is a voice > > > To undo the folded lie, > > > The romantic lie in the brain > > > Of the sensual man-in-the-street > > > And the lie of Authority > > > Whose buildings grope the sky: > > > There is no such thing as the State > > > And no one exists alone; > > > Hunger allows no choice > > > To the citizen or the police; > > > We must love one another or die. > > > > > > Defenceless under the night > > > Our world in stupor lies; > > > Yet, dotted everywhere, > > > Ironic points of light > > > Flash out wherever the Just > > > Exchange their messages: > > > May I, composed like them > > > Of Eros and of dust, > > > Beleaguered by the same > > > Negation and despair, > > > Show an affirming flame. oops just discovered, it is auden- the famousness does not appeal so much now- also because auden went on to join the fascists? am i wrong onthis- shoudl i have not written this at the end- the poem is heart breakingly - beautiful(sorry for that word) on another list, minstrels at yahoogroups.com this poem appeared with this note appended. The poem (which has long been my favorite in English) speaks for itself. I might just note that in fact, as Auden himself pointed out some years later, we must love one another *and* die; it's a little light-minded to suppose that somehow love conquers mortality. It doesn't, though it can make the knowledge of mortality bearable. -- jvb -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010915/1619a1fe/attachment.html From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Sat Sep 15 23:32:12 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 20:02:12 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: cycle of history References: Message-ID: <3BA397A2.BFEE527@t-online.de> it is a poem by Auden sent to the spectre mailing list by timothy druckrey, a fine media curator/writer living in brooklyn new york Hansa Thapliyal wrote: > got this from a friend who has been the other phone end of long > disturbed conversations.any idea who the author is? my sister > associated the last paragraph with the vigil on the indo pak border > she was tellingme about only this evening, before we read this- > apparently it happens every year, and the two lots of people are never > alowed to go over to the ' other side' but they keep trying.hansa A > beautiful poem I got from a friend in response to recent > events.. PV September 1, 1939 > > > > > > > > I sit in one of the dives > > > > On Fifty-second Street > > > > Uncertain and afraid > > > > As the clever hopes expire > > > > Of a low dishonest decade: > > > > Waves of anger and fear > > > > Circulate over the bright > > > > And darkened lands of the earth, > > > > Obsessing our private lives; > > > > The unmentionable odour of death > > > > Offends the September night. > > > > > > > > Accurate scholarship can > > > > Unearth the whole offence > > > > >From Luther until now > > > > That has driven a culture mad, > > > > Find what occurred at Linz, > > > > What huge imago made > > > > A psychopathic god: > > > > I and the public know > > > > What all schoolchildren learn, > > > > Those to whom evil is done > > > > Do evil in return. > > > > > > > > Exiled Thucydides knew > > > > All that a speech can say > > > > About Democracy, > > > > And what dictators do, > > > > The elderly rubbish they talk > > > > To an apathetic grave; > > > > Analysed all in his book, > > > > The enlightenment driven away, > > > > The habit-forming pain, > > > > Mismanagement and grief: > > > > We must suffer them all again. > > > > > > > > Into this neutral air > > > > Where blind skyscrapers use > > > > Their full height to proclaim > > > > The strength of Collective Man, > > > > Each language pours its vain > > > > Competitive excuse: > > > > But who can live for long > > > > In an euphoric dream; > > > > Out of the mirror they stare, > > > > Imperialism's face > > > > And the international wrong. > > > > > > > > Faces along the bar > > > > Cling to their average day: > > > > The lights must never go out, > > > > The music must always play, > > > > All the conventions conspire > > > > To make this fort assume > > > > The furniture of home; > > > > Lest we should see where we are, > > > > Lost in a haunted wood, > > > > Children afraid of the night > > > > Who have never been happy or good. > > > > > > > > The windiest militant trash > > > > Important Persons shout > > > > Is not so crude as our wish: > > > > What mad Nijinsky wrote > > > > About Diaghilev > > > > Is true of the normal heart; > > > > For the error bred in the bone > > > > Of each woman and each man > > > > Craves what it cannot have, > > > > Not universal love > > > > But to be loved alone. > > > > > > > > >From the conservative dark > > > > Into the ethical life > > > > The dense commuters come, > > > > Repeating their morning vow; > > > > "I will be true to the wife, > > > > I'll concentrate more on my work," > > > > And helpless governors wake > > > > To resume their compulsory game: > > > > Who can release them now, > > > > Who can reach the deaf, > > > > Who can speak for the dumb? > > > > > > > > All I have is a voice > > > > To undo the folded lie, > > > > The romantic lie in the brain > > > > Of the sensual man-in-the-street > > > > And the lie of Authority > > > > Whose buildings grope the sky: > > > > There is no such thing as the State > > > > And no one exists alone; > > > > Hunger allows no choice > > > > To the citizen or the police; > > > > We must love one another or die. > > > > > > > > Defenceless under the night > > > > Our world in stupor lies; > > > > Yet, dotted everywhere, > > > > Ironic points of light > > > > Flash out wherever the Just > > > > Exchange their messages: > > > > May I, composed like them > > > > Of Eros and of dust, > > > > Beleaguered by the same > > > > Negation and despair, > > > > Show an affirming flame. oops just discovered, it is auden- the > famousness does not appeal so much now- also because auden went on to > join the fascists? am i wrong onthis- shoudl i have not written this > at the end- the poem is heart breakingly - beautiful(sorry for that > word)on another list, minstrels at yahoogroups.comthis poem appeared with > this note appended.The poem (which has long been my favorite in > English) speaks for itself. I > might just note that in fact, as Auden himself pointed out some years > later, > we must love one another *and* die; it's a little light-minded to > suppose > that somehow love conquers mortality. It doesn't, though it can make > the > knowledge of mortality bearable. > > -- jvb > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010915/126e15cb/attachment.html From hansathap1 at hotmail.com Sat Sep 15 23:35:24 2001 From: hansathap1 at hotmail.com (Hansa Thapliyal) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 23:35:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] apology Message-ID: for those of you who might have read the auden poem, i am sorry for my remark about the poet at the end- i realised later it was ezra pound not auden, who supported the fascists in spain- and that is all i know of that as a repeated add on note in literature anthologies in college- truly sorry, because i was moved by the poem, and should have verified- the poem made for a rich joint reading among us siblings- the writing needed reflection! hansa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010915/2e7a874b/attachment.html From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Sat Sep 15 23:46:57 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 20:16:57 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is actually fake References: Message-ID: <3BA39B17.1AE7B834@t-online.de> Harsh Kapoor wrote: > COUNTERPUNCH.ORG reports that the CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is > actually fake. ... Please distribute this news widely > Check out counterpunch's front page: > http://www.counterpunch.org i did check out this page and you ought to be ashamed for recommending such hogwash! here is a couple of paragraphs from that page you recemmend as 'news' i am adding CAPITAL LETTERS to parts for emphasis: If Holywood rules necessitate a short, sharp war against the new enemy, the AMERICAN CAESAR would be best-advised not to insist on Pakistani legions. The consequences could be dire: a brutal and vicious civil war creating more bitterness and encouraging more acts of individual terrorism. Islamabad will do everything to prevent a military expedition to Afghanistan. For one thing there are Pakistani soldiers, pilots and officers present in Kabul, Bagram and other bases. What will be their orders this time and will they obey them? Much more likely is that OSSAMA BIN LADEN WILL BE SACRIFICED (incorrect spelling by the article author) in the interests of the greater cause and his body dead or alive will be handed over to his former employers in Washington. But will that be enough? The only real solution is a political one. IT REQUIRES REMOVING THE CAUSES THAT CREATE THE DISCONTENT. It is despair that feeds fanaticism and it is a result of Washington's policies in the Middle East and elsewhere. DISCONTENT!!! DISCONTENT!!! MASS MURDER OF 5000 SIMPLE PEOPLE FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE IS DISCONTENT!!! PLEASE DESIST FROM LITTERING THE LIST WITH SUCH YELLOW JOURNALISM. it is an embarrasment to the members to recommend such hate, which is simply and transparently utter rhetorical garbage propaganda. it undermines open and honest criticism and dialogue concerning real human issues and a complete waste of at least my time. Harsh Kapoor wrote: > fyi > ======== > COUNTERPUNCH.ORG reports that the CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is > actually fake. Researchers at a Brazillian University have found identical > footage from 1991. Also note, it was night-time in Palestine when the news > arrived. Please distribute this news widely as that footage is inspiration > for a lot of hateful feelings right now. > --Naeem Mohaiemen > > Check out counterpunch's front page: > http://www.counterpunch.org > > http://www.chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4395&group=webcast> > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010915/fc4b0d9c/attachment.html From aiindex at mnet.fr Sun Sep 16 22:13:03 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 17:43:03 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD Message-ID: [16 Sept. 2001] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD by Pervez Hoodbhoy Samuel Huntington's evil desire for a clash between civilizations may well come true after Tuesday's terror attacks. The crack that divided Muslims everywhere from the rest of the world is no longer a crack. It is a gulf, that if not bridged, will surely destroy both. For much of the world, it was the indescribable savagery of seeing jet-loads of innocent human beings piloted into buildings filled with other innocent human beings. It was the sheer horror of watching people jump from the 80th floor of the collapsing World Trade Centre rather than be consumed by the inferno inside. Yes, it is true that many Muslims also saw it exactly this way, and felt the searing agony no less sharply. The heads of states of Muslim countries, Saddam Hussein excepted, condemned the attacks. Leaders of Muslim communities in the US, Canada, Britain, Europe, and Australia have made impassioned denunciations and pleaded for the need to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and extremists. But the pretence that reality goes no further must be abandoned because this merely obfuscates facts and slows down the search for solutions. One would like to dismiss televised images showing Palestinian expressions of joy as unrepresentative, reflective only of the crass political immaturity of a handful. But this may be wishful thinking. Similarly, Pakistan Television, operating under strict control of the government, is attempting to portray a nation united in condemnation of the attack. Here too, the truth lies elsewhere, as I learn from students at my university here in Islamabad, from conversations with people in the streets, and from the Urdu press. A friend tells me that crowds gathered around public TV sets at Islamabad airport had cheered as the WTC came crashing down. It makes one feel sick from inside. A bizarre new world awaits us, where old rules of social and political behavior have broken down and new ones are yet to defined. Catapulted into a situation of darkness and horror by the extraordinary force of events, as rational human beings we must urgently formulate a response that is moral, and not based upon considerations of power and practicality. This requires beginning with a clearly defined moral supposition - the fundamental equality of all human beings. It also requires that we must proceed according to a definite sequence of steps, the order of which is not interchangeable. Before all else, Black Tuesday's mass murder must be condemned in the harshest possible terms without qualification or condition, without seeking causes or reasons that may even remotely be used to justify it, and without regard for the national identity of the victims or the perpetrators. The demented, suicidical, fury of the attackers led to heinous acts of indiscriminate and wholesale murder that have changed the world for the worse. A moral position must begin with unequivocal condemnation, the absence of which could eliminate even the language by which people can communicate. Analysis comes second, but it is just as essential. No "terrorist" gene is known to exist or is likely to be found. Therefore, surely the attackers, and their supporters, who were all presumably born normal, were afflicted by something that caused their metamorphosis from normal human beings capable of gentleness and affection into desperate, maddened, fiends with nothing but murder in their hearts and minds. What was that? Tragically, CNN and the US media have so far made little attempt to understand this affliction. The cost for this omission, if it is to stay this way, cannot be anything but terrible. What we have seen is probably the first of similar tragedies that may come to define the 21st century as the century of terror. There is much claptrap about "fighting terrorism" and billions are likely to be poured into surveillance, fortifications, and emergency plans, not to mention the ridiculous idea of missile defence systems. But, as a handful of suicide bombers armed with no more than knives and box-cutters have shown with such devastating effectiveness, all this means precisely nothing. Modern nations are far too vulnerable to be protected - a suitcase nuclear device could flatten not just a building or two, but all of Manhattan. Therefore, the simple logic of survival says that the chances of survival are best if one goes to the roots of terror. Only a fool can believe that the services of a suicidical terrorist can be purchased, or that they can be bred at will anywhere. Instead, their breeding grounds are in refugee camps and in other rubbish dumps of humanity, abandoned by civilization and left to rot. A global superpower, indifferent to their plight, and manifestly on the side of their tormentors, has bred boundless hatred for its policies. In supreme arrogance, indifferent to world opinion, the US openly sanctions daily dispossession and torture of the Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces. The deafening silence over the massacres in Qana, Sabra, and Shatila refugee camps, and the video-gamed slaughter by the Pentagon of 70,000 people in Iraq, has brought out the worst that humans are capable of. In the words of Robert Fisk, "those who claim to represent a crushed, humiliated population struck back with the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a doomed people". It is stupid and cruel to derive satisfaction from such revenge, or from the indisputable fact that Osama and his kind are the blowback of the CIAs misadventures in Afghanistan. Instead, the real question is: where do we, the inhabitants of this planet, go from here? What is the lesson to be learnt from the still smouldering ruins of the World Trade Centre? If the lesson is that America needs to assert its military might, then the future will be as grim as can be. Indeed, Secretary Colin Powell, has promised "more than a single reprisal raid". But against whom? And to what end? No one doubts that it is ridiculously easy for the US to unleash carnage. But the bodies of a few thousand dead Afghans will not bring peace, or reduce by one bit the chances of a still worse terrorist attack. This not an argument for inaction: Osama and his gang, as well as other such gangs, if they can be found, must be brought to justice. But indiscriminate slaughter can do nothing except add fuel to existing hatreds. Today, the US is the victim but the carpet-bombing of Afghanistan will cause it to squander the huge swell of sympathy in its favour the world over. Instead, it will create nothing but revulsion and promote never-ending tit-for-tat killings. Ultimately, the security of the United States lies in its re-engaging with the people of the world, especially with those that it has grieviously harmed. As a great country, possessing an admirable constitution that protects the life and liberty of its citizens, it must extend its definition of humanity to cover all peoples of the world. It must respect international treaties such as those on greenhouse gases and biological weapons, stop trying to force a new Cold War by pushing through NMD, pay its UN dues, and cease the aggrandizement of wealth in the name of globalization. But it is not only the US that needs to learn new modes of behaviour. There are important lessons for Muslims too, particularly those living in the US, Canada, and Europe. Last year I heard the arch-conservative head of Pakistan's Jamat-i-Islami, Qazi Husain Ahmad, begin his lecture before an American audience in Washington with high praise for a "pluralist society where I can wear the clothes I like, pray at a mosque, and preach my religion". Certainly, such freedoms do not exist for religious minorities in Pakistan, or in most Muslim countries. One hopes that the misplaced anger against innocent Muslims dissipates soon and such freedoms are not curtailed significantly. Nevertheless, there is a serious question as to whether this pluralism can persist forever, and if it does not, whose responsibility it will be. The problem is that immigrant Muslim communities have, by and large, chosen isolation over integration. In the long run this is a fundamentally unhealthy situation because it creates suspicion and friction, and makes living together ever so much harder. It also raises serious ethical questions about drawing upon the resources of what is perceived to be another society, for which one has hostile feelings. This is not an argument for doing away with one's Muslim identity. But, without closer interaction with the mainstream, pluralism will be threatened. Above all, survival of the community depends upon strongly emphasizing the difference between extremists and ordinary Muslims, and on purging from within jihadist elements committed to violence. Any member of the Muslim community who thinks that ordinary people in the US are fair game because of bad US government policies has no business being there. To echo George W. Bush, "let there be no mistake". But here the mistake will be to let the heart rule the head in the aftermath of utter horror, to bomb a helpless Afghan people into an even earlier period of the Stone Age, or to take similar actions that originate from the spine. Instead, in deference to a billion years of patient evolution, we need to hand over charge to the cerebellum. Else, survival of this particular species is far from guaranteed. T The author is professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Sun Sep 16 23:09:36 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 19:39:36 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD References: <3BA4E344.2E444612@t-online.de> Message-ID: <3BA4E3D5.7A3B8637@t-online.de> > Harsh Kapoor wrote: > > > [16 Sept. 2001] > > BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD > > by Pervez Hoodbhoy > > > > Samuel Huntington's evil desire for a clash between civilizations may well > > come true after Tuesday's terror attacks. > > > philip pocock wrote: > why build the base for even more false prophecies which will not become > self-fulfilling. > > there is not a clash between civilizations. if you refer to the western world > and the world of islam, they are in no way clashing by false prophets, who > have nothing to do with anything, and only abuse the beauty of ancient > knowledge to try and achieve exactly what you state above. > > it will not occur. all we can do is be open and not doubt that like the earth > is round , we are one world. From prosaha at hotmail.com Mon Sep 17 01:28:10 2001 From: prosaha at hotmail.com (Pradip Saha) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 19:58:10 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD Message-ID: i am sorry to inform all the innocent people that the world may be round, but we are not one world. what is the use of fooling ourselves? the "crime against civilisation" has a long history. ----Original Message Follows---- From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Reply-To: philip.pocock at t-online.de To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 19:39:36 +0200 > Harsh Kapoor wrote: > > > [16 Sept. 2001] > > BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD > > by Pervez Hoodbhoy > > > > Samuel Huntington's evil desire for a clash between civilizations may well > > come true after Tuesday's terror attacks. > > > philip pocock wrote: > why build the base for even more false prophecies which will not become > self-fulfilling. > > there is not a clash between civilizations. if you refer to the western world > and the world of islam, they are in no way clashing by false prophets, who > have nothing to do with anything, and only abuse the beauty of ancient > knowledge to try and achieve exactly what you state above. > > it will not occur. all we can do is be open and not doubt that like the earth > is round , we are one world. _______________________________________________ Reader-list mailing list Reader-list at sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Mon Sep 17 04:40:48 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 01:10:48 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Anyone opposed to a USA war in Central/South Asia may want to sign flora's anti-war petition: http://www.flora.org/coat/appeal/ You need a valid email address for confirmation of your signature. > A Global Appeal for 'No more violence!' > > Deeply saddened by the suffering and deaths of thousands in > New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, we, people of many > different backgrounds from around the world, join with > millions of others to denounce these latest acts of terror > against innocent civilians. We believe that military > retaliation in response to this mass murder will only > accelerate the cycle of fear, anger and violence. > > We urge our political and religious leaders to heed our > appeal for nonviolence. We will not be swayed by calls to > support further violence. We will respond to cries for > revenge with caring, calm and reason. Violent retaliation and > war will only lead to greater losses of life. This, in turn, > will only serve to breed more anger, hatred and terror. > > Instead, we support the rule of international law. The > perpetrators of these crimes, and all other crimes against > humanity, crimes against peace and war crimes, should be > brought to justice. No individual, group or government should > have immunity from international law. > > As we mourn for those whose lives were lost on September 11, > 2001, we also mourn for all those around the world dying from > the violence inflicted by terrorism, war or the lack of food, > medicine, water and housing. > > Pledge of Nonviolence > > Standing firmly together, we will embrace nonviolence to stop > the cycle of violence from spiraling even further out of > control. We join in solidarity with others around the world > to build our common security through disarmament, dialogue > and social justice -- not through violent attacks and > military might. > > We pledge ourselves to support nonviolence as the way towards > a peace with justice. From menso at r4k.net Mon Sep 17 06:17:56 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 02:47:56 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is actually fake In-Reply-To: <3BA39B17.1AE7B834@t-online.de>; from Philip.Pocock@t-online.de on Sat, Sep 15, 2001 at 08:16:57PM +0200 References: <3BA39B17.1AE7B834@t-online.de> Message-ID: <20010917024756.I12357@r4k.net> On Sat, Sep 15, 2001 at 08:16:57PM +0200, philip pocock wrote: > Harsh Kapoor wrote: > > > COUNTERPUNCH.ORG reports that the CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is > > actually fake. ... Please distribute this news widely > > > Check out counterpunch's front page: > > http://www.counterpunch.org > > i did check out this page and you ought to be ashamed for recommending such > hogwash! > > here is a couple of paragraphs from that page you recemmend as 'news' i am > adding CAPITAL LETTERS to parts for emphasis: > > If Holywood rules necessitate > a short, sharp war against the new enemy, the AMERICAN CAESAR > would be best-advised not to insist on Pakistani legions. The > consequences could be dire: a brutal and vicious civil war creating > more bitterness and encouraging more acts of individual terrorism. > Islamabad will do everything to prevent a military expedition > to Afghanistan. For one thing there are Pakistani soldiers, pilots > and officers present in Kabul, Bagram and other bases. What will > be their orders this time and will they obey them? Much more > likely is that OSSAMA BIN LADEN WILL BE SACRIFICED > (incorrect spelling by the article author) in the interests > of the greater cause and his body dead or alive will be handed > over to his former employers in Washington. But will that be > enough? > The only real solution is a > political one. IT REQUIRES REMOVING THE CAUSES THAT CREATE > THE DISCONTENT. It is despair that feeds fanaticism and it is a result > of Washington's policies in the Middle East and elsewhere. > > DISCONTENT!!! DISCONTENT!!! MASS MURDER OF 5000 SIMPLE PEOPLE FROM ALL WALKS OF > > LIFE IS DISCONTENT!!! > > PLEASE DESIST FROM LITTERING THE LIST WITH SUCH YELLOW JOURNALISM. > > it is an embarrasment to the members to recommend such hate, which is simply > and transparently utter rhetorical garbage propaganda. > > it undermines open and honest criticism and dialogue concerning real human > issues and a complete waste of > at least my time. Philip, This might come as a shock to you yet not all people on this world share the same opinions, which is a good thing. This does not, however mean that we must call each other names and start screaming and yelling at each other like little children: I like to think we are all adults here. Furthermore, I consider it quite rude of you to speak for 'the members' when you do not know and not attempt to discover how they feel about this. Also, the post seems to be forwarded, not originally written by the person who posted it to the list and even if he would have done so, this does not mean that the opinions on this website are necessarily his own or that he/she agrees with them. Your post seems more misplaced than Kapoor's if you ask me. Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From mitra28 at yahoo.com Mon Sep 17 09:37:42 2001 From: mitra28 at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?mitra=20gusheh?=) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 05:07:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] more on tuesday In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20010917040742.92738.qmail@web10404.mail.yahoo.com> I am forwarding a letter from an American man who was born in Afghanistan and an article from The Guardian, printed last week.....sobering >>Dear Colleagues, As we reflect upon the tragic events of this week and an appropriate "response," I thought you might like to see this letter from my college roommate, Tamim Ansary, who grew up in Afghanistan. I think he offers an interesting perspective on Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Afghanistan. Toivo Kallas Department of Biology & Microbiology Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 10:14:27 -0700 Dear Friends, Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage," and he asked, "What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about these issues especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's been going on over there. So I want to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen. I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I fervently wish to see those monsters punished. But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarantee it. Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have been destroyed . The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban. They haven't been able to. We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took care of it . Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. (They hae already, I hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time So what else can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks. To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West. And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be running it. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end the west would probably overcome--whatever that would mean in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, but anyone else? I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that. That's my humble opinion. Tamim Ansary -- Mark Marnocha PhD Clinical Psychologist Fox Valley Family Practice - 229 S. Morrison Appleton WI 54911 920-738-8434 920-730-1592 ___________________________________________________________________ Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad Special report: Terrorism in the US Seumas Milne Thursday September 13, 2001 The Guardian Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world. But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages. If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a Churchillian response. It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his genitals stuffed in his mouth. But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out across the world. All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker asked yesterday. Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are addressed. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Get your free Yahoo! address at Yahoo! Mail: UK or IE. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010917/1210f367/attachment.html From kshekhar at bol.net.in Fri Sep 14 18:02:54 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:02:54 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 22.9.2001: Dadar-Matunga Message-ID: Dear Friends: In our next meeting, we will host a panel discussion and presentation by several individuals researching on the locality of Dadar and Matunga, comprising the neighbourhoods of Hindu Colony, Parsi Colony, Matunga Central, Ruia and Poddar Colleges, King's Circle, Five Gardens, and the Catholic Colony in Wadala. This historic locality was the first consciously planned suburban development of the city. A plotted residential scheme with institutional and commercial developments for its working middle-class inhabitants, it was modelled on the British "garden city" paradigm in the 1920s and 1930s. ANIRUDH PAUL, Deputy Director of the Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture (KRVIA) and PRASAD SHETTY, Project Coordinator of the Design Cell, KRVIA, will present on the architecture and environment of these neighbourhoods, on the basis of their study for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Heritage Conservation Society. NIKHIL RAO, doctoral candidate at the Department of History, University of Chicago, U.S.A. will discuss his ongoing research into the social and cultural history of these early suburbs, and their formation as "ethnic neighbourhoods" in the late colonial period. This session will also be attended by representatives of the various residents associations of these neighbourhoods, whom we have invited to participate in this broad discussion of the history and ethnography, ecology and architecture of this unique locality. This session will be on SATURDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2001, at 10.00 A.M., on the SECOND FLOOR, Rachna Sansad, 278, Shankar Ghanekar Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, next to Ravindra Natya Mandir. Phone: 4301024, 4310807, 4229969; Station: Elphinstone Road (Western Railway); BEST Bus: 35, 88, 151, 161, 162, 171, 355, 357, 363, to Ravindra Natya Mandir, 91 Ltd, 305 Ltd, A1 and A4 to Prabhadevi. ABOUT THE MUMBAI STUDY GROUP The MUMBAI STUDY GROUP meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, at the Rachana Sansad, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, at 10.00 A.M. Our conversations continue through the support extended by Shri Pradip Amberkar, Principal of the Academy of Architecture, and Prof S.H. Wandrekar, Trustee of the Rachana Sansad. Conceived as an inclusive and non-partisan forum to foster dialogue on urban and global issues, we have since September 2000 held conversations about various historical, political, legal, cultural, social and spatial aspects of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Our discussions are open and public, no previous membership or affiliation is required. We encourage the participation of urban researchers and practitioners, experts and non-experts, researchers and students, and all individuals, groups and associations in Mumbai to join our conversations about the the city.The format we have evolved is to host individual presentations or panel discussions in various fields of urban theory and practice, and have a moderated and focussed discussion from our many practical and professional perspectives: whether as architects or planners, lawyers or journalists, artists or film-makers, academics or activists.Through such a forum, we hope to foster an open community of urban citizens, which clearly situates Mumbai in the theories and practices of urbanism globally. Previous sessions have hosted presentations by the following individuals: Kalpana Sharma, Associate Editor of The Hindu; Kedar Ghorpade, Senior Planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority; Dr Marina Pinto, Professor of Public Administration, retired from Mumbai University; Dr K. Sita, Professor of Geography, retired from Mumbai University, and former Garware Chair Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Dr Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), Mumbai; Rahul Srivastava, Lecturer in Sociology at Wilson College; Sandeep Yeole, General Secretary of the All-India Pheriwala Vikas Mahasangh; Dr Anjali Monteiro, Professor and Head, and K.P. Jayashankar, Reader, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Unit for Media and Communications; Dr Sujata Patel, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Pune; Dr Mariam Dossal, Head, Department of History, Mumbai University; Sucheta Dalal, business journalist and Consulting Editor, Financial Express; Dr Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Culture and Communications at New York University; Dr Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University, and member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective; Dr Sudha Deshpande, Reader in Demography, retired from the Department of Economics, Mumbai University and former consultant for the World Bank, International Labour Organisation, and Bombay Municipal Corporation; Sulakshana Mahajan, doctoral candidate at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., and former Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Rachana Sansad. Previous panel discussions have comprised of the following individuals: S.S. Tinaikar, former Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Sheela Patel, Director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), and Bhanu Desai of the Citizens' Forum for the Protection of Public Spaces (Citispace) on urban policy making and housing; Shirish Patel, civil engineer and urban planner, Pramod Sahasrabuddhe and Abhay Godbole, structural engineers on earthquakes and the built form of the city; B. Rajaram, Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation, and Dr P.G. Patankar, from Tata Consultancy Services, and former Chairman of the Bombay Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) on mass public transport alternatives; Ved Segan, Vikas Dilawari, and Pankaj Joshi, conservation architects, on the social relevance of heritage and conservation architecture; Debi Goenka, of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, Professor Sudha Srivastava, Dr Geeta Kewalramani, and Dr Dipti Mukherji, of the University of Mumbai Department of Geography, on the politics of land use, the city's salt pan lands, and the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Act. We invite all urban researchers, practitioners, students, and other interested individuals to join us in our fortnightly conversations, and suggest topics for presentation and discussion. For any more information, kindly contact one of the Joint Convenors of the Mumbai Study Group: ARVIND ADARKAR, Architect, Researcher and Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Phone 2051834, ; DARRYL D'MONTE, Journalist and Writer, 6427088 ; SHEKHAR KRISHNAN, Coordinator-Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), 4462728, ; PANKAJ JOSHI, Conservation Architect, Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, and PUKAR Associate, 8230625, . From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Mon Sep 17 14:33:27 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:03:27 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is actually fake References: <3BA39B17.1AE7B834@t-online.de> <20010917024756.I12357@r4k.net> Message-ID: <3BA5BC5B.E58DBBF4@t-online.de> Menso Heus wrote: > > > This might come as a shock to you yet not all people on this world > share the same opinions, which is a good thing. what comes as a shock to me is your inability to respect the basic human right for any careful thoughtful founded accusatory stance, based on connected evidence rather than fragmented pathology. it is not opinion which you claim, but rather a tricky exchange of belief with fact, the danger of provoking, as all self-righteous blindness does,intolerant cultural bias, breeding hate in all forms, and backfiring on any valid intention which you may have began with before traveling up the wrong road. > This does not, however > mean that we must call each other names and start screaming and yelling > at each other like little children. this is the level of your response? are you numb to humanity, cold to basic behavioural response, as mild as my disbelief DISCONTENT! was, as some sort of strategy of self-righteous indignation, rather than sensitivity to human nature. if you cannot, or decide to exploit, a simple mild human response, how can you comment on much greater tolerance? i would ask you is your political nature buried within your text driven by a distaste, conscious or unconscious, perhaps bordering on despising america, exchanging belief with actuality, americanization with globalization, closed with open social tech? > Furthermore, I consider it quite rude of you to speak for 'the members' when > you do not know and not attempt to discover how they feel about this. your trivial pursuit here bores me to tears. From shuddha at sarai.net Mon Sep 17 15:04:36 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:04:36 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Alan Sonheim's net art? /text on the missing Message-ID: <01091715043600.07414@sweety.sarai.kit> Apologies for cross posting to those on the NEttime list, but thought that this would be valuable to see for all. Shuddha ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: missing Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 13:51:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Alan Sondheim To: - missing +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Mon Sep 17 15:00:00 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:30:00 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD References: Message-ID: <3BA5C292.38DCC49F@t-online.de> icons that deny the sanctity of life, even their own, inhabit a consciousness as machinic as a jet engine. such misguided messages and misdeeds point to the shift from experiments in civilization, confusing americanization with globalization, belief with actuality, and i use the word belief as a stronger form for the word fiction.Underlying the crimes connected to all revolutions in civilization, and civilization is provisional, time-based, is a revolution in human consciousness, as 'foolish' as this might seem to some, it is a political spirit rather than a political belief, or political opinion, which is suffering, and it is political spirit which we see unifying disparate parties, not so strange bedfellows when the question is that 'foolish' one of unity on our planet, unity through difference, the rainbow coalition, tolerance, openness, and responsibility. Pradip Saha wrote: > i am sorry to inform all the innocent people that the world may be round, > but we are not one world. what is the use of fooling ourselves? the "crime > against civilisation" has a long history. From rmazumdar at mantraonline.com Mon Sep 17 14:46:15 2001 From: rmazumdar at mantraonline.com (Ranjani Mazumdar) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:46:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Michael Moore on "terrorism" Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010917144136.019cbba0@del1.mantraonline.com> Hi everyone, this is an open letter written by Michael Moore on the current situation after the WTC attack. Moore is the director of a number of documentary films including the well known "ROGER AND ME" on the life of GM workers in Detroit. Read on.... Ranjani From: Michael Moore To: michaelmoore-l at cloud9.net Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 6:10 AM Subject: [Mike's Message] Death, Downtown Death, Downtown Dear friends, I was supposed to fly today on the 4:30 PM American Airlines flight from LAX to JFK. But tonight I find myself stuck in L.A. with an incredible range of emotions over what has happened on the island where I work and live in New York City. My wife and I spent the first hours of the day -- after being awakened by phone calls from our parents at 6:40am PT -- trying to contact our daughter at school in New York and our friend JoAnn who works near the World Trade Center. I called JoAnn at her office. As someone picked up, the first tower imploded, and the person answering the phone screamed and ran out, leaving me no clue as to whether or not she or JoAnn would live. It was a sick, horrible, frightening day. On December 27, 1985 I found myself caught in the middle of a terrorist incident at the Vienna airport -- which left 30 people dead, both there and at the Rome airport. (The machine-gunning of passengers in each city was timed to occur at the same moment.) I do not feel like discussing that event tonight because it still brings up too much despair and confusion as to how and why I got to live. a fluke, a mistake, a few feet on the tarmac, and I am still here, there but for the grace of. Safe. Secure. I'm an American, living in America. I like my illusions. I walk through a metal detector, I put my carry-ons through an x-ray machine, and I know all will be well. Here's a short list of my experiences lately with airport security: * At the Newark Airport, the plane is late at boarding everyone. The counter can't find my seat. So I am told to just "go ahead and get on" -- without a ticket! * At Detroit Metro Airport, I don't want to put the lunch I just bought at the deli through the x-ray machine so, as I pass through the metal detector, I hand the sack to the guard through the space between the detector and the x-ray machine. I tell him "It's just a sandwich." He believes me and doesn't bother to check. The sack has gone through neither security device. * At LaGuardia in New York, I check a piece of luggage, but decide to catch a later plane. The first plane leaves without me, but with my bag -- no one knowing what is in it. * Back in Detroit, I take my time getting off the commuter plane. By the time I have come down its stairs, the bus that takes the passengers to the terminal has left -- without me. I am alone on the tarmac, free to wander wherever I want. So I do. Eventually, I flag down a pick-up truck and an airplane mechanic gives me a ride the rest of the way to the terminal. * I have brought knives, razors; and once, my traveling companion brought a hammer and chisel. No one stopped us. Of course, I have gotten away with all of this because the airlines consider my safety SO important, they pay rent-a-cops $5.75 an hour to make sure the bad guys don't get on my plane. That is what my life is worth -- less than the cost of an oil change. Too harsh, you say? Well, chew on this: a first-year pilot on American Eagle (the commuter arm of American Airlines) receives around $15,000 a year in annual pay. That's right -- $15,000 for the person who has your life in his hands. Until recently, Continental Express paid a little over $13,000 a year. There was one guy, an American Eagle pilot, who had four kids so he went down to the welfare office and applied for food stamps -- and he was eligible! Someone on welfare is flying my plane? Is this for real? Yes, it is. So spare me the talk about all the precautions the airlines and the FAA is taking. They, like all businesses, are concerned about one thing -- the bottom line and the profit margin. Four teams of 3-5 people were all able to penetrate airport security on the same morning at 3 different airports and pull off this heinous act? My only response is -- that's all? Well, the pundits are in full diarrhea mode, gushing on about the "terrorist threat" and today's scariest dude on planet earth -- Osama bin Laden. Hey, who knows, maybe he did it. But, something just doesn't add up. Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint accuracy that they are able to hit these three targets without anyone wondering why these planes were so far off path? Or am I being asked to believe that there were four religious/political fanatics who JUST HAPPENED to be skilled airline pilots who JUST HAPPENED to want to kill themselves today? Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing to die for the cause -- but FOUR? Ok, maybe you can -- I don't know. What I do know is that all day long I have heard everything about this bin Laden guy except this one fact -- WE created the monster known as Osama bin Laden! Where did he go to terrorist school? At the CIA! Don't take my word for it -- I saw a piece on MSNBC last year that laid it all out. When the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him and his buddies in how to commits acts of terrorism against the Soviet forces. It worked! The Soviets turned and ran. Bin Laden was grateful for what we taught him and thought it might be fun to use those same techniques against us. We abhor terrorism -- unless we're the ones doing the terrorizing. We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the hell even remembers! We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have killed a lot of innocent people, and we never let the human suffering THAT causes to interrupt our day one single bit. We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the world, with our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam, in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head from the horror we have helped cause. Yet, our recent domestic terrorism bombings have not been conducted by a guy from the desert but rather by our own citizens: a couple of ex-military guys who hated the federal government. From the first minutes of today's events, I never heard that possibility suggested. Why is that? Maybe it's because the A-rabs are much better foils. A key ingredient in getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a new enemy is the all-important race card. It's much easier to get us to hate when the object of our hatred doesn't look like us. Congressmen and Senators spent the day calling for more money for the military; one Senator on CNN even said he didn't want to hear any more talk about more money for education or health care -- we should have only one priority: our self-defense. Will we ever get to the point that we realize we will be more secure when the rest of the world isn't living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes? In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race -- you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all. The Senators and Congressmen tonight broke out in a spontaneous version of "God Bless America." They're not a bad group of singers! Yes, God, please do bless us. Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush! Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity. Let's mourn, let's grieve, and when it's appropriate let's examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in. It doesn't have to be like this. Yours, Michael Moore mmflint at aol.com 9/13/01 Across America Tonight ... Dear Friends, I am on the road tonight, the only way to get out of L.A. and back home to our daughter and our friends in New York City. Oddly enough, I have never driven across this vast country. My wife and I have now stopped in Flagstaff for a few hours sleep before moving on. The sorrow and anger builds across America. Talk radio tonight was filled with calls for carpet-bombing every Arab country. Many want revenge, blood. But a surprising number of people have called for us to not add to the killing of more innocent humans. The rest stops and the convenience stores along the way were filled with quiet, solemn people, many of whom, like us, can get home no other way than by this four-day trip. Our daughter is fine, mostly frightened by my desire to fly home to her rather than drive. Once again, I was outvoted 2 to 1. This is nothing new. We have learned of more people we know who have lost their lives. Bill Weems, who worked as a line producer for us this year, was on the flight from Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center. He was such a sweet and decent soul. Such senseless madness. The children of New York who are orphaned tonight ... what do we say or do? I will do my part -- anything, something -- as soon as I get to New York. But it will never be enough. The firefighters of New York: they are on every other block, every day, and they are your best neighbors. Sitting out on the sidewalks in front of the fire stations, a good word and a kind smile to all who pass ... now, 350+ of them gone, having risked their lives to save the victims of a carnage they soon became part of. A good friend from Flint is a clerical worker at the Pentagon. I have heard no word about her condition. I have tried contacting her family to no avail. Her son, Malcolm, worked on our show. I cannot find him. I keep getting tears in my eyes. Once she gave me a tour of the Pentagon, took me everywhere, and got such a kick out of taking me around this building I used to march on. Will our mutual friends who know Barbara, and know how she is, please write me? Please. The man who occupies the White House cried today. Good. Keep crying, Mr. Bush. The more you cry, the less you will go to that dark side in all humans where anger rages to a point where we want to blindly kill. Your dad's and Reagan's old cronies -- Eagleberger, Baker, Schultz -- are all calling for you to bomb first and ask questions later. You must NOT do this. If only because you do not want to stoop to these mass murderers' level. Yes, find out who did it. Yes, see that they NEVER do it again. But GET A GRIP, man. "Declare war?" War against whom? One guy in the desert whom we can never seem to find? Are our leaders telling us that the most powerful country on earth cannot dispose of one sick evil f---wad of a guy? Because if that is what you are telling us, then we are truly screwed. If you are unable to take out this lone ZZ Top wannabe, what on earth would you do for us if we were attacked by a nation of millions? For chrissakes, call the Israelis and have them do that thing they do when they want to get their man! We pay them enough billions each year, I am SURE they would be happy to accommodate your request. But I beg you, Mr. Bush, stay with the tears. Go today to comfort the wounded of New York. Tell the mayor, a guy most of us have not liked, that he is doing an incredible job, keeping the spirits of everyone up as high as they can be at this moment. Being there for a city I believe he loves, his own cancer still with him, he goes beyond the call of duty. But do not declare war and massacre more innocents. After bin Laden's previous act of terror, our last elected president went and bombed what he said was "bin Laden's camp" in Afghanistan -- but instead just killed civilians. Then he bombed a factory in the Sudan, saying it was "making chemical weapons." It turned out to be making aspirin. Innocent people murdered by our Air Force. Back in May, you gave the Taliban in Afghanistan $48 million dollars of our tax money. No free nation on earth would give them a cent, but you gave them a gift of $48 million because they said they had "banned all drugs." Because your drug war was more important than the actual war the Taliban had inflicted on its own people, you helped to fund the regime who had given refuge to the very man you now say is responsible for killing my friend on that plane and for killing the friends of families of thousands and thousands of people. How dare you talk about more killing now! Shame! Shame! Shame! Explain your actions in support of the Taliban! Tell us why your father and his partner Mr. Reagan trained Mr. bin Laden in how to be a terrorist! Am I angry? You bet I am. I am an American citizen, and my leaders have taken my money to fund mass murder. And now my friends have paid the price with their lives. Keep crying, Mr. Bush. Keep running to Omaha or wherever it is you go while others die, just as you ran during Vietnam while claiming to be "on duty" in the Air National Guard. Nine boys from my high school died in that miserable war. And now you are asking for "unity" so you can start another one? Do not insult me or my country like this! Yes, I, too, will be in church at noon today, on this national day of mourning. I will pray for you, and us, and the children of New York, and the children of this sad and ugly world ... Yours, Michael Moore mmlfint at aol.com www.michaelmoore.com From rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com Mon Sep 17 16:24:47 2001 From: rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com (rehan ansari) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 03:54:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Bahr e Zulmaat Message-ID: <20010917105447.80665.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> ON THE night of September 10, I went to watch a live interview of Bruce Willis, star of the disaster series Die Hard, Die Harder, Die Hard with a Vengeance (I am not too sure about the titles of the sequels, but you get the picture) and the sleeper hit (M Night Shyamalan�s) The Sixth Sense. The hall at Actors Studio of New School University, located on 12th Street and 6th Avenue, was filled to capacity. The audience was unanimously white. It seemed impossible that anything that made sense to this audience could seem sensible to the rest of the world. Other facts of Bruce Willis encouraged this impossible thought in my head: from his blue-collar adolescence in New Jersey, his father was a mechanic, his grandfather was a mechanic, as a teenager he was expelled for a while from high school for his participation in a race-riot (at the cost of being redundant: he was violent against people who were of a different colour), to his adulthood in New York and Los Angeles. After college he came to New York City and readily found work in off-Broadway theatres. Soon he was in television and then films. Disaster movies made him extraordinarily rich. In these he was an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. In Die Hard he battles terrorists in a burning skyscraper. None of this Bruce Willis biography can sensibly be transposed on someone who is of Middle Eastern, Asian and South Asian origin in America. At the end of the interview the famous interviewer, the principal of the Actor's Studio, asked Bruce Willis the pronunciation of Shymalan's name. So what was I doing there? As long as I had only consumed action/thrillers, not getting too close to them, as in going to an interview of Bruce Willis, I was sane. Afterwards I went for dinner in Tribeca. I got off at Canal Station and turned around. I looked up at the World Trade Center Twin Towers, using them as a compass to figure out my direction. I had a job on Wall Street with a brokerage house in 1993 and one of the brokers used to think it was funny asking me how the Hizbollah was doing at least once every morning. He used to like rolling the word around in his mouth. My response to him was model minority. When the World Trade Center bombing happened that year, I was no longer with the firm and wondered what he would say if we were to meet again. Post bombing, I cannot escape the drone of the media. I have tried by making contrary comments. For example: if a reporter says ground zero in the financial district looks like a World War Two bombing, I say out loud, in the presumed safety of the indoors: why can't the reporter say that it looks like Baghdad. At least when Mayor Guiliani said a similar thing he remembered Dresden, a city that the Allies bombed. Edward Said happened to write in The Nation, a week before the bombing: if you decide to bomb a people then imagine them sitting across the table from you as you are making the decision. Baber, Ahmed, Rashid and me, independent of each other, decided to shave after it sank in that New York City was attacked. Later in the day I overheard Baber, my brother-in-law, speaking to his father in Lahore. He said that this is like Ayodhya. Not exactly. It is as if the minority destroyed the majority's mandir. This evening I have learnt that three women were attacked at the Penn State University, a mosque in New Jersey was vandalised, a mother who wears the hijab suggested to her 28-year-old daughter she take it off, a lawyer friend, Sahr Mohammed Ali, encountered four separate incidents of harassment in one day. From television I have learnt about attacks on Arabs, Sikhs and other South Asians in Manhattan, Illinois, Virginia, Texas, California. Many from my school, Karachi Grammar School, work on Wall St. Many of these people have worked for years and not gotten their green cards. Indentured labour for our times. It will be days before I will know who survived. None of us can empathise with the commitment, the planning, the training, the principles of those that carried out the bombings. Earlier this year in a Karachi neighbourhood I saw a poster of a masked man against a red backdrop, holding a Kalashnikov, the inscription a call for support for the Kashmiri jihad. I captured my response by remembering a line from William Blake: The vision of Christ that thou dost see Is my vision's greatest enemy Having won a scholarship from Vassar College, I left Karachi for New York in 1987. I was to be going to a liberal arts college. I would not have to think about my occupation for several years. It meant I would study for the hell of it. I believed my college catalogue description of the American liberal arts education. Studying History of Western Philosophy seemed a good idea and I took a whole year of it with a professor named Michael McCarthy, a big Irishman who gave copious notes and said the eyes are the windows to the soul. During the Persian Gulf War in 1990, Vassar organised many meetings and seminars. Michael McCarthy gave a public address in which he called the war a just war. He handed out copious notes to the audience. I think he had 30 reasons for why it was a just war. Road blocks and spot checks in all boroughs on New York City. Karachi has plenty of this, so I am used to it.Non-residents are not permitted entry beyond 14th street and the National Guard checks for four kinds of ID. An aircraft carrier is in New York Harbor and F-14s are patrolling overhead. From 14th street and 6th avenue at dusk I look downtown and where the twin towers once stood is a haze and shell of light from the construction. It looks like a film set for a disaster movie. The attacks have pulled off a switcheroo of revolutionary proportions. Where the hand of capital was invisible and terror located in rogue states, capital became concrete (the military industrial complex became two buildings(!) � the Pentagon and the WTC � and terror decentered, everywhere and nowhere. The tools of the master used as weapons by the slave � the classic Hegelian paradigm. I have never seen New York commentators, from the New York Times to The Nation, so lost for concept in their first reaction. I saw a film billboard of an Arnold Schwarzenneger film and thought of the tired white men that him, Travolta and Willis will seem in their films. It is true that the studios are postponing their thriller releases, the ones with terrorism angles. They say they are being sensitive about public sentiment in the light of what happened. More likely reality overtook their imaginations to the extent that it embarrassed them. Many people are thinking about what has happened. About violence, cycles of violence, the price tag of American foreign policy. Does it take this to open their eyes? In Pakistan the word on the street is that the Americans now know how it feels to be at ground zero: a group of aunties gheraoed a gori at Lahore Gymkhana swimming pool and said as much. Qazi Hussain Ahmed, amir of Jamaat e Islami has promptly said he does not support terrorism. Pervez Musharraf wonders if he has the opportunity Zia ul Haq had to fight the good fight for the Americans. Its a mad day when the lines of that most dissolute of poets, Iqbal Lahori, resonate like bugle-calls. Bahre Zulmaat mein dora diyay ghoray hum nay Maut kiya cheez hai hum loh o kalm teray hehn We have driven our horses into the Sea of Oppression What is death when we can write our destiny --------------------------------- Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information inYahoo! News. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010917/41a3da0a/attachment.html From menso at r4k.net Mon Sep 17 16:42:39 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 13:12:39 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is actually fake In-Reply-To: <3BA5BC5B.E58DBBF4@t-online.de>; from Philip.Pocock@t-online.de on Mon, Sep 17, 2001 at 11:03:27AM +0200 References: <3BA39B17.1AE7B834@t-online.de> <20010917024756.I12357@r4k.net> <3BA5BC5B.E58DBBF4@t-online.de> Message-ID: <20010917131239.K12357@r4k.net> On Mon, Sep 17, 2001 at 11:03:27AM +0200, philip pocock wrote: > > > Menso Heus wrote: > > > This might come as a shock to you yet not all people on this world > > share the same opinions, which is a good thing. > > what comes as a shock to me is your inability to respect the basic human right for > any careful thoughtful founded accusatory stance, based on connected evidence rather > than fragmented pathology. > > it is not opinion which you claim, but rather a tricky exchange of belief with fact, > the danger of provoking, as all self-righteous blindness does,intolerant cultural > bias, breeding hate in all forms, and backfiring on any valid intention which you > may have began with before traveling up the wrong road. Where the wrong road would be to criticize the way you flame another list member for forwarding a post and calling any opinion that is not yours rubbish while talking about how tolerance is such an important thing later in your posts, Philip? > > This does not, however > > mean that we must call each other names and start screaming and yelling > > at each other like little children. > > this is the level of your response? are you numb to humanity, cold to basic > behavioural response, as mild as my disbelief DISCONTENT! was, as some sort of > strategy of self-righteous indignation, rather than sensitivity to human nature. if > you cannot, or decide to exploit, a simple mild human response, how can you comment > on much greater tolerance? Philip: the reason we are having this conversation is because, in my opinion, you showed quite some intolerance in your previous posting in the first place. Now let's not take my reply to your posting, turn it 180 degrees around and insinuate that I am numb to humanity. Your 'simple mild human response' was a personal attack on the person that made the posting: *that* is what I do not agree with. Wise man as you are, you have decided not to reply to that and deleted that section from your reply. > i would ask you is your political nature buried within your text driven by a > distaste, conscious or unconscious, perhaps bordering on despising america, > exchanging belief with actuality, americanization with globalization, closed with > open social tech? And you were commenting on accusatory stances before? Come on Philip, I am sure you can do better than this! > > Furthermore, I consider it quite rude of you to speak for 'the members' when > > you do not know and not attempt to discover how they feel about this. > > your trivial pursuit here bores me to tears. Your trivial response here, Philip, is not considered a very good saving throw, nor does it explain why you thought you were entitled to do so in the first place. Anyway, I think this has taken long enough. I have stated my opinions clearly and hope you now do understand what I meant in the first place. Further reactions to this posting to the list I will ignore, if you still have to say things please do so in private email as participating in endless personal discussions is not what I want to do on any mailing- list. Take care, Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From shuddha at sarai.net Mon Sep 17 18:17:16 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:17:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Dawkins on Suicide Bombers Message-ID: <01091718171600.07887@sweety.sarai.kit> What Makes a Suicide Bomber a Suicide Bomber ? Richard Dawkins attempts an answer. Please read and reflect. Shuddha Richard Dawkins is professor of the public understanding of science, University of Oxford, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and Unweaving the Rainbow. _________________________________________________________________ Richard Dawkins Guardian Saturday September 15, 2001 A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular targets. It could not zero in on a designated New York skyscraper if launched from as far away as Boston. That is precisely what a modern "smart missile" can do. Computer miniaturisation has advanced to the point where one of today's smart missiles could be programmed with an image of the Manhattan skyline together with instructions to home in on the north tower of the World Trade Centre. Smart missiles of this sophistication are possessed by the United States, as we learned in the Gulf war, but they are economically beyond ordinary terrorists and scientifically beyond theocratic governments. Might there be a cheaper and easier alternative? In the second world war, before electronics became cheap and miniature, the psychologist BF Skinner did some research on pigeon-guided missiles. The pigeon was to sit in a tiny cockpit, having previously been trained to peck keys in such a way as to keep a designated target in the centre of a screen. In the missile, the target would be for real. The principle worked, although it was never put into practice by the US authorities. Even factoring in the costs of training them, pigeons are cheaper and lighter than computers of comparable effectiveness. Their feats in Skinner's boxes suggest that a pigeon, after a regimen of training with colour slides, really could guide a missile to a distinctive landmark at the southern end of Manhattan island. The pigeon has no idea that it is guiding a missile. It just keeps on pecking at those two tall rectangles on the screen, from time to time a food reward drops out of the dispenser, and this goes on until... oblivion. Pigeons may be cheap and disposable as on-board guidance systems, but there's no escaping the cost of the missile itself. And no such missile large enough to do much damage could penetrate US air space without being intercepted. What is needed is a missile that is not recognised for what it is until too late. Something like a large civilian airliner, carrying the innocuous markings of a well-known carrier and a great deal of fuel. That's the easy part. But how do you smuggle on board the necessary guidance system? You can hardly expect the pilots to surrender the left-hand seat to a pigeon or a computer. How about using humans as on-board guidance systems, instead of pigeons? Humans are at least as numerous as pigeons, their brains are not significantly costlier than pigeon brains, and for many tasks they are actually superior. Humans have a proven track record in taking over planes by the use of threats, which work because the legitimate pilots value their own lives and those of their passengers. The natural assumption that the hijacker ultimately values his own life too, and will act rationally to preserve it, leads air crews and ground staff to make calculated decisions that would not work with guidance modules lacking a sense of self-preservation. If your plane is being hijacked by an armed man who, though prepared to take risks, presumably wants to go on living, there is room for bargaining. A rational pilot complies with the hijacker's wishes, gets the plane down on the ground, has hot food sent in for the passengers and leaves the negotiations to people trained to negotiate. The problem with the human guidance system is precisely this. Unlike the pigeon version, it knows that a successful mission culminates in its own destruction. Could we develop a biological guidance system with the compliance and dispensability of a pigeon but with a man's resourcefulness and ability to infiltrate plausibly? What we need, in a nutshell, is a human who doesn't mind being blown up. He'd make the perfect on-board guidance system. But suicide enthusiasts are hard to find. Even terminal cancer patients might lose their nerve when the crash was actually looming. Could we get some otherwise normal humans and somehow persuade them that they are not going to die as a consequence of flying a plane smack into a skyscraper? If only! Nobody is that stupid, but how about this - it's a long shot, but it just might work. Given that they are certainly going to die, couldn't we sucker them into believing that they are going to come to life again afterwards? Don't be daft! No, listen, it might work. Offer them a fast track to a Great Oasis in the Sky, cooled by everlasting fountains. Harps and wings wouldn't appeal to the sort of young men we need, so tell them there's a special martyr's reward of 72 virgin brides, guaranteed eager and exclusive. Would they fall for it? Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next. It's a tall story, but worth a try. You'd have to get them young, though. Feed them a complete and self-consistent background mythology to make the big lie sound plausible when it comes. Give them a holy book and make them learn it by heart. Do you know, I really think it might work. As luck would have it, we have just the thing to hand: a ready-made system of mind-control which has been honed over centuries, handed down through generations. Millions of people have been brought up in it. It is called religion and, for reasons which one day we may understand, most people fall for it (nowhere more so than America itself, though the irony passes unnoticed). Now all we need is to round up a few of these faith-heads and give them flying lessons. Facetious? Trivialising an unspeakable evil? That is the exact opposite of my intention, which is deadly serious and prompted by deep grief and fierce anger. I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don't mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do that too), but devaluing one's own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end. If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr's death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises, and is it any wonder that naive and frustrated young men are clamouring to be selected for suicide missions? There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power and danger. It is comparable to a smart missile, and its guidance system is in many respects superior to the most sophisticated electronic brain that money can buy. Yet to a cynical government, organisation, or priesthood, it is very very cheap. Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from. It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place. But that is another story and not my concern here. My concern here is with the weapon itself. To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used. From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Mon Sep 17 19:02:23 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:32:23 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Dawkins on Suicide Bombers References: <01091718171600.07887@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <3BA5FB57.52C35A73@t-online.de> Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > _________________________________________________________________ > Richard Dawkins > Guardian > > Saturday September 15, 2001 > > To fill a world with religion, or > religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded > guns. Do not be surprised if they are used. i cannot agree with this outlandish perspective. dawkins post-humboldt popular science writing style has simply fizzled into foggy generalization and biased zealousness that nourishes the fear intended to disperse from the individual not-at-all-smart-missiles machinic consciousness and program. From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Mon Sep 17 19:11:55 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:41:55 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Bahr e Zulmaat References: <20010917105447.80665.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3BA5FD92.9815CF5C@t-online.de> rehan ansari wrote: > What is death when we can write our destiny > could you explain what you mean here? From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Mon Sep 17 19:28:11 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:58:11 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Michael Moore on "terrorism" References: <5.0.2.1.2.20010917144136.019cbba0@del1.mantraonline.com> Message-ID: <3BA60160.F8E5E440@t-online.de> Ranjani Mazumdar wrote: > From: Michael Moore > > Am I angry? You bet I am. I am an American citizen, and my leaders have > > taken my money to fund mass murder. And now my friends have paid the price > > with their lives. > i know and really like moore's concerned film documentaries, and i understand that anger follows grief in such situations. anger hower requires a target to fulfill its purpose. invoking american history alone 'to fund mass murder' is a short circuit to quicken anger when in fact there are so many events in interconnected histories which can be invoked. i wish him well and pointing fingers is rather arbitrary whether they satanize americans or other groups with sweeping rhetoric. it may be encouraging to some to find a fine american liberal and very talented filmmaker in this sorrowful state of mind. i wish him the very best and in time one may correct and learn from history (or be as we know destined to repeat it). please do not mistake the psychological profile of profound grief invoking blind anger with any meaning beyond even a greater sign of loss and sadness. From shuddha at sarai.net Mon Sep 17 20:01:31 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:01:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Images and Weapons Message-ID: <01091720013100.08100@sweety.sarai.kit> Two interesting ideas can be drawn out of the discussions on this list for the past few days. Its all about Images and Weapons. 1.It is possible to lie with images (whether or not the CNN footage of the cheering Palestinian kids is true to the moment is less important than the fact that News Networks do sometimes muddy the truth with images) 2. It is possible for people to kill themselves and thousands of other people for the sake of an image. This image can be a picture of heaven, or hell. (here, consider - the image of an after life that is preferable to life as it is - the program that ticks in the suicide bombers mind - as suggested by Richard Dawkins's essay) Why should we be so reluctant to accept this fact? Images cause as much sorrow as they cause joy, or wonder. To pretend that the realm of images and of image making is devoid of ethical dilemmas is to presume that images are actually not about life as it is lived and about death as it is died. We are happy to hold an ethical torch to science, we are happy to ask difficult questions about technology, what makes religion, the spirit, the arts, culture, holier than nuclear physics, finance capital or military strategy ? Once, someone said, "when I hear the word culture, it makes me reach for my gun". It could be said today, "when you hear the word, gun, you reach for your culture". As if guns and culture need not go hand in hand. They do, and then again, they dont. The national anthems that goad people to war are also music. The mysticism that produces jihadis, crusaders, dharamyoddhas is also mysticism. Just as the science that produces chemical, biological and nuclear weapons is also science. There is nothing less scientific in a smart bomb. There is nothing less musical in a war song, or less mystical in the cult of martyrdom. Anyone who makes images , or deals in images, or circulates images(artists, photographers, filmmakers, new media practitioners, writers, prophets, mystics, curators, art dealers) is as culpable, or not, depending on the images, as those who make weapons, deal in weapons, circulate weapons. Because some images can be weapons. Just as some weapons ( planes crashing into tall buildings) can become images, which in turn can be used as weapons again. From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Sep 17 20:03:00 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:03:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Edward Said on September 11 Message-ID: FROM: chaks at comn.usm.my TO: docuwallahs at yahoogroups.com SUBJECT: Edward Said in The Observer Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 13:38:36 +0800 Inbll Forward Delete Next Previous Edward Said Sunday September 16, 2001 The Observer Spectacular horror of the sort that struck New York (and to a lesser degree Washington) has ushered in a new world of unseen, unknown assailants, terror missions without political message, senseless destruction. For the residents of this wounded city, the consternation, fear, and sustained sense of outrage and shock will certainly continue for a long time, as will the genuine sorrow and affliction that so much carnage has so cruelly imposed on so many. New Yorkers have been fortunate that Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a normally rebarbative and unpleasantly combative, even retrograde figure, has rapidly attained Churchillian status. Calmly, unsentimentally, and with extraordinary compassion, he has marshalled the city's heroic police, fire and emergency services to admirable effect and, alas, with huge loss of life. Giuliani's was the first voice of caution against panic and jingoistic attacks on the city's large Arab and Muslim communities, the first to express the commonsense of anguish, the first to press everyone to try to resume life after the shattering blows. Would that that were all. The national television reporting has of course brought the horror of those dreadful winged juggernauts into every household, unremittingly, insistently, not always edifyingly. Most commentary has stressed, indeed magnified, the expected and the predictable in what most Americans feel: terrible loss, anger, outrage, a sense of violated vulnerability, a desire for vengeance and un-restrained retribution. Beyond formulaic expressions of grief and patriotism, every politician and accredited pundit or expert has dutifully repeated how we shall not be defeated, not be deterred, not stop until terrorism is exterminated. This is a war against terrorism, everyone says, but where, on what fronts, for what concrete ends? No answers are provided, except the vague suggestion that the Middle East and Islam are what 'we' are up against, and that terrorism must be destroyed. What is most depressing, however, is how little time is spent trying to understand America's role in the world, and its direct involvement in the complex reality beyond the two coasts that have for so long kept the rest of the world extremely distant and virtually out of the average American's mind. You'd think that 'America' was a sleeping giant rather than a superpower almost constantly at war, or in some sort of conflict, all over the Islamic domains. Osama bin Laden's name and face have become so numbingly familiar to Americans as in effect to obliterate any history he and his shadowy followers might have had before they became stock symbols of everything loathsome and hateful to the collective imagination. Inevitably, then, collective passions are being funnelled into a drive for war that uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick, rather than what is going on, an imperial power injured at home for the first time, pursuing its interests systematically in what has become a suddenly reconfigured geography of conflict, without clear borders, or visible actors. Manichaean symbols and apocalyptic scenarios are bandied about with future consequences and rhetorical restraint thrown to the winds. Rational understanding of the situation is what is needed now, not more drum-beating. George Bush and his team clearly want the latter, not the former. Yet to most people in the Islamic and Arab worlds the official US is synonymous with arrogant power, known for its sanctimoniously munificent support not only of Israel but of numerous repressive Arab regimes, and its inattentiveness even to the possibility of dialogue with secular movements and people who have real grievances. Anti-Americanism in this context is not based on a hatred of modernity or technology-envy: it is based on a narrative of concrete interventions, specific depredations and, in the cases of the Iraqi people's suffering under US-imposed sanctions and US support for the 34-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Israel is now cynically exploiting the American catastrophe by intensifying its military occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. Political rhetoric in the US has overridden these things by flinging about words like 'terrorism' and 'freedom' whereas, of course, such large abstractions have mostly hidden sordid material interests, the influence of the oil, defence and Zionist lobbies now consolidating their hold on the entire Middle East, and an age-old religious hostility to (and ignorance of) 'Islam' that takes new forms every day. Intellectual responsibility, however, requires a still more critical sense of the actuality. There has been terror of course, and nearly every struggling modern movement at some stage has relied on terror. This was as true of Mandela's ANC as it was of all the others, Zionism included. And yet bombing defenceless civilians with F-16s and helicopter gunships has the same structure and effect as more conventional nationalist terror. What is bad about all terror is when it is attached to religious and political abstractions and reductive myths that keep veering away from history and sense. This is where the secular consciousness has to try to make itself felt, whether in the US or in the Middle East. No cause, no God, no abstract idea can justify the mass slaughter of innocents, most particularly when only a small group of people are in charge of such actions and feel themselves to represent the cause without having a real mandate to do so. Besides, much as it has been quarrelled over by Muslims, there isn't a single Islam: there are Islams, just as there are Americas. This diversity is true of all traditions, religions or nations even though some of their adherents have futiley tried to draw boundaries around themselves and pin their creeds down neatly. Yet history is far more complex and contradictory than to be represented by demagogues who are much less representative than either their followers or opponents claim. The trouble with religious or moral fundamentalists is that today their primitive ideas of revolution and resistance, including a willingness to kill and be killed, seem all too easily attached to technological sophistication and what appear to be gratifying acts of horrifying retaliation. The New York and Washington suicide bombers seem to have been middle-class, educated men, not poor refugees. Instead of getting a wise leadership that stresses education, mass mobilisation and patient organisation in the service of a cause, the poor and the desperate are often conned into the magical thinking and quick bloody solutions that such appalling models pro vide, wrapped in lying religious claptrap. On the other hand, immense military and economic power are no guarantee of wisdom or moral vision. Sceptical and humane voices have been largely unheard in the present crisis, as 'America' girds itself for a long war to be fought somewhere out there, along with allies who have been pressed into service on very uncertain grounds and for imprecise ends. We need to step back from the imaginary thresholds that separate people from each other and re-examine the labels, reconsider the limited resources available, decide to share our fates with each other as cultures mostly have done, despite the bellicose cries and creeds. 'Islam' and 'the West' are simply inadequate as banners to follow blindly. Some will run behind them, but for future generations to condemn themselves to prolonged war and suffering without so much as a critical pause, without looking at interdependent histories of injustice and oppression, without trying for common emancipation and mutual enlightenment seems far more wilful than necessary. Demonisation of the Other is not a sufficient basis for any kind of decent politics, certainly not now when the roots of terror in injustice can be addressed, and the terrorists isolated, deterred or put out of business. It takes patience and education, but is more worth the investment than still greater levels of large-scale violence and suffering. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010917/cf27c57b/attachment.html From rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com Mon Sep 17 20:05:26 2001 From: rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com (rehan ansari) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 07:35:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Fwd: [Reader-list] Richard Dawkins on Suicide Bombers Message-ID: <20010917143526.9644.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com> these men were not young...do not fit the suicide-bomber profile in that sense... when reporters looked to see what impression mohammed ata and pals may have left iin the community the only thing that stood out, for a bar tender, their barroom vodka shots (after days of flight training)... and dawkins has cleansed away all politics, transformation of self from politcal impulses from his analysis of their motivation... simple minded they were not, in fact extremely high concept and extremely low tech... so unfortunate that such a man as Dawkins has a job like he does... but thats oxford Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: From: Shuddhabrata Sengupta Organization: Sarai To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: [Reader-list] Richard Dawkins on Suicide Bombers Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:17:16 +0530 What Makes a Suicide Bomber a Suicide Bomber ? Richard Dawkins attempts an answer. Please read and reflect. Shuddha Richard Dawkins is professor of the public understanding of science, University of Oxford, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and Unweaving the Rainbow. _________________________________________________________________ Richard Dawkins Guardian Saturday September 15, 2001 A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular targets. It could not zero in on a designated New York skyscraper if launched from as far away as Boston. That is precisely what a modern "smart missile" can do. Computer miniaturisation has advanced to the point where one of today's smart missiles could be programmed with an image of the Manhattan skyline together with instructions to home in on the north tower of the World Trade Centre. Smart missiles of this sophistication are possessed by the United States, as we learned in the Gulf war, but they are economically beyond ordinary terrorists and scientifically beyond theocratic governments. Might there be a cheaper and easier alternative? In the second world war, before electronics became cheap and miniature, the psychologist BF Skinner did some research on pigeon-guided missiles. The pigeon was to sit in a tiny cockpit, having previously been trained to peck keys in such a way as to keep a designated target in the centre of a screen. In the missile, the target would be for real. The principle worked, although it was never put into practice by the US authorities. Even factoring in the costs of training them, pigeons are cheaper and lighter than computers of comparable effectiveness. Their feats in Skinner's boxes suggest that a pigeon, after a regimen of training with colour slides, really could guide a missile to a distinctive landmark at the southern end of Manhattan island. The pigeon has no idea that it is guiding a missile. It just keeps on pecking at those two tall rectangles on the screen, from time to time a food reward drops out of the dispenser, and this goes on until... oblivion. Pigeons may be cheap and disposable as on-board guidance systems, but there's no escaping the cost of the missile itself. And no such missile large enough to do much damage could penetrate US air space without being intercepted. What is needed is a missile that is not recognised for what it is until too late. Something like a large civilian airliner, carrying the innocuous markings of a well-known carrier and a great deal of fuel. That's the easy part. But how do you smuggle on board the necessary guidance system? You can hardly expect the pilots to surrender the left-hand seat to a pigeon or a computer. How about using humans as on-board guidance systems, instead of pigeons? Humans are at least as numerous as pigeons, their brains are not significantly costlier than pigeon brains, and for many tasks they are actually superior. Humans have a proven track record in taking over planes by the use of threats, which work because the legitimate pilots value their own lives and those of their passengers. The natural assumption that the hijacker ultimately values his own life too, and will act rationally to preserve it, leads air crews and ground staff to make calculated decisions that would not work with guidance modules lacking a sense of self-preservation. If your plane is being hijacked by an armed man who, though prepared to take risks, presumably wants to go on living, there is room for bargaining. A rational pilot complies with the hijacker's wishes, gets the plane down on the ground, has hot food sent in for the passengers and leaves the negotiations to people trained to negotiate. The problem with the human guidance system is precisely this. Unlike the pigeon version, it knows that a successful mission culminates in its own destruction. Could we develop a biological guidance system with the compliance and dispensability of a pigeon but with a man's resourcefulness and ability to infiltrate plausibly? What we need, in a nutshell, is a human who doesn't mind being blown up. He'd make the perfect on-board guidance system. But suicide enthusiasts are hard to find. Even terminal cancer patients might lose their nerve when the crash was actually looming. Could we get some otherwise normal humans and somehow persuade them that they are not going to die as a consequence of flying a plane smack into a skyscraper? If only! Nobody is that stupid, but how about this - it's a long shot, but it just might work. Given that they are certainly going to die, couldn't we sucker them into believing that they are going to come to life again afterwards? Don't be daft! No, listen, it might work. Offer them a fast track to a Great Oasis in the Sky, cooled by everlasting fountains. Harps and wings wouldn't appeal to the sort of young men we need, so tell them there's a special martyr's reward of 72 virgin brides, guaranteed eager and exclusive. Would they fall for it? Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next. It's a tall story, but worth a try. You'd have to get them young, though. Feed them a complete and self-consistent background mythology to make the big lie sound plausible when it comes. Give them a holy book and make them learn it by heart. Do you know, I really think it might work. As luck would have it, we have just the thing to hand: a ready-made system of mind-control which has been honed over centuries, handed down through generations. Millions of people have been brought up in it. It is called religion and, for reasons which one day we may understand, most people fall for it (nowhere more so than America itself, though the irony passes unnoticed). Now all we need is to round up a few of these faith-heads and give them flying lessons. Facetious? Trivialising an unspeakable evil? That is the exact opposite of my intention, which is deadly serious and prompted by deep grief and fierce anger. I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. I don't mean devaluing the life of others (though it can do that too), but devaluing one's own life. Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end. If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr's death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises, and is it any wonder that naive and frustrated young men are clamouring to be selected for suicide missions? There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power and danger. It is comparable to a smart missile, and its guidance system is in many respects superior to the most sophisticated electronic brain that money can buy. Yet to a cynical government, organisation, or priesthood, it is very very cheap. Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from. It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place. But that is another story and not my concern here. My concern here is with the weapon itself. To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used. _______________________________________________ Reader-list mailing list Reader-list at sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list --------------------------------- Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information inYahoo! News. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010917/29f3453d/attachment.html From aiindex at mnet.fr Mon Sep 17 21:28:16 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:58:16 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Delhi: Candle Light Vigil for Restraint and Peace Message-ID: CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL FOR RESTRAINT AND PEACE [ IN NEW DELHI] ON 19 SEPTEMBER 2001 Friends We are shocked and pained by the recent terrorist violence in the US in which thousands of innocent people belonging to many nationalities and religions died. We were equally shocked and pained in the past when some other countries attacked, bombed or starved thousands of innocent people in different parts of the world. Like millions others, we feel this spiral of violence and terrorism of all kind must stop. But we are horrified to see and hear the language of war and hatred being used by the US and many other governments. Preparations seem to be going on for an all out war against nations and religious groups, even before anyone knows conclusively who was behind the attacks in the US. As a result of this kind of unrestrained official reaction, killings of innocent people has already started in the US. We feel war and retaliatory violence are not the answer to terrorism, as they have never resolved any conflict. This incident should not be used as an excuse for increased militarization and more business for the weapons industry. The Indian Government should also exercise caution and not commit India to any US initiated military action. We believe, what we need, at this moment is restraint, reflection and all round condemnation of violence, terrorism, militarization, intolerance and hatred. To express our grief at violence and death and to demand peace we are organizing a Candle Light Vigil on 19th September at 1730 (5.30 p.m.) at India Gate (entry from Copernicus Marg side) [ New Delhi, India] Do join us with candles, banners and placards on peace, for peace. Action India, AIDWA, Akhil Bharat Rachnatmak Samaj, Ankur, Anuradha Chenoy, Association of People's of Asia, Bindia Thapar, Brinda Singh, Guild of Service, Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), Jagori, Joint Womens' Programme, Kali for Women, Kamal Chenoy, Lawyers Collective, Mahila Chetna Kendra, Muslim Women's Forum, Nirantar, Nirmala Deshpande, North East Network, PEACE, Radical Humanist Association, SAHMAT, South Asian Network of Gender Activists and Trainers (SANGAT), Women's Coalition for Peace and Development with Dignity, Women's Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA), (These are the organizations and persons who have already expressed their support for this vigil. Many more are expected to support and participate). PS: It will be very good if friends in other parts of India and South Asia can organize similar vigils, preferably on the same day and time. From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Mon Sep 17 20:47:44 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:17:44 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Edward Said on September 11 References: Message-ID: <3BA613FA.9AD8AF74@t-online.de> i applaude said. thank you jeebesh. Jeebesh Bagchi wrote: > Edward Said > Sunday September 16, 2001 > The Observer > 'Islam' and 'the West' are simply inadequate as banners to follow > blindly. Some will run behind them, but for future generations to > condemn themselves to prolonged war and suffering without so much as a > critical pause, without looking at interdependent histories of > injustice and oppression, without trying for common emancipation and > mutual enlightenment seems far more wilful than necessary. > Demonisation of the Other is not a sufficient basis for any kind of > decent politics, certainly not now when the roots of terror in > injustice can be addressed, and the terrorists isolated, deterred or > put out of business. It takes patience and education, but is more > worth the investment than still greater levels of large-scale violence > and suffering. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010917/28a65b69/attachment.html From atthemoment at hotmail.com Mon Sep 17 21:10:56 2001 From: atthemoment at hotmail.com (siddhartha chatterjee) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:10:56 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] more on choose-day Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010917/8bd366e5/attachment.html From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Mon Sep 17 22:19:55 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:49:55 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] more on choose-day References: Message-ID: <3BA6298E.3605A269@t-online.de> i suggest the list draft a letter of heartfelt thanks to the United Nations Mission of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for their bravery and peace-loving attempt to stabilize the current momentous conflict as mediators. of course there will be rants concerning history, other conflicts, let them aside. there is sometimes only a 'present' and pakistan's action is the most intelligent peace-loving immune response to a global viral infection unconnected to the legitimacy of human dramas of oppression and denial that unfold unfairly from so many sides. considering pakistan's vast economic, social and political dilemmas, their action today lends greatness to the entire name of their country as Islamic, a Republic and Pakistan. siddhartha chatterjee wrote: > > > Hi > > "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> > > This is my first posting, condens(at)ed from some of the often > inflammatory exchanges Iíve had with friends and others over the last > few days. But since Iíve often been privy to steam coming out of the > multi-hued ears of this reader-listís subscribers, I figure- why not?! > > Itís not my imagination- thereís less and less debate in the Public > Domain (wherever that, in a truly engaging accessible sense, is these > days), and what appears to be a falling quantity (and possibly also or > therefore quality) in even spaces such as this. * > > Rant on people. It may be especially important in tragic times like > this. > > As Blake (?) once said, ìto generalize is to be an idiotî. We all > generalise (blake there does too), especially in an analytical vacuum, > and in the absence of evidence. Sweeping abstractions and a > reductionist economy of icons have their uses. But what we seem to > need more than ever is a focus on the particulars, and patience. > > Warmly, > > Siddhartha > > * But I see I spoke way too soon- more postings on the 17th Öthan Iíve > seen in recent memory. Heartening. > > More marginalia to forward to whoever will take the time to wade > through it... especially any blinkered citizens of the world's only > (and naturally angry) superpower and its many (and naturally > self-interested) allies, (m)any of whom you may feel are particularly > susceptible to the righteous myopic tripe put out by chauvinist > leaders and our largely vacuous sensationalist media (deep!breath) > > It seems nearly 90% of Americans support war, over 65 %accepting > "collateral damage"- or in less escapist terms - civilian killings... > (where DO they take these polls?) The Indian govt. too (no reliable > poll figures yet unfortunately) seems toíve bought into the Necessity > for Retaliation- "exceptional support" has been promised in the words > of Colin Powell. Finally Indiaís war on terrorism is Americaís, and > therefore the ìcivilisedî worlds, war. And itís going be on our > borders. Hurray. > > What a pickle. > > "Terrorists have roused a mighty giant" Bush holds forth unabashedly, > following mention of an American ìCRUSADEî against (Islamic) > terrorism- What an ASS! Weíve seen many faces recently- the clearly > felt compassion, the fiery rhetoric, the upbeat jacket-clad address > from a bunkerÖ itís a great pity he so clearly displays the shallowest > of appreciations for history and the culpability of the worldís > ìcivilised nationsî in sustaining the wars of faith begun in the 11th > century, originally against The Muslim Infidel. (Needless to say, > these misadventures and wars of religion and ideology have continued > across centuries and continents- communism the latest enemy to fall. > To be ironically superceded by the terrorism of outfits like the > Hizbul Mujahedin, once supported by the US against communism) So > nearly a millennium later we have terrorist groups pursuing what they > call a holy war - Jihad against the American infidel. Once again an > amoral (in terms of human ! loss- or, depending on your polarization, > profoundly ideologically moralistic) assault on a way of life. Not > driven by a need to convert and plunder, but to obliterate it for past > wrongdoings. Calling a response to this terrible assault a crusade > foolishly legitimises a lot of terrorist propoganda. I doubt Bush will > use the term again. But who cares? His approval rating has jumped (so > CNN repeats ad nauseam) from below 50% to nearly the highest ever for > a president- the 89% papa Bush hit after the Gulf War. And we know how > successful THAT war was.We now have Saddam Hussein sagely advising > restraint. This time, the coalition against the enemy (however poorly > and xenophobically identified) has bypassed the doddering United > Nations completely. There seems this inability (reluctance?) by policy > makers, and especially the rabid packs attacking American Sikhs and > Muslims, to differentiate between extremists, fanatically fearlessly > com! mitted to a cause (men like McVeigh in fact, the home-grown > Oklahoma C ity bomber) and vast and often-oppressed communities too > worn down, or cynical, to uphold their moderate ideals (ideals upheld > by every world religion including Islam). White supremacists (and the > idiots whoíve been targeting Arabs and Sardars since Tuesday) are not > seen as representative of the ëChristian worldí. Itís incredible (and > a sign of a phenomenally deluded society) that a network of terrorists > is seen to represent the turbaned/ëIslamic worldí. > > Pakistan has given the Taliban 72 hours to hand over Bin Laden. The > Taliban has said that shown ìcredible evidenceî that he is directly > responsible, they will hand him over to the US. Ha. Of course a mentor > and supporter isnít Directly responsible for followersí > transgressions. If the US starts its bombing before presenting > irrevocable evidence though, that could spark off a whole cycle of > aggrieved retaliations, (maybe even the world war that Nostradamus is > claimed to have foreseen in the 16th century) But for Security Reasons > of course, US Intelligence (which I think, following Gandhiís take on > Western Civilisation, would be a really good idea) will not divulge > much. Proof will have to wait while the FBI chases its 40,000 leads, > the rubble is cleared and the dead recovered, people overcome their > grief, nurse their anger and try to get back(?) to normal, and the > white house continues operations ìon a war footingî, inevitably > selective in what it feeds int! o public discourse. > > Opinions, biases, moralising, simplification, assumptions, even > accusations and heated debate - ok. Wrath, war, more armed Crusades ? > please. Thatís just incredibly vicious, egotistical, shortsighted, and > well, likely. Whatís scary is that historyís been known to repeat > itself, repeatedly. > > One of the few things we know for sure? Come crisis, and tobacco > companiesí profits soar! Hope we never run out of non-smoking zones > > siddhartha > > Like everything else the above rant reflects biases. The inevitably > polluted wellspring of debateÖ > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > _______________________________________________ Reader-list mailing > list Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010917/727c3cf4/attachment.html From prosaha at hotmail.com Tue Sep 18 00:03:20 2001 From: prosaha at hotmail.com (Pradip Saha) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:33:20 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD Message-ID: let me begin with a clich�i condemn violence, i condemn terrorism. i'll be honest, i'm not so strong to advocate violence, i'll be a loser in a violent game! i'll also be honest about another thing, (i'm risking my neck!!!): those two towers crumbling didnt leave me spellbound, they didnt look real, maybe it was a McMovie, or a McGame. i've seen these all before, isnt it terrible? i cannot understand the dichotomy between political spirit and political belief. maybe, political belief is fact while the spirit is fiction, an advertisement. i'd love to believe that we are one world (like the real thing!!!), but here i lie naked, SUCKED. and just before i collapse, i see the great neon and laser show, a promotional efffort by THE SUCKER: we are one world. i see a total mindlessness in overlooking the political economy of globalisation. president bush looks like a junior school debator when he talks about the virtue of market and globalisation as the TOOL for wiping out global poverty. globalisation is americanisation, (please remember america is an icon of certain political belief, not political spirit), eu will wake up to a horrible morning one day. Twentieth century was a success for the enterprise, promotion of McBurger has been COMPLETE, we look forward to a successful McThinking within this century! let me be serious about one thing: the successive governments in usa have been able to make the ONE WORLD as their playing field only because of a highly ill-informed us citizens (and selfish because of that certain political belief). people who cannot differentiate between an arab and a sikh! and i see now on CNN (obviously) that majority of americans support an all-out military assault on terrorism. i drink to that political spirit!!! ill-informed citizens dont realise that it will help the most reckless industry of the McCivilisation, longer, the better. i urge the american civil society organisations and academia (supposed to be a great one but must be a failure in real terms as they cannot make any in-road among its constituency) to educate the citizens, to try to get them out of a "US and them" syndrome. the support of the ill-informed americans let their government divide the world into several worlds, the selfishness prompts them to leave all negotiating tables on sustainablity (remember senior bush in rio conference:"american lifestyle cannot be compromised") we initially believed that we belonged to an one world, and we have been proved otherwise. so please dont bring in this line for convenience, like a safety valve. our political spirit is so stale that we cannot "just do it". and i'll be honest once again: i condemn terrorism, violence and cruelty. i hated the pictures of Mai Lai as a young boy. i started liking the gulf images. and i think CNN has lost its edge, this time around they cannot start the real McMovie. anyway, i just heard the gem of a quote on tv: bush saying, "i want justice". i'm sure he can buy it somewhere. i'm waiting. because when the war is over, it's gonna be one McWorld, and even the sucker wont survive. i hope all those innocent people's souls rest in peace, and their dear ones to demand for a REAL solution. ----Original Message Follows---- From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Reply-To: philip.pocock at t-online.de To: prosaha at hotmail.com CC: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:30:00 +0200 icons that deny the sanctity of life, even their own, inhabit a consciousness as machinic as a jet engine. such misguided messages and misdeeds point to the shift from experiments in civilization, confusing americanization with globalization, belief with actuality, and i use the word belief as a stronger form for the word fiction.Underlying the crimes connected to all revolutions in civilization, and civilization is provisional, time-based, is a revolution in human consciousness, as 'foolish' as this might seem to some, it is a political spirit rather than a political belief, or political opinion, which is suffering, and it is political spirit which we see unifying disparate parties, not so strange bedfellows when the question is that 'foolish' one of unity on our planet, unity through difference, the rainbow coalition, tolerance, openness, and responsibility. Pradip Saha wrote: > i am sorry to inform all the innocent people that the world may be round, > but we are not one world. what is the use of fooling ourselves? the "crime > against civilisation" has a long history. _______________________________________________ Reader-list mailing list Reader-list at sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From prosaha at hotmail.com Tue Sep 18 00:39:34 2001 From: prosaha at hotmail.com (Pradip Saha) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:09:34 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] more on choose-day Message-ID: what about another more heart-felt one to osama bin for targeting US and making them angry about terrrorism? very linear and poor understanding of islamic politics, deception, south asia, IMF, WB, economic reality, and above all mediation at gunpoint. why do u think nato is taking so long to strike? one reason could be the reluctance of several european leaders to do a rambo. another is probably the US administration realises that a dead osama is more powerful than a live one. his followers seriously believe that they have been wronged, and that is their political believe. its another matter that it finds expression in a "religious" packaging. ----Original Message Follows---- From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Reply-To: philip.pocock at t-online.de To: siddhartha chatterjee CC: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] more on choose-day Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:49:55 +0200 i suggest the list draft a letter of heartfelt thanks to the United Nations Mission of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for their bravery and peace-loving attempt to stabilize the current momentous conflict as mediators. of course there will be rants concerning history, other conflicts, let them aside. there is sometimes only a 'present' and pakistan's action is the most intelligent peace-loving immune response to a global viral infection unconnected to the legitimacy of human dramas of oppression and denial that unfold unfairly from so many sides. considering pakistan's vast economic, social and political dilemmas, their action today lends greatness to the entire name of their country as Islamic, a Republic and Pakistan. siddhartha chatterjee wrote: > > > Hi > > "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> > > This is my first posting, condens(at)ed from some of the often > inflammatory exchanges I� had with friends and others over the last > few days. But since I� often been privy to steam coming out of the > multi-hued ears of this reader-list�subscribers, I figure- why not?! > > It�not my imagination- there�less and less debate in the Public > Domain (wherever that, in a truly engaging accessible sense, is these > days), and what appears to be a falling quantity (and possibly also or > therefore quality) in even spaces such as this. * > > Rant on people. It may be especially important in tragic times like > this. > > As Blake (?) once said, � generalize is to be an idiot�We all > generalise (blake there does too), especially in an analytical vacuum, > and in the absence of evidence. Sweeping abstractions and a > reductionist economy of icons have their uses. But what we seem to > need more than ever is a focus on the particulars, and patience. > > Warmly, > > Siddhartha > > * But I see I spoke way too soon- more postings on the 17th �han I� > seen in recent memory. Heartening. > > More marginalia to forward to whoever will take the time to wade > through it... especially any blinkered citizens of the world's only > (and naturally angry) superpower and its many (and naturally > self-interested) allies, (m)any of whom you may feel are particularly > susceptible to the righteous myopic tripe put out by chauvinist > leaders and our largely vacuous sensationalist media (deep!breath) > > It seems nearly 90% of Americans support war, over 65 %accepting > "collateral damage"- or in less escapist terms - civilian killings... > (where DO they take these polls?) The Indian govt. too (no reliable > poll figures yet unfortunately) seems to� bought into the Necessity > for Retaliation- "exceptional support" has been promised in the words > of Colin Powell. Finally India�war on terrorism is America� and > therefore the �vilised�orlds, war. And it�going be on our > borders. Hurray. > > What a pickle. > > "Terrorists have roused a mighty giant" Bush holds forth unabashedly, > following mention of an American �USADE�gainst (Islamic) > terrorism- What an ASS! We� seen many faces recently- the clearly > felt compassion, the fiery rhetoric, the upbeat jacket-clad address > from a bunker�it�a great pity he so clearly displays the shallowest > of appreciations for history and the culpability of the world� > �vilised nations�n sustaining the wars of faith begun in the 11th > century, originally against The Muslim Infidel. (Needless to say, > these misadventures and wars of religion and ideology have continued > across centuries and continents- communism the latest enemy to fall. > To be ironically superceded by the terrorism of outfits like the > Hizbul Mujahedin, once supported by the US against communism) So > nearly a millennium later we have terrorist groups pursuing what they > call a holy war - Jihad against the American infidel. Once again an > amoral (in terms of human ! loss- or, depending on your polarization, > profoundly ideologically moralistic) assault on a way of life. Not > driven by a need to convert and plunder, but to obliterate it for past > wrongdoings. Calling a response to this terrible assault a crusade > foolishly legitimises a lot of terrorist propoganda. I doubt Bush will > use the term again. But who cares? His approval rating has jumped (so > CNN repeats ad nauseam) from below 50% to nearly the highest ever for > a president- the 89% papa Bush hit after the Gulf War. And we know how > successful THAT war was.We now have Saddam Hussein sagely advising > restraint. This time, the coalition against the enemy (however poorly > and xenophobically identified) has bypassed the doddering United > Nations completely. There seems this inability (reluctance?) by policy > makers, and especially the rabid packs attacking American Sikhs and > Muslims, to differentiate between extremists, fanatically fearlessly > com! mitted to a cause (men like McVeigh in fact, the home-grown > Oklahoma C ity bomber) and vast and often-oppressed communities too > worn down, or cynical, to uphold their moderate ideals (ideals upheld > by every world religion including Islam). White supremacists (and the > idiots who� been targeting Arabs and Sardars since Tuesday) are not > seen as representative of the �ristian world�It�incredible (and > a sign of a phenomenally deluded society) that a network of terrorists > is seen to represent the turbaned/�lamic world� > > Pakistan has given the Taliban 72 hours to hand over Bin Laden. The > Taliban has said that shown �edible evidence�hat he is directly > responsible, they will hand him over to the US. Ha. Of course a mentor > and supporter isn�Directly responsible for followers�> transgressions. If the US starts its bombing before presenting > irrevocable evidence though, that could spark off a whole cycle of > aggrieved retaliations, (maybe even the world war that Nostradamus is > claimed to have foreseen in the 16th century) But for Security Reasons > of course, US Intelligence (which I think, following Gandhi�take on > Western Civilisation, would be a really good idea) will not divulge > much. Proof will have to wait while the FBI chases its 40,000 leads, > the rubble is cleared and the dead recovered, people overcome their > grief, nurse their anger and try to get back(?) to normal, and the > white house continues operations � a war footing�inevitably > selective in what it feeds int! o public discourse. > > Opinions, biases, moralising, simplification, assumptions, even > accusations and heated debate - ok. Wrath, war, more armed Crusades ? > please. That�just incredibly vicious, egotistical, shortsighted, and > well, likely. What�scary is that history�been known to repeat > itself, repeatedly. > > One of the few things we know for sure? Come crisis, and tobacco > companies�rofits soar! Hope we never run out of non-smoking zones > > siddhartha > > Like everything else the above rant reflects biases. The inevitably > polluted wellspring of debate� > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > _______________________________________________ Reader-list mailing > list Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 01:17:20 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:47:20 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] more on choose-day References: Message-ID: <3BA65347.FCFE7926@t-online.de> Pradip Saha wrote: > what about another more heart-felt one to osama bin for targeting US and > making them angry about terrrorism? who is this member? is this appropriate? From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 01:18:41 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:48:41 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD References: Message-ID: <3BA65398.CDFCD083@t-online.de> Pradip Saha wrote: > let me begin with a cliché: i condemn violence, i condemn terrorism. i'll be > honest, i'm not so strong to advocate violence, i'll be a loser in a violent > game! i'll also be honest about another thing, (i'm risking my neck!!!): > those two towers crumbling didnt leave me spellbound, they didnt look real, > maybe it was a McMovie, or a McGame. i've seen these all before, isnt it > terrible? > does this member have a trace of human feeling, or as numb as the text above? From prosaha at hotmail.com Tue Sep 18 02:41:03 2001 From: prosaha at hotmail.com (Pradip Saha) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:11:03 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD Message-ID: this is the last one: i actually recognise my numbness to be terrible, and decided to be honest, rather than to be nice and do a lip service. this member is only bothered about simplistic one world rhetoric, and simplistic mindframe that congratulates pakistan for "mediating". i just saw pak foriegn minister on bbc saying how hurt they feel about the way US uses them (he talked abt the cold war time, when US encouraged them to fuel islamic terrorism in afganistan). in fact pakistan looks like a sad victim of the whole game, they are trying to get the best out of it. i have no hatred for the US, just a bit angry about the double standard. and please see the reports clearly: european leaders are with the US against terrorism, but have expressed serious doubts about military action. Blaire does not represent europe! i hope once again that the near and dear ones of the people who lost their lives demand for a REAL solution. ----Original Message Follows---- From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Reply-To: philip.pocock at t-online.de To: prosaha at hotmail.com CC: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:48:41 +0200 Pradip Saha wrote: > let me begin with a clich�i condemn violence, i condemn terrorism. i'll be > honest, i'm not so strong to advocate violence, i'll be a loser in a violent > game! i'll also be honest about another thing, (i'm risking my neck!!!): > those two towers crumbling didnt leave me spellbound, they didnt look real, > maybe it was a McMovie, or a McGame. i've seen these all before, isnt it > terrible? > does this member have a trace of human feeling, or as numb as the text above? _______________________________________________ Reader-list mailing list Reader-list at sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From netwurker at pop.hotkey.net.au Tue Sep 18 07:29:12 2001 From: netwurker at pop.hotkey.net.au (ap][e][ologger) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:59:12 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] ..a post.ing as yet not sent... Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010918115912.00b2c290@pop.hotkey.net.au> ...have been trying 2 type a certain posting since the n.itial flurry of American-11/9 event-driven responses were sent to the list [i'm not n.clined 2 use the wurd "terrorism", it n.vokes connotations i'm uncomfortable with given the current lingual climate]...i've been reluctant 2 do so as i'm not keen 2 add 2 the trauma that these events have so obviously caused.... ...my primary reaction after ][literally][ hearing the news ][via a national ozzie radio station][ was a type of active ][media drenched][somnambulism, almost biologic][hormon][ally-repressed panic, which i now recognise as a typical ][after][ shock reaction. i've since seen other manifestations of this via this list & others ][as well as in r/t][, n.cluding ppl's vehement re:action 2 my "reality smear" net.wurks & talan memmott's call via the webartery list for "no more theory" - with which i heavily m.pathize [in terms of his own personal context - being an American stranded outside America @ this time must provoke a terrifying dislocation shift that would hinder the grief/healing process]... ...this need 2 x.press/reveal affective states rather than n.gage analytically is likewise understandable, in terms of the emotively-overwhelming characteristics such information must elicit...[i haven't had any personal involvement with ppl missing/deaths or been directly affected in any other way but have undergone similar cataclysmic/stress sequences that i equate with thi][e][s][e][]]... ...wot i am terribly saddened by is the n.sidious way this shock-time period has been commandeered 2 create a type of a][e][ffective-propaganda machine, and hence act 2 largely negate the traumatic fibrillations many of the personal tragedies r displaying...we r s][imulacrum][eeing individual circumstances being overwritten/subsumed via x.p][onentially][anding war t][orque][alk...this type of additional collusive damage is so unecessary in a time when legitimate grief & x.pressions of loss should be the primary currency in terms of USA culture-mechanisms... n.stead this shock period is being utilized by USA control systematics ][militaristic, gover.mental][ to force their own agenda. so][m][b][r][ed, ][mez/apologuer][ . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ .antithetical..n.struments..go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... From shuddha at sarai.net Tue Sep 18 11:44:52 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:44:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] People and Power Message-ID: <01091811445201.01281@sweety.sarai.kit> While appreciating the depth of Pradip Saha's anger against the One World (TM) (Inc) (C) that we are not a part of, it might be be worthwhile to remind ourselves that there is 'one world' (in small case) that we all live in. Harsh Kapoor has already passed on a message for a peace vigil to be held in Delhi, it is important to recognise at this stage that people are planning vigils against war everywhere, even in America. I am passing on this posting below form the heart of Amerika - Texas, where the first retribution against Black Tuesday took the form of the killing of a Sikh man. It is important to recognize that the only difference that can be made at this time is by ordinary people and not by governments. While I would not back any move by any person on this list to thank any government anywhere, I propose that we recognise the fact there are enough sane people in every city who would stand opposed to war. Let us not identify people with governments anywhere.Not here, not in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and not in the United States. - For Immediate Release - AUSTIN AGAINST WAR September 17, 2001 NEW GROUP OPPOSED TO WAR EMERGES IN THE HEART OF TEXAS JOINS CALL FOR NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST WAR ON SEPT. 20 JOINS CALL FOR TEXAS RALLY AGAINST WAR AND RACISM ON SEPT. 29 Austin, TX -- About 100 people met Sunday evening for an anti-war organizing and planning meeting in East Austin. The group, now calling itself Austin Against War, agreed to three broad points of unity: to oppose war, to defend against racist attacks and to protect civil liberties. Austin Against War is joining the call for a National Day of Action on Thursday, Sept. 20, and will be holding a 5:30 p.m. rally in Austin at the Texas State Capitol at 11th & Congress. The formation of the new group comes 5 days after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Many at Sunday's meeting had attended a large community meeting last Wednesday at the University of Texas and two rallies held on Friday, one at UT and the other at the Capitol. At these events sadness was expressed over the tragic loss of life in the Sept. 11 attacks. But concern was also voiced over how the United States is responding - fears that the U.S. could push us into World War III. Besides this Thursday's rally, Austin Against War joins the Austin Democracy Coalition in calling for a Texas Rally Against War And Racism to be held in Austin on September 29. On this day people will gather at 3:00 p.m. in Kealing Park at Rosewood and Angelina and march to the Capitol for a 4:30 p.m. rally. Also, the group is calling for a regular presence at the Capitol at 5:30 p.m. every day. Until Austin Against War's web site is up and running, more information about Austin's new anti-war efforts can be found on these web sites: http://austin.indymedia.org http://www.progressiveaustin.org http://www.nowarcollective.com http://austindemocracycoalition.org - 30 - # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in Tue Sep 18 05:28:48 2001 From: shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in (Shohini) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:58:48 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] Alan Sonheim's net art? /text on the missing References: <01091715043600.07414@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <000501c13ffb$ff90b7a0$5474c8cb@shohini> Regarding Alan Sonheim's net art titled "text on the missing". I can see rows and rows of picket fences in an exteme long shot. Is the text missing or am I missing the text? Shohini Ghosh ----- Original Message ----- From: Shuddhabrata Sengupta To: < Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 2:34 AM Subject: [Reader-list] Alan Sonheim's net art? /text on the missing > Apologies for cross posting to those on the NEttime list, but thought that > this would be valuable to see for all. > > Shuddha > > ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- > Subject: missing > Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 13:51:08 -0400 (EDT) > From: Alan Sondheim > To: > > > - > > > missing > > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > 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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net > > ------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > From chrismueller at sprintmail.com Tue Sep 18 00:13:06 2001 From: chrismueller at sprintmail.com (Chris Mueller) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:43:06 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] NOT-faked footage Message-ID: Dear friends, You may have recently received a message claiming that some recent TV news footage was faked, footage of Palestinians dancing in the streets after the recent terrorist attacks on the U.S. The message claims that the images were recycled from 1991. THIS MESSAGE IS FALSE. CNN confirms that it was using footage from Tuesday, September 11, 2001, provided by a Reuters camera crew. The crew members were in danger of their lives, because the Palestinians were very adamant that such footage not be shot or shown. For the full story, see this site, which also contains links to several related items: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/cnn.htm In addition, the person responsible for spreading this egregious falsehood has recanted his original story. For that change of heart, see this link: http://uk.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=11546 Thanks, and let's stop the spread of lies, and keep the truth alive! - Chris From shuddha at sarai.net Tue Sep 18 12:17:09 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:17:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] one world vs. One World (TM) (Inc.) (C) Message-ID: <01091812170902.01281@sweety.sarai.kit> Here is avery long e mail - a compilation of 14 postings that was sent to me by Kamla Bhasin. It acts as a follow up to Harsh Kapoor's circualtion of the notice for a Peace Vigil and to the last posting I made with the statement of an Anti War Group in Austin, Texas, USA. I would not have ordinarily sent such a posting on to the readers list, because of its length. But if anyone has the patience to actually go through this one they would realise that these are statements against war from Israel, India, Pakistan, the Afghan diaspora in Pakistan,Australia, America and Europe. In order of appearance, they are - 1.]Coalition of Women for Peace / Israel & Palestine 2.] Text Distributed at one of the Vigils held on 15 September 2001 Saturday in London, UK} 3.]Statement from the War Resisters League, USA 4.]Proposition One Committee, USA 5.]Statement by THE GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES 6.]Draft Statement by a coalition of Australian Anti War Groups 7.]STATEMENT BY THE FORUM OF INDIAN LEFTISTS , USA 8.]Statement by South Asia Forum for Human Rights, Nepal 9.]Letter to George Bush by 60 signatories against war (signatories are from India, Pakistan, USA and many countries in Europe 10.]Statement Codemning Terrorism in New York and appealing against the unleashing of War on Afghanistan by RAWA - the Revolutionary Association of Afghan Women 11.]Statement by the Campaing for Nuclear Disarmamant and Peace (CNDP) New Delhi 12.]Text of the Dalai Lama's message to George Bush 13.] Press Statement by NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court 14.] Statemnent by Human Rights Watch - "Civilian Life Must Be Respected" Clearly a case of 'one world' saying something quite different from One World (TM) (Inc.) (C) Cheers Shuddha Apologies for the length of this posting ________________________________________________________ Dear Friends, I am sharing with you a series of statements (14 of them) from different peace initiatives elsewhere, which have been sent to me by various friends. In solidarity Kamla Bhasin ========= [1.] Coalition of Women for Peace / Israel Dear friends, It seems that the nightmare has just begun and that the terrible events of the past week are only the beginning of a war that seems inevitable. At the Coalition's last meeting we decided that we should make our voice against the war heard. As a first step we will publish an ad in Thursday's newspaper, and follow it on Friday by a special Woman in Black vigil. Our ad will be published in the "Haaretz" newspaper this Thursday. The next day, Friday, September 21, 10:00 AM, we will hold a national Women in Black vigil opposite the US Embassy in Tel Aviv calling on the US government to stop the war. During the vigil we will request the US Ambassador to receive a delegation of women that will hand him a letter containing the text of the ad, addressed to the President of the US. We will also address the same letter and send it to the Israeli Prime Minister and othe Israeli officials (See below the text of the ad/letter). We would like to suggest that you join us in this or in similar actions as part of an international campaign against the war. As every Women in Black vigil is independent and autonomous, each group can determine its own format, signs, and agenda. The more vigils and actions, the more the political leadership around the world will get the message: This war is unacceptable. Period. If you can organize a vigil or any action against the war in your city, or if you know of any action that is being organized, please let us know and we will inform all the contacts in the Coalition's and Women in black network. Please forward this message to as many others as possible. If you need additional information or need assistance please contact us: Miri Krasin razizvi at post.tau.ac.il until Friday, September 21. Debby Lerman debbyl at actcom.co.il from Saturday, September 22. Debby Lerman AD/ LETTER TO BE PUBLISHED THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 Stop this war! We - Palestinian and Jewish women from Israel, activists who have worked for many years to achieve a just peace and the end of Occupation - feel shocked and numbed by the murderous terrorist attack against New York and Washington. Deeply shaken by the immense pain and destruction, we wish to extend our condolences to the families of the victims, express our deep empathy and solidarity with the American people, and condemn the murder and injury of innocent people. To end the cycle of violence: · The governments of Israel and the USA must immediately stop their campaign of racist slander that turns reality into a mythic struggle between Good and Evil, between a "superior" western culture and an "inferior" Muslim one. · The government of the U.S.A. must abstain from violent retaliation that can only lead to further escalation and to more killing. · The government of Israel must stop taking advantage of the international numbness and shock to intensify assaults against the Palestinian people. The racist campaign against the Muslim and Arab world, and the war and terror being launched as the next step, can only stop the hope of finding real solutions to the problem of world terror, while bringing about more destruction and death. The Coalition of Women for Peace ========== 2 [This was distributed at one of the vigils held on 15 September 2001 Saturday in London, UK} o o o The initiatives listed below are the initiative from ARROW (Active Resistance to the Roots of War), a non-violent direct action affinity group formed in September 1990 to oppose the Gulf War. JUSTICE NOT VENGEANCE We mourn the thousands who died in Tuesday's horrific atrocities. Out thoughts are with those who have lost their loved ones in these terrible crimes. However, we must not respond to these evil acts by committing evil acts of our own. Lashing out militarily is not the answer, and would inevitably cause deaths of many more people as unconnected with terrorism as were those who died this week. Rather, we must bring the perpetrators to justice in a court of law. WEEKLY VIGIL Tuesdays, 6 pm, opposite Downing Street, London. Please come to show your opposition to the threatened use of force. This vigil was initiated by ARROW and is supported by CDN. EMAIL LIST An email list for people trying to prevent (and, if necessary, limit) US/UK military action in response to the atrocities in New York and Washington. To join, please go tot the following website: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Aftermath-11-September-2001/join ARROW, c/o NVRN, 162 Holloway Road, London N7 8DQ Phone (44) 020 7607 23 02 Email milanrai at btinternet.com ======== >3.) From the US > >http://www.warresisters.org/attack9-11-01.htm > > Statement from the War Resisters League > > New York, New York > FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE > September 11, 2001 > >As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and >subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north >from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters >League, our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds if not >thousands of New Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the >World Trade Center. The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds >billow over the ruins where so many have died, including a great many >rescue workers who were there when the final collapse occurred. > >Of course we know that our friends and co-workers in Washington, D.C. >have similar thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped >in the parts of the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we >think of the innocent passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried >to their doom on this day. We do not know at this time from what >source the attack came. > >We do know that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We >hesitate to make an extended analysis until more information is >available but some things are clear. For the Bush Administration to talk >of spending hundreds of billions on Star Wars is clearly the sham it was >from the beginning, when terrorism can so easily strike through more >routine means. > >We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy >the U.S. develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target >civilians, or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This >would mean an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused >the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only >a condemnation of terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of >assassination against the Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the >ruthless repression of the Palestinian population and the continuing >occupation by Israel of the West Bank and Gaza. > >The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in >millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, >through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, >to the sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest >supplier of "conventional weapons" in the world-and those weapons fuel >the starkest kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy >support for armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the >Taliban-and the creation of Osama Bin Laden. > >Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years >past, condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such >as Chechnya, the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the >Balkans. But our nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up >until now we have felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear day to >find our largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none >are safe. Let us seek an end of the militarism that has characterized >this nation for decades. > >Let us seek a world in which security is gained through disarmament, >international cooperation, and social justice not through escalation and >retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as those >which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians-may these >profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on >other civilians in other lands. We also condemn reflexive hostility >against people of Arab descent living in this country and urge that >Americans recall the part of our heritage that opposes bigotry in all >forms. > >We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall >move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to violence, >and a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the >many lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. > > **************** > >This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was >drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued >by members of the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters >League at the national office, September 11, 2001: > > asif ullah > Carmen Trotta > Chris Ney > David McReynolds > Joanne Sheehan > Judith Mahoney Pasternak > Melissa Jameson > > Contact: David McReynolds, 212-674-7268 > Joanne Sheehan, 860-889-5337 > War Resisters League, 212-228-0450 > > > > War Resisters League > 339 Lafayette Street > New York, NY 10012 > (212) 228-0450 > fax (212) 228-6193 > wrl at warresisters.org > >Believing war to be a crime against humanity, the War Resisters >League, founded in 1923, advocates Gandhian nonviolence as the >method for creating a democratic society free of war, racism, sexism, >and human exploitation. > >------- > >4.) > From the US >Reporting from Washington DC after the World Trade and Pentagon attacks: > >Vigilers outside the White House are safe, but banished two blocks away >from their signs. I listened to C-Span radio call-in all day; many >Americans are truly ignorant ("nuke Iran/Afghanistan/Iraq" - "fall down on >your knees and pray to God, then retaliate"). A few made sense: "Don't >jump to conclusions, we don't know who did this" - "Put them in jail; >violence begets violence." One woman called to point out that the U.S. had >been bombing Iraq, but C-Span cut her off. The ignorant were allowed to >say their piece. > >Downtown DC was surreal this morning, as all the federal buildings sent >their people home. Otherwise peaceful. > >Really worried about our friends in New York. Please let us know you're >okay. > >Love and forgiveness, > > >Ellen Thomas >Proposition One Committee >PO Box 27217, Washington DC 20038 >202-462-0757 -- fax 202-265-5389 > >---- > >5.) > >THE GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES > >MEDIA ADVISORY >For immediate release: >Tuesday, September 11, 2001 > >Contacts: >Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator >202-518-5624, >order=down&sort=date&pos=0>scottmclarty at yahoo.com > > >GREENS CONDEMN THE VIOLENT ATTACKS ON NEW YORK, THE >PENTAGON, AND PENNSYLVANIA > >WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Green Party of the United >States condemns the violent attacks and mass murder at >the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and near >Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. > >Greens offer their sympathy to people affected by the >attacks, especially those injured, and to the loved >ones of people killed or injured. > >"The Green Party opposes the use of violence for >political ends, whether by government forces, by >independent organizations, or by individuals, and we >call all such tactics counterproductive! ," said Anita >Rios, Co-Chair of the Green Party and a member of the >Ohio Greens. > >"Whoever and whatever group is behind today's attacks >have earned the revulsion and condemnation of the >world, and have set back whatever cause they hoped to >advance. We stand with all Americans, and with all >the peaceful people of the world and grieve." > >Greens appeal for a careful response, after >investigation, from the White House, and insist that >rash and violent retaliation will only increase the >loss of life, especially of the innocent. > >"Those responsible for these murders are attempting to >terrorize Americans out of our faith in democracy," >said Ben Manski, Green Party Co-Chair and member of >the Wisconsin Green Party. "They have crucified >thousands of civilians in an attempt to intimidate the >government into clamping down on American freedoms." > >"We ask our leaders to be swift and just," added Anita >Rios.&n! bsp; "We ask that this horror not be compounded by >the victimization or stigmatization of the innocent." > > >The Green Party of the United States http://gpus.org > > >END ====== 6. >Statement on the attacks today in the US > >DRAFT ONLY > > >The organisations signed below wish to express their sincere sorrow for >the enormous loss of life in the United States today. Our heartfelt >condolences go out to the families and friends of the victims throughout >the world as well as to the American people. > >We condemn all acts of terrorism, whether state sanctioned or the actions >of individuals or small groups, as indefensible. > >Today's tragic events show us that our current strategies are not >effective and do not promote peace. The US with the assistance of >Australia has been attempting to construct artificial walls around its >nation through schemes such as the National Missile Defence proposal. It is >clear that no amount of military spending could have created a preventative >solution to the attacks witnessed by the world today. > >We call for a calm response in the face of this tragedy. The world needs >to take a deep breath before taking rash and counterproductive steps in >retaliation for these attacks. We call on the international community and >the Australian people not to allow this atrocity to increase hatred, >racial and religious intolerance. We encourage our leaders to view this as >an opportunity for Australia to assist the US and the world in its search >for peaceful solutions to conflicts. > >We add our voices to those of colleagues around the world who recognise >that true security can only be rooted in social and environmental justice. > >Signed: >The Wilderness Society >Earth Worker >Friends of Palestine >Friends of the Earth Australia >Action for Peace >Canberra Program for Peace >Rev. Ray Richmond, Wayside Chapel, uniting Church in Australia >Australian AntiBases Campaign Coalition >Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament (CICD) > ======= 7. From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Sep 18 12:16:24 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:16:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] the tall twin towers Message-ID: Yesterday I saw the film Lajja at the night show. The film opened up its contemporary landscape with an aerial shot of night time New York. The tall towers of the WTC all lit up stood signifying `a cosmos', eternal and proud. The film then traced the trauma of an `indian bahu` trapped amidst this self-absorbed brilliance.... The following posting that i picked up from the nettime list makes an attempt to look at the real and symbolic power of of the twin towers. hope it will provoke some discussions. [remarks on Zizek - fwd from Nettime] DESERTING THE REAL / GOING TO THE MOVIES John O'Neill Should we run into the movie house with S/Z every time we see something on TV? Don't we miss TV's attempt to make a movie that we are just about to see but for which its commentators lack narrative power? (1) We know what hit WTC and possibly who --but we don't know what WTC is nor who we are; (2) If we pair WTC and WTO we get a better sense of them and ourselves, recalling their contested status in protests played out world-wide (Seattle, Quebec City, Genoa) beyond the newly improvised walls of capital democracy; (3) If we twin the WTC towers with WTO, we achieve intellectual perspective by connecting iconology to the material practices of global capitalism. The WTC was a glass house of capital brains and bodies, young, powerful, plugged into money, style, and the nomadic life of the twenty/eighty split that rules symbolic capitalism's division of social labour into highly and lowly valued services; (4) The terrible destruction of WTC demands in the first instance that its bodies be Americanized, familized and averaged into "anyone of us". At the same time, there is staged the recovery of these bodies by civic bodies (firemen / women, police men and women, security men and women and other citizens willing to sacrifice themselves on behalf of capital bodies who at other times seek to be unburdened by such duties, charity, and the taxes that underwrite these municipal services. (5) The critical challenge is to connect the intellectual perspective we might gain with the moral perspective offered to us in the scenes of extraordinary civic responses to the disaster which fell upon New York and Washington. TV is witness to these moral events but lacks any liturgical knowledge to fill in its otherwise empty icons whose endless repetition begins to numb our minds and hearts. Perhaps this is because we know our resolve to learn from them is weak and soon overwhelmed with cries for revenge that do not close the wound but keep it open for ever; (6) Any pop commentary, eked out by comparing movies to movies, is weak in its response to civic events that require us to think through the daily toll upon workers, families and communities. It is they who bear the human capital sacrifice that calls for witness at the site of WTC. Here the hidden injuries of modernity mark us all. (7) It is a conceit of commentary that the world's integrity can be filtered through its analysts and anchor persons whereas it is the inalienable gift of everyone who lent a hand to anyone else in need. The catastrophic events that opened this week also tore out of us an unfinished prayer to anyone's god anywhere......It is in the silence of those gods that we must learn to think and to hold together. John O'Neill Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology 227 Founders College, York University, Toronto, M3J 1P3, Canada (Home) 416-653-8838 (Office) 416-736-5148 (Fax) 416-653-7323 **************************************************************************** ******** Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Tue Sep 18 13:03:55 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 00:33:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] the liberal response Message-ID: <20010918073355.56637.qmail@web14605.mail.yahoo.com> Attached is an article from the Guardian 2 days ago which is fairly typical of the liberal response from outside the US in pointing to the violent and unthinking role of American might in the world as important context for what entered all our lives as a shock without prelude. The list of American wrongs could actually have been expanded - I think it is important to draw out the daily experience of intense structural inequality in the world as well as just the more dramatic moments of bombs or invasions. It is a common predicament of great empires to completely lose perspective and to think that everyone is as in love with them as they are with themselves - and that anyone who is not is just mad. Over a long period of time it is therefore important to provide the kind of reportage and analysis that will allow certain people's fear or hatred of the American empire to remain *intelligible* - and thus for the empire itself not to completely lose touch. But I have to confess to wondering what the point of this stuff is right now. Are we just trying to say to the US, "You deserved it"? Are we attempting to remain above the sensationalism of the TV networks by saying "Chill out - it was always going to happen"? Or are we hoping that the US will temper its response as a result of these reminders of its own wrongs? I think this last hope is extremely naive. Clinton never had much time for sensitivity in these situations and Bush has much more provocation (his citizens are already murdering in the streets) and is endowed with fewer natural resources in the sensitivity domain anyway. What the US government is looking for right now is a course of action, and its choices are difficult - and a litany of complaints against it is not very helpful. The fact is, this a crisis of international relations, it is war - and in such a situation it is only the discourse of international relations that will prevail. The response of those who believe that the US must play a more responsible role in the world and that there is more at stake in the current crisis than just revenge has to be formulated in the terms of the urgent conversations that are already happening in Washington - ie in terms of possible action and outcomes, and in terms of the ultimate interests of the US. I have not seen any liberal opinion that is helpful enough to the situation to be of any significance. What should Bush do? What should the US be seeking to achieve in this situation? What - this is where liberals should be able to add to the equation - are the negative consequences of premature action? The Guardian article follows. R ^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^ Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world. But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages. If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a Churchillian response. It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his genitals stuffed in his mouth. But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out across the world. All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil � as must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker asked yesterday. Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are addressed. s.milne at guardian.co.uk __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 14:29:09 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:59:09 +0200 Subject: [Fwd: [Reader-list] NOT-faked footage] Message-ID: <3BA70CDC.56B635C9@t-online.de> some soul searching news -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Chris Mueller Subject: [Reader-list] NOT-faked footage Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:43:06 -0400 Size: 3047 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010918/6d57c6f9/attachment.mht From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 14:30:50 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:00:50 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD References: Message-ID: <3BA70D42.63A017CC@t-online.de> Pradip Saha wrote: > this is the last one: > > i actually recognise my numbness to be terrible, and decided to be honest, > rather than to be nice and do a lip service. you appear to be psychopathic, with all options open to be manipulated by your character. From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 14:34:28 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:04:28 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] ..a post.ing as yet not sent... References: <3.0.6.32.20010918115912.00b2c290@pop.hotkey.net.au> Message-ID: <3BA70E1B.211D7210@t-online.de> save your out-of-date concrete poetry to yourself. were you a ee cummings and the clock was wound back 50 years i might delve in to read and image your gibberish. email is a voice and ee cummings was a response to that in print media. update and cut the nostalgia. you wont get my attention. "ap][e][ologger" wrote: > ...have been trying 2 type a certain posting since the n.itial flurry of > American-11/9 event-driven responses were sent to the list [i'm not > n.clined 2 use the wurd "terrorism", it n.vokes connotations i'm > uncomfortable with given the current lingual climate]...i've been reluctant > 2 do so as i'm not keen 2 add 2 the trauma that these events have so > obviously caused.... > > ...my primary reaction after ][literally][ hearing the news ][via a > national ozzie radio station][ was a type of active ][media > drenched][somnambulism, almost biologic][hormon][ally-repressed panic, > which i now recognise as a typical ][after][ shock reaction. i've since > seen other manifestations of this via this list & others ][as well as in > r/t][, n.cluding ppl's vehement re:action 2 my "reality smear" net.wurks & > talan memmott's call via the webartery list for "no more theory" - with > which i heavily m.pathize [in terms of his own personal context - being an > American stranded outside America @ this time must provoke a terrifying > dislocation shift that would hinder the grief/healing process]... > > ...this need 2 x.press/reveal affective states rather than n.gage > analytically is likewise understandable, in terms of the > emotively-overwhelming characteristics such information must elicit...[i > haven't had any personal involvement with ppl missing/deaths or been > directly affected in any other way but have undergone similar > cataclysmic/stress sequences that i equate with thi][e][s][e][]]... > > ...wot i am terribly saddened by is the n.sidious way this shock-time > period has been commandeered 2 create a type of a][e][ffective-propaganda > machine, and hence act 2 largely negate the traumatic fibrillations many of > the personal tragedies r displaying...we r s][imulacrum][eeing individual > circumstances being overwritten/subsumed via x.p][onentially][anding war > t][orque][alk...this type of additional collusive damage is so unecessary > in a time when legitimate grief & x.pressions of loss should be the primary > currency in terms of USA culture-mechanisms... n.stead this shock period is > being utilized by USA control systematics ][militaristic, gover.mental][ to > force their own agenda. > > so][m][b][r][ed, > ][mez/apologuer][ > > > > . . .... ..... > net.wurker][mez][ > .antithetical..n.struments..go.here. > xXXx > ./. > www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker > .... . .??? ....... > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 14:40:08 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:10:08 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] People and Power References: <01091811445201.01281@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <3BA70F6F.F7974469@t-online.de> Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > > Let us not identify people with governments anywhere.Not here, not in > Afghanistan or Pakistan, and not in the United States. > as a canadian with a green card, 16 years in us, with an irish passport and permanent status in europe for 10 year i agree with this elegant statement of what has in my mind been in the hearts of all politically mindful peoples, not those seeking to hide urges for power behind some fabric of ideology, as has been said. the political spirit which underlies any provisional ideology. and it is a time for solidarity, meaning identiyt not identicalness, on this level. From aditya at sarai.net Tue Sep 18 14:55:08 2001 From: aditya at sarai.net (Aditya Nigam) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:55:08 Subject: [Reader-list] [Fwd: John Pilger on Imperialism] Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20010918145508.486f66a8@mail.sarai.net> This is an interesting piece on Islam and the US/West. >Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:56:00 +0530 >From: Nivedita Menon >X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en] (Win95; I) >To: aditya nigam >Subject: [Fwd: The Herald, 13 September 2001] >X-AntiVirus: scanned for viruses by AMaViS 0.2.1 (http://amavis.org/) > > >Return-Path: >Delivered-To: anigam at nde.vsnl.net.in >Received: from del-d190okh-es1.ltb.in.niit.com (unknown [202.56.231.227]) > by nde.vsnl.net.in (Postfix) with ESMTP id 449653FC05 > for ; Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:18:08 +0530 (IST) >Received: by ddp-31-227.ras231.mantraonline.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) > id ; Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:11:20 +0530 >Message-ID: <693C7BF04114D411BB3800B0D02192CE0246BFA8 at del-d190okh-es2.ltb.in.niit.com> >From: RanjanP at NIIT.com >To: prasadabha at hotmail.com, queridaforever at hotmail.com, > alforum at vsnl.net, anigam at nde.vsnl.net.in, zwerver at xs4all.nl, > arpankaur at hotmail.com, arc6395 at nda.vsnl.net.in, > ashleytellis at hotmail.com, ashok at brandeis.edu, > asukthan at law.harvard.edu >Subject: The Herald, 13 September 2001 >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:01:06 +0530 >X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: <693C7BF04114D411BB3800B0D02192CE0246BFA8 at del-d190okh-es2.ltb.in.niit.com> >MIME-Version: 1.0 >X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) >Content-Type: multipart/mixed; > boundary="----_=_NextPart_000_01C13CD6.122DE4B0" > > | >Pilger: Inevitable ring to the unimaginable > | > > | >JOHN PILGER > | > > | >The Herald, 13 September 2001 > | > > | > IF the attacks on America have their source in > | > the Islamic world, who can really be surprised? > | > > | > Two days earlier, eight people were killed in > | > southern Iraq when British and American planes > | > bombed civilian areas. To my knowledge, not a > | > word appeared in the mainstream media in > | > Britain. > | > > | > An estimated 200,000 Iraqis, according to the > | > Health Education Trust in London, died during > | > and in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter > | > known as the Gulf War. > | > > | > This was never news that touched public > | > consciousness in the west. > | > > | > At least a million civilians, half of them >children, > | > have since died in Iraq as a result of a medieval > | > embargo imposed by the United States and > | > Britain. > | > > | > In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Mujadeen, > | > which gave birth to the fanatical Taliban, was > | > largely the creation of the CIA. > | > > | > The terrorist training camps where Osama bin > | > Laden, now "America's most wanted man", > | > allegedly planned his attacks, were built with > | > American money and backing. > | > > | > In Palestine, the enduring illegal occupation by > | > Israel would have collapsed long ago were it not > | > for US backing. > | > > | > Far from being the terrorists of the world, the > | > Islamic peoples have been its victims - > | > principally the victims of US fundamentalism, > | > whose power, in all its forms, military, strategic > | > and economic, is the greatest source of > | > terrorism on earth. > | > > | > This fact is censored from the Western media, > | > whose "coverage" at best minimises the > | > culpability of imperial powers. Richard Falk, > | > professor of international relations at Princeton, > | > put it this way: "Western foreign policy is > | > presented almost exclusively through a > | > self-righteous, one-way legal/moral screen (with) > | > positive images of Western values and > | > innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a > | > campaign of unrestricted political violence." > | > > | > That Tony Blair, whose government sells lethal > | > weapons to Israel and has sprayed Iraq and > | > Yugoslavia with cluster bombs and depleted > | > uranium and was the greatest arms supplier to > | > the genocidists in Indonesia, can be taken > | > seriously when he now speaks about the > | > "shame" of the "new evil of mass terrorism" > | > says much about the censorship of our collective > | > sense of how the world is managed. > | > > | > One of Blair's favourite words - "fatuous" - > | > comes to mind. Alas, it is no comfort to the > | > families of thousands of ordinary Americans > | > who have died so terribly that the perpetrators of > | > their suffering may be the product of Western > | > policies. Did the American establishment > | > believe that it could bankroll and manipulate > | > events in the Middle East without cost to itself, > | > or rather its own innocent people? > | > > | > The attacks on Tuesday come at the end of a > | > long history of betrayal of the Islamic and Arab > | > peoples: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, > | > the foundation of the state of Israel, four > | > Arab-Israeli wars and 34 years of Israel's brutal > | > occupation of an Arab nation: all, it seems, > | > obliterated within hours by Tuesday's acts of > | > awesome cruelty by those who say they > | > represent the victims of the West's intervention > | > in their homelands. > | > > | > "America, which has never known modern war, > | > now has her own terrible league table: perhaps > | > as many as 20,000 victims." > | > > | > As Robert Fisk points out, in the Middle East, > | > people will grieve the loss of innocent life, but > | > they will ask if the newspapers and television > | > networks of the west ever devoted a fraction of > | > the present coverage to the half-a-million dead > | > children of Iraq, and the 17,500 civilians killed >in > | > Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The answer > | > is no. There are deeper roots to the atrocities in > | > the US, which made them almost inevitable. > | > > | > It is not only the rage and grievance in the > | > Middle East and south Asia. Since the end of > | > the cold war, the US and its sidekicks, > | > principally Britain, have exercised, flaunted, and > | > abused their wealth and power while the > | > divisions imposed on human beings by them > | > and their agents have grown as never before. > | > > | > An elite group of less than a billion people now > | > take more than 80 per cent of the world's wealth. > | > > | > In defence of this power and privilege, known by > | > the euphemisms "free market" and "free trade", > | > the injustices are legion: from the illegal > | > blockade of Cuba, to the murderous arms trade, > | > dominated by the US, to its trashing of basic > | > environmental decencies, to the assault on > | > fragile economies by institutions such as the > | > World Trade Organisation that are little more > | > than agents of the US Treasury and the > | > European central banks, and the demands of > | > the World Bank and the International Monetary > | > Fund in forcing the poorest nations to repay > | > unrepayable debts; to a new US "Vietnam" in > | > Colombia and the sabotage of peace talks > | > between North and South Korea (in order to > | > shore up North Korea's "rogue nation" status). > | > > | > Western terror is part of the recent history of > | > imperialism, a word that journalists dare not > | > speak or write. > | > > | > The expulsion of the population of Diego Darcia > | > in the 1960s by the Wilson government received > | > almost no press coverage. > | > > | > Their homeland is now an American nuclear > | > arms dump and base from which US bombers > | > patrol the Middle East. > | > > | > In Indonesia, in 1965/6, a million people were > | > killed with the complicity of the US and British > | > governments: the Americans supplying General > | > Suharto with assassination lists, then ticking off > | > names as people were killed. > | > > | > "Getting British companies and the World Bank > | > back in there was part of the deal", says Roland > | > Challis, who was the BBC's south east Asia > | > correspondent. > | > > | > British behaviour in Malaya was no different > | > from the American record in Vietnam, for which > | > it proved inspirational: the withholding of food, > | > villages turned into concentration camps and > | > more than half a million people forcibly > | > dispossessed. > | > > | > In Vietnam, the dispossession, maiming and > | > poisoning of an entire nation was apocalyptic, > | > yet diminished in our memory by Hollywood > | > movies and by what Edward Said rightly calls > | > cultural imperialism. > | > > | > In Operation Phoenix, in Vietnam, the CIA > | > arranged the homicide of around 50,000 > | > people. As official documents now reveal, this > | > was the model for the terror in Chile that > | > climaxed with the murder of the democratically > | > elected leader Salvador Allende, and within 10 > | > years, the crushing of Nicaragua. > | > > | > All of it was lawless. The list is too long for >this > | > piece. > | > > | > Now imperialism is being rehabilitated. > | > American forces currently operate with impunity > | > from bases in 50 countries. > | > > | > "Full spectrum dominance" is Washington's > | > clearly stated aim. > | > > | > Read the documents of the US Space > | > Command, which leaves us in no doubt. > | > > | > In this country, the eager Blair government has > | > embarked on four violent adventures, in pursuit > | > of "British interests" (dressed up as > | > "peacekeeping"), and which have little or no > | > basis in international law: a record matched by > | > no other British government for half a century. > | > > | > What has this to do with this week's atrocities in > | > America? If you travel among the impoverished > | > majority of humanity, you understand that it has > | > everything to do with it. > | > > | > People are neither still, nor stupid. They see > | > their independence compromised, their > | > resources and land and the lives of their children > | > taken away, and their accusing fingers > | > increasingly point north: to the great enclaves of > | > plunder and privilege. Inevitably, terror breeds > | > terror and more fanaticism. > | > > | > But how patient the oppressed have been. > | > > | > It is only a few years ago that the Islamic > | > fundamentalist groups, willing to blow > | > themselves up in Israel and New York, were > | > formed, and only after Israel and the US had > | > rejected outright the hope of a Palestinian state, > | > and justice for a people scarred by imperialism. > | > > | > Their distant voices of rage are now heard; the > | > daily horrors in faraway brutalised places have > | > at last come home. > | > > | > * John Pilger is an award-winning, campaigning > | > journalist. > | > > | >Full article at: >| >http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/13-9-19101-0-24-43.html > >Attachment Converted: "C:\EUDORA\ATTACH\FwdTheHe" > From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Tue Sep 18 14:56:35 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 02:26:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD In-Reply-To: <3BA70D42.63A017CC@t-online.de> Message-ID: <20010918092635.13103.qmail@web14603.mail.yahoo.com> May I protest to the list and to Philip for this kind of mail (below). As Menso Heus suggested yesterday, I think the reader list is not the place for ad hominem attacks of this kind. If anyone suspects someone else of being "psychopathic" can they either keep it to themselves or advise the relevant person of their concern in private emails? My own assumption is that this list is for engaging with ideas and not the defects of its members' personalities. Moreover, it is a place that I come to because of a presumed openness as to what kind of ideas are deserving of attention and discussion. With the diversity of backgrounds and interests of people on this list it is quite likely - and desirable - that disagreements will arise. These are not to be erased in the name of the same sort of emotional blackmail that is currently jamming the mainstream media. There is no point launching an investigation of a situation of hatred and vengeance if I/we/you try to shut it down as soon as I/we/you feel your interests or your point of view to be offended. Sorry to waste members' time by stating what I thought would have been obvious. But (to quote another list member, this time in reference to the attached mail): >it undermines open and honest criticism and dialogue >concerning real human issues and a complete waste of >at least my time. R --- philip pocock wrote: > > > Pradip Saha wrote: > > > this is the last one: > > > > i actually recognise my numbness to be terrible, > and decided to be honest, > > rather than to be nice and do a lip service. > > you appear to be psychopathic, with all options open > to be manipulated by your > character. > > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 14:50:43 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:20:43 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] the liberal response References: <20010918073355.56637.qmail@web14605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3BA711E8.76481FE8@t-online.de> Rana Dasgupta wrote: > But I have to confess to wondering what the point of > this stuff is right now. Are we just trying to say to > the US, "You deserved it"? Are we attempting to > remain above the sensationalism of the TV networks by > saying "Chill out - it was always going to happen"? > Or are we hoping that the US will temper its response > as a result of these reminders of its own wrongs? > this is good thinking, simple basic focussed thinking. the misuse of the notion of karma as some sort of timeless contextless pingpong game is equivalent to the blame game of guilt giving and evokes useless emotion that is a smokescreen for some sort of intolerance. the 'you deserve it' routine is rootless, for action-reaction is the endless chain that vedic karmic thinking is trying to escape not exploit for casting blame. it is the same as newton attempted on a pragmatic and physically abstract level. the intolerance held in the soul of the blamer saying 'you deserved it'. as one person on the list did, they owned up to why they backhandedly praised bin laden, at least honestly displaying their troubled mind and human numbness so that orientation and more importantly their own soul-searching process may begin to heal their lazy anger. but usually the answer to the question above is self-dishonety, cowardice and fear. From a.english at ugrad.unimelb.edu.au Tue Sep 18 15:59:02 2001 From: a.english at ugrad.unimelb.edu.au (Alex English) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:29:02 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Australian Arabic Council statement on 11/9 Message-ID: <004801c1402c$c537ed40$f82c8690@signup> The following is an article concerning the events in New York of September 11 2001, written by Alexander Kouttab of the Australian Arabic Council. apologies for the bad wrapping; I've done the best I could... Alexandra English. Melbourne, Australia. - - The haunting footage of United Airlines Flight 175 rapidly approaching the South Tower of the World Trade Centre in downtown Manhattan, the massive explosion that followed, the thick black smoke, the confusion and disbelief, the two towers collapsing within a short time of each other - these are placed to become some of the most enduring images of human vulnerability and tragedy in our time. The sophistication, scale and sheer audacity of the operation behind the suicide attacks in New York and Washington became apparent in the hours that followed. In targeting the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and the White House, those responsible had intended to simultaneously destroy America's economic, military and political infrastructure. At the same time, they had sought to undermine America's dominance as an untouchable military power by preying on its internal vulnerability and providing the world with some of the most visually arresting images of destruction and powerlessness. Today, four days after the suicide attacks and the wider global impact is also beginning to take shape. Most notably, this includes the rethinking of international security and protection under the banner of 'collective security'; the crackdown on suspected terrorist organizations; fears of a downturn in the global market; and the geopolitical realignments that will later surface as the U.S seeks to consolidate what it is calling an 'international coalition against terrorism'. Some of the most prescient commentaries over the last few days are those that in trying to understand the motivations behind the attacks, have sought answers that go beyond the wholesale vilification of an entire region and its people. They are commentaries that see these events as an indelible reminder of the unfolding tragedy of recent global history. If the scale of this attack on American soil is unprecedented, the horror it speaks of has a long history of colonization, imperialism and resistance; of ideological divisions and countless lives lost; of global antagonism and the 'East-West' divide, out of which terrorism has emerged as an ugly manifestation propagated by the fanatical few in an increasingly militarised world. Nothing happens in an historical vacuum, and after the shock and anger have abated, it is this tragic history, one that has now engulfed America, that must come to insinuate itself into our making sense of why this happened. Nothing can justify the taking of innocent lives, and there is no cause or God in the name of which such devastation can be sanctioned. The images of Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Centre and the carnage that followed portray the tragic underside of a global history that has not spared any corner of the world. They portray a human story in which humanity has somewhere gone terribly wrong. And they predict a future where the cycle of grievance and revenge is making it increasingly difficult to see a light at the end of the tunnel. For many, however, the lines of battle seem already in place. With those suspected of hijacking the four planes all Arabic and all Muslim, this has quickly become cause for some in the West to judge the entire Arab world as guilty. With familiar gusto, the Middle East is readily placed in opposition to the 'democratic', 'free' and 'civilized' world. It is a rehearsal of old divisions that only serve to further compound the tragedy of September 11th, not resolve it. One cannot help feeling that the battle between good and evil, democracy and tyranny, civilization and barbarity is somewhere and somehow going to eventually implicate the whole of the Arab and Islamic world as the enemy against which we are warned to remain vigilant. Indeed, the increasing appearance of blatant anti-Arab racism in some sections of the media and the enormous jump in race hatred crimes at Australian schools, in Australian workplaces and on Australian streets indicates that the street is already one step ahead. This wholesale vilification and 'scapegoating' of Arabic communities around the world also has a long history whose ideological origins are well known. Racism was around before the suicide attacks in the U.S and it shall linger long after or as long as racists scramble to find justification for their actions in ways that parallel the delusion of those responsible for the attacks. Arab mosques and churches have been fire bombed; women who wear the Muslim headscarf have been spat at on trams and threatened with rape when they walk down the street; our businesses have been vandalised and have been spray painted with swastika's; Arabic schools have been forced to close and the parents of children attending non-Arabic schools are keeping their kids at home amid threats of violence and retribution. Members of the Arabic community respond to September 11th as any decent person would, with both shock and horror. Our community and religious leaders have emphatically condemned the attacks and offered their full support to those in Australia who have lost friends and loved ones. They have been at pains to point out that 'Islamic fundamentalism' is a narrow, unrepresentative and distorted interpretation of Islam that is held together by anti-American sentiment and whose influence is restricted to a few pockets across the globe. Leaders in the Arabic world were amongst the first to condemn the attacks and have been unambiguous in their opposition to terrorism. This should all be patently obvious, yet Arabic community groups in Australia are having to defend our community's very innocence. For the present, it seems that we are all under suspicion, so much so that opposition leader Kim Beazley has, with characteristic simplicity and confusion, called on our community to 'dob in' terrorists. Not far behind is Peter Reith's appalling attempt to capitalize on the tragedy by manipulating it into a justification for the current government's hysterical and xenophobic reaction to asylum seekers arriving in Australia. With an absence of political leadership shown by either main political party at the Federal level, it is left to the wider community to rediscover a sense of humanity that is inclusive rather than exclusive, that is interconnected rather than racially and religiously divisive, one that brings home our need to differentiate right from wrong both here and abroad. And it is those from the wider community who are shocked at the devastation in New York and Washington and equally appalled at the current racial vilification of the Arabic community in Australia who with dignity, have taken up the challenge of finding a light at the end of the tunnel. Alexander Kouttab. From Steef at CwaC.nl Tue Sep 18 16:08:44 2001 From: Steef at CwaC.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:38:44 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD In-Reply-To: <20010918092635.13103.qmail@web14603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: This posting of Rana has my full support! Steef Heus > -----Original Message----- > From: reader-list-admin at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-admin at sarai.net]On > Behalf Of Rana Dasgupta > Sent: dinsdag 18 september 2001 11:27 > To: reader-list at sarai.net > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD > > > May I protest to the list and to Philip for this kind > of mail (below). > > As Menso Heus suggested yesterday, I think the reader > list is not the place for ad hominem attacks of this > kind. If anyone suspects someone else of being > "psychopathic" can they either keep it to themselves > or advise the relevant person of their concern in > private emails? > > My own assumption is that this list is for engaging > with ideas and not the defects of its members' > personalities. Moreover, it is a place that I come to > because of a presumed openness as to what kind of > ideas are deserving of attention and discussion. > > With the diversity of backgrounds and interests of > people on this list it is quite likely - and desirable > - that disagreements will arise. These are not to be > erased in the name of the same sort of emotional > blackmail that is currently jamming the mainstream > media. There is no point launching an investigation > of a situation of hatred and vengeance if I/we/you try > to shut it down as soon as I/we/you feel your > interests or your point of view to be offended. > > Sorry to waste members' time by stating what I thought > would have been obvious. But (to quote another list > member, this time in reference to the attached mail): > > >it undermines open and honest criticism and dialogue > >concerning real human issues and a complete waste of > >at least my time. > > R > > > --- philip pocock wrote: > > > > > > Pradip Saha wrote: > > > > > this is the last one: > > > > > > i actually recognise my numbness to be terrible, > > and decided to be honest, > > > rather than to be nice and do a lip service. > > > > you appear to be psychopathic, with all options open > > to be manipulated by your > > character. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Reader-list mailing list > > Reader-list at sarai.net > > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > __________________________________________________ > Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? > Donate cash, emergency relief information > http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > From netwurker at pop.hotkey.net.au Tue Sep 18 16:19:35 2001 From: netwurker at pop.hotkey.net.au (ap][e][ologger) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:49:35 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] ..a post.ing as yet not sent... Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010918204935.00b041a0@pop.hotkey.net.au> At 11:04 AM 18/09/01 +0200, philip pocock wrote: >save your out-of-date concrete poetry to yourself. were you a ee cummings and >the clock was wound back 50 years i might delve in to read and image your >gibberish. > >email is a voice and ee cummings was a response to that in print media. update >and cut the nostalgia. you wont get my attention. > dear readers, of course my last posting was in no way intended to "get the attention" of list members like philip, and i wasn't trying at all to discuss my personal wurk. howeva, in light of this ][offensive and highly inappropriate][ response, i'll post some quotes regarding the wurk i produce in order to give it some context. ][mez][ ****************** "...Mez's writing proceeds with irregular energy... in the sense of the type of context sensitivities she sets up that proceed simultaneously in various directions. Ingenious in the manner of the representation of 'regular expressions' in the mathematics of computer science, for instance. As though it contained its own hyper links..her voice is electric and acoustic in a single phrase.....and the sense of sound is phenomenal, the humour startling...Mez's language...is particularly strong in voice. Strong in voice and bristling with innovation and possibility. This is, in itself, 'serious'. Past 'language poetry', for instance. Suited to this medium in important ways." -Jim Andrews, webartery "mez's writings are, in my view, examples of reflecting the virulence of digital text without actually coding in programming language. - The beauty of 'mezangelle' is that it uses elements of programming language syntax as material, i.e. reflecting formal programming language without being one. Of course, many other aesthetic options in Internet poetry exist, and many of them may have an aesthetics which totally separates the textuality of the digital poem from the internal textuality of the machine. I just prefer if the latter is the product of an aesthetically conscious decision _against_ algorithmic coding (i.e. as its negative reflection) The code poetry of, among others, mez, Alan Sondheim and Ted Warnell seems to build on two developments a) the re-coding of traditional pictorial ASCII art into amimetical noise signals by net artists like Jodi, antiorp, mi-ga and Frederic Madre, (b) the mass proliferation of programming language syntax through web and multimedia scripting languages and search engines. For the reader of mez's "netwurks", it remains all the more an open question whether the "mezangelle" para-code of parentheses and wildcard characters only mimics programming languages or is, at least partially, the product of programmed text filtering." [in Cream 1: Collaborative Research into Electronic Art Memes]" -Florian Cramer, lecturer in Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin "When I first encountered mez's work the association with contemporary clichés of language didn't even occur to me for quite some time - i saw it as something else completely. the difference: CONTENT/intent. mez doesn't play this way with language because of trendi-ness or eaze, but with deliberate intent/choice. [this] FORM as integral to her content, and as [a] form of communication which is distinguished by her particular content/treatment/meaning ... also, it doesn't read with the eaze that phonetic treatment of language usually duz - in youth filled chat rooms for instance - one has to dig a bit, step back and read with conscious intent/concentration if one's is to actually gather what's being said, which brings a new attention to reading, akin to that which we bring to Shakespeare, etc." -Claire Dinsmore, Cauldron & The Net "...during a period of time from approximately 1995 to 1997 interface as a concern was investigated in earnest, and in some cases brilliantly realized by a very few of the original net.artists (Bunting, JODI, MEZ, Lialina)...Mez is without doubt one of the most consistent, prolific, innovative artists working new media today. Mez's work with language has had a considerable effect on the language of many..." -Ted Warnell, warnell.com "...Mez reaches into the very structure of the word, creating an entire para-language, called "m[ez]ang.elle," which is readable by readers of English, but only at the cost of a dramatically slowed reading speed. She organizes textual performances which she designates as e-mail trawling, hacker attacking, open source kode poetri, or electronic channeling. Though this work uses many of the devices of so-called L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, fluid spacing, bracketing, and ambiguous punctuation to obtain a simultaneity of reference that tests fixed neuronal patterns, it also tests these, simultaneously,through choreographed and random kinetic oscillations of the Web environment, re-converting the process of reading to a process of action, perhaps somewhat akin to what oral cultures undertook when print first spread through them." -Stephanie Strickland, from "Dali Clocks: TIME DIMENSIONS OF HYPERMEDIA", at Digital Arts and Culture Conference, Norway 00. "... i dont know how others find it, but i do tons of programming and [mez's] style is just the most delightful play on coding. I kinda think of her as a cross between James Joyce and Larry Wall - author of the Perl programming language and a linguist by training....." - les schaffer "Mez's mezangelle language, conceived in cyberspace, is now being noticed globally - even the traditional print based poetry community is becoming aware of mezangelle as a new literary device, and if not new, certainly an extension of the last big phenomenon of poetry, parataxis within lines of poetry as characterised by the work of the language poets in the 1970s and 1980s and which now permeates to mainstream poetry. mez's parataxis of syllable and letter, within words themselves, sets up a poetic experience where the words clash, their internal workings in opposition, disrupting the way we read as language and forcing a closer examination of the text, creating new meanings with the text. equally important as the mezangelle language has been the method of collection of the texts, the method of generation of the texts, the collaborative aspect of the work. this is inseparable from the work, and totally exposed out there, poetry in the act of being made - the process becomes equally as important as the product." -komninos zervos, Lecturer in poetry and cyber studies, Griffith University. "This is a deliberate utilization of space and typography. Think of it as the inverse of your rejection of caps, quotes, and etc., the iconography of the normal." -George Trail ********************* . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ .antithetical..n.struments..go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... From fmadre at wanadoo.fr Tue Sep 18 16:38:56 2001 From: fmadre at wanadoo.fr (Frederic Madre) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:08:56 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Alan Sonheim's net art? /text on the missing In-Reply-To: <000501c13ffb$ff90b7a0$5474c8cb@shohini> References: <01091715043600.07414@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <4.2.2.20010918130814.01bf2be8@pop.wanadoo.fr> At 16:58 17/09/2001 -0700, Shohini wrote: > Is the text missing or am I missing the text? you're not missing anything it's just tacky unlike mez f. From monica at sarai.net Tue Sep 18 17:58:58 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:58:58 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On critical integrity of the list Message-ID: Dear Readers, We have received complaints from several people on the list about what seems to be a tendency on Philip Pocock's part to pick on individuals for personal attack. We are all distressed by the events of the last week, and the anger, sorrow and foreboding that has been expressed by members of the list is symptomatic of that. It is unfortunate that this is becoming an occasion for some of us to hang out our personal peeves and impose ourselves on to the list at large. It is important to be categorical in pointing out different trends in a discussion, but personalised dismissal only shuts discussion down. I think that it would be best to take the level of discussion on to a deeper level than simply accusing each other of being intolerant (especially in the name of tolerance and harmony). We have noted, in particular, a tendency on Philip's part to cast aspersions on the characters or sensibilities of fellow list members. If he (or anyone) has a disagreement with a position, then he/she has every right to state that disagreement, but statements that say "outdated" or "psychopathic" do nothing to raise the standard of debate on the list, nor posting material that has been already posted on to the list... Let us not allow this flurry of postings to degenerate into a flame war that satisfies none of the purposes of the list. We have kept this list un-moderated, and this means that we all have a responsibility to ensure that disagreement does not become disagreeable. It is all our responsibility to keep the critical integrity of the list alive. As list administrator, I feel I have the responsibility to make the displeasure of many (which has also been communicated to me) known to Philip. I would also urge others on the list not to be provoked by this to counter flame. That servers no purpose either, and it clearly feeds the problem. I think that everyone who has been upset by Philip's postings should realise that his views are his alone, and that by the sheer volume of postings he sometimes makes, they do not represent in anyway what people are thinking and feeling on this list. I would also urge the many silent voices to speak up, perhaps there are other perspectives, even news or ideas of other things that are not getting heard in the din of the debris of the events of last week. Of course we will continue to discuss what we are thinking and feeling about what is going on in the world as a result of the events of September 11, but let us do so as with sanity and without flaming each other. Thankyou for all your attention Monica Narula List Administrator -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Tue Sep 18 21:21:09 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:51:09 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] the liberal response In-Reply-To: <20010918073355.56637.qmail@web14605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Sep 2001, Rana Dasgupta wrote: > I have not seen any liberal opinion that is helpful > enough to the situation to be of any significance. Rana, thank you for a very good comment. Here is some "liberal" opinion which I think you will find helpful. Think of it as the FAQ on the WTC bombings: http://www.lbbs.org/qacalam.htm > What should Bush do? What should the US be > seeking to achieve in this situation? == begin quote (abridged and sectioned) == What response should the U.S. take instead, internationally? ** long-term ** (1) The best way to deal with terrorism is to address its root causes. Perhaps some terrorism would exist even if the grievances of the people of the Third World were dealt with -- grievances that lead to anger, despair, frustration, feelings of powerlessness, and hatred -- but certainly the ability of those who would commit terror without grievances to recruit others would be tremendously reduced. (2) As a second step, we might help establish a real international consensus against terrorism by putting on trial U.S. officials responsible for some of the atrocities noted earlier. ... ** short-term ** The U.S. government's guiding principle ought to be to assure the security, safety, and well-being of U.S. citizens without detracting from the security, safety, and well-being of others. A number of points follow from this principle. (1) (a) First, we must insist that any response refrain from targeting civilians. (b) It must refrain as well from attacking so-called dual-use targets, those that have some military purpose but substantially impact civilians. ... (2) We must insist as well that any response to the terror be carried out according to the UN Charter. ... No military action should be carried out without Security Council authorization. To bypass the Security Council is to weaken the foundations of international law that provide security to all nations, especially the weaker ones. (3) And we should insist that no action and no Security Council vote be taken without a full presentation of the evidence assigning culpability. We don't want Washington announcing that we should just take its word for it -- as occurred in 1998, when the U.S. bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, asserting that it was a chemical warfare facility, only to acknowledge some time later that it had been mistaken. If -- and it's a big if -- all these conditions are met, then we should no more object to seizing the perpetrators than we object to having the domestic police seize a rapist or a murderer to bring the culprit to justice. ... == end quote == > What - this is where liberals should be able to > add to the equation - are the negative > consequences of premature action? (1) Ineffectiveness. A war against Afghanistan and 59 other countries would not stop terrorism, and it would more likely encourage continued terrorism, both against and by the USA. (2) Given past (e.g. 1990's) history, another consequence would be human rights violations and war crimes. (3) Also, government repression against the world-wide global justice movement. Here is some premature action by legislators: http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170180.html Reminder - here are some petitions to sign if you want to stop "premature actions": http://www.flora.org/coat/appeal/ http://home.uchicago.edu/~dhpicker/petition From shammi_nanda at yahoo.com Tue Sep 18 21:28:46 2001 From: shammi_nanda at yahoo.com (Shammi Nanda) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:58:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Images and Weapons In-Reply-To: <01091720013100.08100@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <20010918155846.80650.qmail@web10504.mail.yahoo.com> One used to think that these days the wars are fought not with the armies, but WTO and World Bank and their pressure tactics, but one should not underestimate the power of manipulations through images as they are one of the most reliable weapon, wethter it is the Chinese people sitting outside macdonalds in Peking or of people fleeing Kabul. Thankfully someone had seen the footage of Palestenian boys earlier, but what of the image of people fleeing Kabul, it could be of a normal bus and (a regular bombay-nasik bus could be shot) and said people are fleeing the city just to demoralise the citizens of a country and Taliban. The pictures in a lot of newspapers are same, and it seems evey image is chosen carefully, its going according to their plans, it seems they know which image will go five days from today. Its like the film story they are trying to make. Just that they have to show the terror of pearl harbour and make it sink in our minds as we had been talking 'too much' about hiroshima. similarily the film called WTC, has already started, it doesnot begin from the funding of Bin Laden, but only from, the attack on WTC, the first day in the papers we see a pic of WTC crashing down and on the left people watching it, even matching the eyeline, of three people, one white, one asian(could be india or pakistan or...) and another hipsanic. they are all shocked, and also in the background is a black man standing, one had slight doubts as to why they chose this pic, was it intentional or may be one is reading too much into it, but the second day a black policewoman consoling a crying white woman, with the caption under it 'united colors of America', Second day one sees the mourning, cnadle lights and all, third day bush in tight close up with tears in his eyes, and an expression of sorrow turning into anger, with posters carrying slogans 'today we mourn tommorrow we avenge' or 'Nuke em'.One now realises this it is not just a particular image chosen on a particular day but the whole sequence or a montage in which the first image stays with us for minimum 24 hours till we see the next image on the next days newspaper. Ya images are weapons but what do we say of the images that were not shown, or clicked, they could find an image of a sikh man taken by the cops, the incidents prompted the sikh leaders to come on TV to say 'WE ARE NOT MUSLIMS'(so while your attacks on muslims are fine but spare us....) , but no phptographer clicked a pic of muslims being attacked, probably it will jeopardise their relation with their allies, like people from Jordan who are shown kissing the american flag. around the fourth or fifth day we start seeing the pics of Laden, or a group of taliban leaders, all huddled togeather looking scared, with shots of people fleeing.....The image of Laden is important as that is their target, and we have to identify our target first to destroy it at 'any cost' or we will be like 'rest of the world'. Its good that they have a target and dstroying it they can prove their machismo. And we watch the realistic film move on, with its cause and effect logic till one day they kill many people,but they will not show us the pics of those killed by bombs or by lack of medicines due to the sanctions. In this story we dont know what will happened on the 20th day , but they know it and also know what picture that will be carried on that day and the photographers tickets will be booked in advance,as their destinations are know to them, but may be we know this much that many who are walking, talking, eating, smiling, crying will not live after a few days, they could be kids, women, men or any one, but the fact is that their days are numbered, how many are going to be killed even that they know but we don't. But in the end they will make another Pearl Hrbour, called WORLD TRADE CENTERE and not a film called hiroshima, but in the news this time the film is 'FROM WTC to Hiroshima or Kabul'. shammi --- Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: > Two interesting ideas can be drawn out of the > discussions on this list for > the past few days. Its all about Images and Weapons. > > 1.It is possible to lie with images > (whether or not the CNN footage of the cheering > Palestinian kids is true to > the moment is less important than the fact that News > Networks do sometimes > muddy the truth with images) > > 2. It is possible for people to kill themselves and > thousands of other people > for the sake of an image. > This image can be a picture of heaven, or hell. > (here, consider - the image of an after life that is > preferable to life as it > is - the program that ticks in the suicide bombers > mind - as suggested by > Richard Dawkins's essay) > > Why should we be so reluctant to accept this fact? > > Images cause as much sorrow as they cause joy, or > wonder. To pretend that the > realm of images and of image making is devoid of > ethical dilemmas is to > presume that images are actually not about life as > it is lived and about > death as it is died. > > We are happy to hold an ethical torch to science, we > are happy to ask > difficult questions about technology, what makes > religion, the spirit, the > arts, culture, holier than nuclear physics, finance > capital or military > strategy ? > > Once, someone said, "when I hear the word culture, > it makes me reach for my > gun". It could be said today, "when you hear the > word, gun, you reach for > your culture". As if guns and culture need not go > hand in hand. They do, and > then again, they dont. > > The national anthems that goad people to war are > also music. > The mysticism that produces jihadis, crusaders, > dharamyoddhas is also > mysticism. > Just as the science that produces chemical, > biological and nuclear weapons is > also science. > > There is nothing less scientific in a smart bomb. > There is nothing less > musical in a war song, or less mystical in the cult > of martyrdom. > > Anyone who makes images , or deals in images, or > circulates images(artists, > photographers, filmmakers, new media practitioners, > writers, prophets, > mystics, curators, art dealers) is as culpable, or > not, depending on the > images, as those who make weapons, deal in weapons, > circulate weapons. > > Because some images can be weapons. > > Just as some weapons ( planes crashing into tall > buildings) can become > images, which in turn can be used as weapons again. > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 22:25:11 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:55:11 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] On critical integrity of the list References: Message-ID: <3BA77C6D.BD145B78@t-online.de> please specify. moderation is not an excuse to castigate and trivialize content with terms like 'pick on' or 'upset'. at no time did i flame, and at times there were some horrendously callous remarks, which you have not yet addressed? Monica Narula wrote: > Dear Readers, > > We have received complaints from several people on the list about > what seems to be a tendency on Philip Pocock's part to pick on > individuals for personal attack. > > We are all distressed by the events of the last week, and the anger, > sorrow and foreboding that has been expressed by members of the list > is symptomatic of that. It is unfortunate that this is becoming an > occasion for some of us > to hang out our personal peeves and impose ourselves on to the list > at large. It is important to be categorical in pointing out different > trends in a discussion, but personalised dismissal only shuts > discussion down. > > I think that it would be best to take the level of discussion on to a > deeper level than simply accusing each other of being intolerant > (especially in the name of tolerance and harmony). > > We have noted, in particular, a tendency on Philip's part to cast > aspersions on the characters or sensibilities of fellow list members. > If he (or anyone) has a disagreement with a position, then he/she has > every right to state that disagreement, but statements that say > "outdated" or "psychopathic" do nothing to raise the standard of > debate on the list, nor posting material that has been already > posted on to the list... > > Let us not allow this flurry of postings to degenerate into a flame > war that satisfies none of the purposes of the list. We have kept > this list un-moderated, and this means that we all have a > responsibility to ensure that disagreement does not become > disagreeable. It is all our responsibility to keep the critical > integrity of the list alive. > > As list administrator, I feel I have the responsibility to make the > displeasure of many (which has also been communicated to me) known to > Philip. I would also urge others on the list not to be provoked by > this to counter flame. That servers no purpose either, and it clearly > feeds the problem. > > I think that everyone who has been upset by Philip's postings should > realise that his views are his alone, and that by the sheer volume of > postings he sometimes makes, they do not represent in anyway what > people are thinking and > feeling on this list. > > I would also urge the many silent voices to speak up, perhaps there > are other perspectives, even news or ideas of other things that are > not getting heard in the din of the debris of the events of last > week. Of course we will continue to discuss what we are thinking and > feeling about what is going on in the world as a result of the events > of September 11, but let us do so as with sanity and without flaming > each other. > > Thankyou for all your attention > > Monica Narula > List Administrator > -- > Monica Narula > Sarai:The New Media Initiative > 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 > www.sarai.net > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 22:33:27 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 19:03:27 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] ..a post.ing as yet not sent... References: <3.0.6.32.20010918204935.00b041a0@pop.hotkey.net.au> Message-ID: <3BA77E5D.31C1FCD1@t-online.de> á quote from you << ... n.stead this shock period is being utilized by USA control systematics ][militaristic, gover.mental][ to force their own agenda. >> i suppose there will be a number of poets exploiting human suffering to draw attention to their work. it seems to me inappropriate to mask plain ascii in some contrived language, which otherwise might work delightfully, in a situation where communication should prevail. no one questions you are a wonderful writer, but using it to attack humanity with trite blame, is beyond me. "ap][e][ologger" wrote: > At 11:04 AM 18/09/01 +0200, philip pocock wrote: > >save your out-of-date concrete poetry to yourself. were you a ee cummings and > >the clock was wound back 50 years i might delve in to read and image your > >gibberish. > > > >email is a voice and ee cummings was a response to that in print media. > update > >and cut the nostalgia. you wont get my attention. > > > > dear readers, > > of course my last posting was in no way intended to "get the attention" of > list members like philip, and i wasn't trying at all to discuss my personal > wurk. howeva, in light of this ][offensive and highly inappropriate][ > response, i'll post some quotes regarding the wurk i produce in order to > give it some context. > > ][mez][ > > ****************** > > "...Mez's writing proceeds with irregular energy... in the sense of the > type of context sensitivities she sets up that proceed simultaneously in > various directions. Ingenious in the manner of the representation of > 'regular expressions' in the mathematics of computer science, for instance. > As though it contained its own hyper links..her voice is electric and > acoustic in a single phrase.....and the sense of sound is phenomenal, the > humour startling...Mez's language...is particularly strong in voice. Strong > in voice and bristling with innovation and possibility. This is, in itself, > 'serious'. Past 'language poetry', for instance. Suited to this medium in > important ways." > > -Jim Andrews, webartery > > "mez's writings are, in my view, examples of reflecting the virulence of > digital text without actually coding in programming language. - The beauty > of 'mezangelle' is that it uses elements of programming language syntax as > material, i.e. reflecting formal programming language without being one. Of > course, many other aesthetic options in Internet poetry exist, and many of > them may have an aesthetics which totally separates the textuality of the > digital poem from the internal textuality of the machine. I just prefer if > the latter is the product of an aesthetically conscious decision _against_ > algorithmic coding (i.e. as its negative reflection) The code poetry of, > among others, mez, Alan Sondheim and Ted Warnell seems to build on two > developments a) the re-coding of traditional pictorial ASCII art into > amimetical noise signals by net artists like Jodi, antiorp, mi-ga and > Frederic Madre, (b) the mass proliferation of programming language syntax > through web and multimedia scripting languages and search engines. For the > reader of mez's "netwurks", it remains all the more an open question > whether the "mezangelle" para-code of parentheses and wildcard characters > only mimics programming languages or is, at least partially, the product of > programmed text filtering." > > [in Cream 1: Collaborative Research into Electronic Art Memes]" > -Florian Cramer, lecturer in Comparative Literature at Freie > Universität Berlin > > "When I first encountered mez's work the association with contemporary > clichés of language didn't even occur to me for quite some time - i saw it > as something else completely. the difference: CONTENT/intent. mez doesn't > play this way with language because of trendi-ness or eaze, but with > deliberate intent/choice. [this] FORM as integral to her content, and as > [a] form of communication which is distinguished by her particular > content/treatment/meaning ... also, it doesn't read with the eaze that > phonetic treatment of language usually duz - in youth filled chat rooms for > instance - one has to dig a bit, step back and read with conscious > intent/concentration if one's is to actually gather what's being said, > which brings a new attention to reading, akin to that which we bring to > Shakespeare, etc." > > -Claire Dinsmore, Cauldron & The Net > > "...during a period of time from approximately 1995 to 1997 interface as a > concern was investigated in earnest, and in some cases brilliantly realized > by a very few of the original net.artists (Bunting, JODI, MEZ, > Lialina)...Mez is without doubt one of the most consistent, prolific, > innovative artists working new media today. Mez's work with language has > had a considerable effect on the language of many..." > > -Ted Warnell, warnell.com > > "...Mez reaches into the very structure of the word, creating an entire > para-language, called "m[ez]ang.elle," which is readable by readers of > English, but only at the cost of a dramatically slowed reading speed. She > organizes textual performances which she designates as e-mail trawling, > hacker attacking, open source kode poetri, or electronic channeling. Though > this work uses many of the devices of so-called L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, > fluid spacing, bracketing, and ambiguous punctuation to obtain a > simultaneity of reference that tests fixed neuronal patterns, it also tests > these, simultaneously,through choreographed and random kinetic oscillations > of the Web environment, re-converting the process of reading to a process > of action, perhaps somewhat akin to what oral cultures undertook when print > first spread through them." > > -Stephanie Strickland, from "Dali Clocks: TIME DIMENSIONS OF HYPERMEDIA", > at Digital Arts and Culture Conference, Norway 00. > > "... i dont know how others find it, but i do tons of programming and > [mez's] style is just the most delightful play on coding. I kinda think of > her as a cross between James Joyce and Larry Wall - author of the Perl > programming language and a linguist by training....." > - les schaffer > > "Mez's mezangelle language, conceived in cyberspace, is now being noticed > globally - even the traditional print based poetry community is becoming > aware of mezangelle as a new literary device, and if not new, certainly an > extension of the last big phenomenon of poetry, parataxis within lines of > poetry as characterised by the work of the language poets in the 1970s and > 1980s and which now permeates to mainstream poetry. > mez's parataxis of syllable and letter, within words themselves, sets up a > poetic experience where the words clash, their internal workings in > opposition, disrupting the way we read as language and forcing a closer > examination of the text, creating new meanings with the text. > equally important as the mezangelle language has been the method of > collection of the texts, the method of generation of the texts, the > collaborative aspect of the work. this is inseparable from the work, and > totally exposed out there, poetry in the act of being made - the process > becomes equally as important as the product." > > -komninos zervos, Lecturer in poetry and cyber > studies, Griffith University. > > "This is a deliberate utilization of space and typography. Think of it as > the inverse of your rejection of caps, quotes, and etc., the iconography of > the normal." > > -George Trail > > ********************* > > > . . .... ..... > net.wurker][mez][ > .antithetical..n.struments..go.here. > xXXx > ./. > www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker > .... . .??? ....... > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Tue Sep 18 22:58:58 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 19:28:58 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD References: <20010918092635.13103.qmail@web14603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3BA78455.AE9C4EDF@t-online.de> Rana Dasgupta wrote: > May I protest to the list and to Philip for this kind > of mail (below). > > As Menso Heus suggested yesterday, I think the reader > list is not the place for ad hominem attacks of this > kind. If anyone suspects someone else of being > "psychopathic" can they either keep it to themselves > or advise the relevant person of their concern in > private emails? you are mixing mails. first i never attacked or flamed menso, although he may feel that his entry of completely false and hurtful data is 'opinion' one must be vigilant, and you surprise me that you ar enot, that we remain cool-headed and avoid such tactics that employ falsehood to cloud a serious, yes serious situation. i used the term 'psychopathic' for the person posting not an apology but further cynicism that goes beyond decency, and would be considered a flame in itself, that person having uttered: >> what about another more heart-felt one to osama bin for targeting US and >> making them angry about terrrorism?" and i wonder what it should say that such a comment aside from my objection, a comment i might add, that was a response to my praise of the islamic republic of pakistan's courage and peace-loving action, has been digested as acceptable while i must wade through pages of protests for my simple clear response on levels that are far from flaming. i am very upset by the remark above and the acceptance of it by the moderator and members who refuse to comment upon it and instead choose to castigate me. if you wish to incubate such discrimination and accept indecency that surpasses cynicism, tell me straight and i will be more than happy to desist from your cell. should you wish to be clear and rational and take the time to check the thread you might return with a more unbiased view and rethink the target of protest? it is an interesting problem and i am very curious as to your political spirit. i am afraid however as a william burroughs and mohammed ali media theory fan, that such actions as you take will spiral down and negate the chance for a world where no pseudo-professional academic or artist or political pundit can exploit human suffering as a weapon to further some ideology. it is my hope that coexistence and tolerance is the choice but you never know. the tacit acceptance of the 'praise' of bin laden or rather the trampling of human suffering on this list is a shock to me. and i ask with such silent acceptance of that, how can one ever believe in a world bank or world health or world compassion organization? i still do, because i will point out what is clearly in black and white a fracture of the decency that basic human rights require for trust and openness, and object to the hidden agenda in the hypercynical comments of 'thanks to bin laden for his effect' which i characterized as sick, why not? , is it not sick?, why the silence on that? Instead my objection to that, an objection to posting false news, and an objection to one's promotion of their art by exploiting suffering and incorporating fantastical political rhetoric that fuels only mistrust, intolerance and the impossibility of a 'one world' of co-existing cultures, has spawned this protest of me today. > > > My own assumption is that this list is for engaging > with ideas and not the defects of its members' > personalities. Moreover, it is a place that I come to > because of a presumed openness as to what kind of > ideas are deserving of attention and discussion. > > With the diversity of backgrounds and interests of > people on this list it is quite likely - and desirable > - that disagreements will arise. These are not to be > erased in the name of the same sort of emotional > blackmail that is currently jamming the mainstream > media. There is no point launching an investigation > of a situation of hatred and vengeance if I/we/you try > to shut it down as soon as I/we/you feel your > interests or your point of view to be offended. > > Sorry to waste members' time by stating what I thought > would have been obvious. But (to quote another list > member, this time in reference to the attached mail): > > >it undermines open and honest criticism and dialogue > >concerning real human issues and a complete waste of > >at least my time. > > R > > --- philip pocock wrote: > > > > > > Pradip Saha wrote: > > > > > this is the last one: > > > > > > i actually recognise my numbness to be terrible, > > and decided to be honest, > > > rather than to be nice and do a lip service. > > > > you appear to be psychopathic, with all options open > > to be manipulated by your > > character. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Reader-list mailing list > > Reader-list at sarai.net > > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > __________________________________________________ > Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? > Donate cash, emergency relief information > http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list From aiindex at mnet.fr Wed Sep 19 02:14:16 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 21:44:16 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Sontag, Ghosh & Johnson in the New Yorker Message-ID: http://www.newyorker.com/THE_TALK_OF_THE_TOWN/CONTENT/?talk_wtc Susan Sontag writes: The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards. Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live in infamy and America is now at war. But everything is not O.K. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President who assures us that America still stands tall. A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out of office, who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad by this Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that they stand united behind President Bush. A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and counter-intelligence, about options available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense. But the public is not being asked to bear much of the burden of reality. The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy. Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management. Politics, the politics of a democracy—which entails disagreement, which promotes candor—has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen. "Our country is strong," we are told again and again. I for one don't find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that America is strong? But that's not all America has to be. ------------------------------------------------------------- Amitava Ghosh writes: In 1999, soon after moving to Fort Greene, in Brooklyn, my wife and I were befriended by Frank and Nicole De Martini, two architects. As construction manager of the World Trade Center, Frank worked in an office on the eighty-eighth floor of the north tower. Nicole is an employee of the engineering firm that built the World Trade Center, Leslie E. Robertson Associates. Hired as a "surveillance engineer," she was a member of a team that conducted year-round structural-integrity inspections of the Twin Towers. Her offices were on the thirty-fifth floor of the south tower. Frank is forty-nine, sturdily built, with wavy salt-and-pepper hair and deeply etched laugh lines around his eyes. His manner is expansively avuncular. The Twin Towers were both a livelihood and a passion for him: he would speak of them with the absorbed fascination with which poets sometimes speak of Dante's canzones. Nicole is forty-two, blond and blue-eyed, with a gaze that is at once brisk and friendly. She was born in Basel, Switzerland, and met Frank while studying design in New York. They have two children—Sabrina, ten, and Dominic, eight. It was through our children that we first met. Shortly after the basement bomb explosion of 1993, Frank was hired to do bomb-damage assessment at the World Trade Center. An assignment that he thought would last only a few months quickly turned into a consuming passion. "He fell in love with the buildings," Nicole told me. "For him, they represented an incredible human feat. He was awed by their scale and magnitude, by their design, and by the efficiency of the use of materials. One of his most repeated sayings about the towers is that they were built to take the impact of a light airplane." On Tuesday morning, Frank and Nicole dropped their children off at school, in Brooklyn Heights, and then drove on to the World Trade Center. Traffic was light, and they arrived unexpectedly early, so Nicole decided to go up to Frank's office for a cup of coffee. It was about a quarter past eight when they got upstairs. A half hour later, she stood up to go. She was on her way out when the walls and the floor suddenly heaved under the shock of a massive impact. Through the window, she saw a wave of flame bursting out overhead, like a torrent spewing from the floodgates of a dam. The blast was clearly centered on the floor directly above; she assumed that it was a bomb. Neither she nor Frank was unduly alarmed: few people knew the building's strength and resilience better than they. They assumed that the worst was over and that the structure had absorbed the impact. Sure enough, within seconds of the initial tumult, a sense of calm descended on their floor. Frank herded Nicole and a group of some two dozen other people into a room that was relatively free of smoke. Then he went off to scout the escape routes and stairways. Minutes later, he returned to announce that he had found a stairway that was intact. They could reach it fairly easily, by climbing over a pile of rubble. The bank of rubble that barred the entrance to the fire escape was almost knee-high. Just as Nicole was about to clamber over, she noticed that Frank was hanging back. She begged him to come with her. He shook his head and told her to go on without him. There were people on their floor who had been hurt by the blast, he said; he would follow her down as soon as he had helped the injured. Frank must have gone back to his office shortly afterward, because he made a call from his desk at about nine o' clock. He called his sister Nina, on West Ninety-third Street in Manhattan, and said, "Nicole and I are fine. Don't worry." Nicole remembers the descent as quiet and orderly. The evacuees went down in single file, leaving room for the firemen who were running in the opposite direction. On many floors, there were people to direct the evacuees, and in the lower reaches of the building there was even electricity. The descent took about half an hour, and, on reaching the plaza, Nicole began to walk in the direction of the Brooklyn Bridge. She was within a few hundred feet of the bridge when the first tower collapsed. "It was like the onset of a nuclear winter," she said. "Suddenly, everything went absolutely quiet and you were in the middle of a fog that was as blindingly bright as a snowstorm on a sunny day." It was early evening by the time Nicole reached Fort Greene. She had received calls from several people who had seen Frank on their way down the fire escape, but he had not been heard from directly. Their children stayed with us that night while Nicole sat up with Frank's sister Nina, waiting by the telephone. The next morning, Nicole decided that her children had to be told that there was no word of their father. Both she and Nina were calm when they arrived at our door, even though they had not slept all night. Nicole's voice was grave but unwavering as she spoke to her children about what had happened the day before. The children listened with wide-eyed interest, but soon afterward they went back to their interrupted games. A little later, my son came to me and whispered, "Guess what Dominic's doing?" "What?" I said, steeling myself. "He's learning to wiggle his ears." This was, I realized, how my children—or any children, for that matter—would have responded: turning their attention elsewhere before the news could begin to gain purchase in their minds. At about noon, we took the children to the park. It was a bright, sunny day, and they were soon absorbed in riding their bicycles. My wife, Deborah, and I sat on a shaded bench and spoke with Nicole. "Frank could easily have got out in the time that passed between the blast and the fall of the building," Nicole said. "The only thing I can think of is that he stayed back to help with the evacuation. Nobody knew the building like he did, and he must have thought he had to." Nicole paused. "I think it was only because Frank saw me leave that he decided he could stay," she said. "He knew that I would be safe and the kids would be looked after. That was why he felt he could go back to help the others. He loved the towers and had complete faith in them. Whatever happens, I know that what he did was his own choice." --------------------------------------------- Denis Johnson writes: Several times during the nineteen-nineties I did some reporting from what we generally call trouble spots, and witnessing the almost total devastation of some of these places (Somalia, Afghanistan, the southern Philippines, Liberia) had me wondering if I would ever see such trouble in my own country: if I would ever feel it necessary to stay close to the radio or television; if I would sleep with the window wide open in order to hear the approach of the engines of war or to smell the smoke of approaching fires or to stay aware of the movements of emergency teams coping with the latest enormity; if I would one day see American ground heaped with the ruins of war; if I would ever hear Americans saying, "They're attacking the Capitol! The Pentagon! The White House!"; if I would stand in the midst of an American crowd witnessing the kind of destruction that can be born of the wickedness of the human imagination, or turn to examine American faces a few seconds after their eyes had taken it in; if I would one day see American streets choked with people who don't know exactly where they're going but don't feel safe where they are; and if I would someday feel uncontrollably grateful to be able to get my laundry done and to find simple commerce persisting in spite of madness. I wondered if the wars I'd gone looking for would someday come looking for us. Travelling in the Third World, I've found that to be an American sometimes means to be wondrously celebrated, to excite a deep, instantaneous loyalty in complete strangers. In the southern Philippines, a small delegation headed by a village captain once asked that I take steps to have their clan and their collection of two dozen huts placed under the protection of the United States. Later, in the same region, a teen-age Islamic separatist guerrilla among a group I'd been staying with begged me to adopt him and take him to America. In Afghanistan, I encountered men who, within minutes of meeting me, offered to leave their own worried families and stay by my side as long as I required it, men who found medicine somewhere in the ruins of Kabul for me when I needed it, and who never asked for anything back—all simply because I was American. On the other hand, I think we sense—but don't care always to apprehend—the reality that some people hate America. To many suffering souls, we must seem incomprehensibly aloof and self-centered, or worse. For nearly a century, war has rolled lopsidedly over the world, crushing the innocent in their homes. For half that century, the United States has been seen, by some people, as keeping the destruction rolling without getting too much in the way of it—has been seen, by some people, to lurk behind it. And those people hate us. The acts of terror against this country—the hijackings, the kidnappings, the bombings of our airplanes and barracks and embassies overseas, and now these mass atrocities on our own soil—tell us how much they hate us. They hate us as people hate a bad God, and they'll kill themselves to hurt us. On Thursday, as I write in New York City, which I happened to be visiting at the time of the attack, the wind has shifted, and a sour electrical smoke travels up the canyons between the tall buildings. I have now seen two days of war in the biggest city in America. But imagine a succession of such days stretching into years—years in which explosions bring down all the great buildings, until the last one goes, or until bothering to bring the last one down is just a waste of ammunition. Imagine the people who have already seen years like these turn into decades—imagine their brief lifetimes made up only of days like these we've just seen in New York. From netwurker at pop.hotkey.net.au Wed Sep 19 04:10:01 2001 From: netwurker at pop.hotkey.net.au (ap][e][ologger) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:40:01 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] ..a post.ing as yet not sent... In-Reply-To: <3BA77E5D.31C1FCD1@t-online.de> References: <3.0.6.32.20010918204935.00b041a0@pop.hotkey.net.au> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010919084001.00b048e0@pop.hotkey.net.au> At 07:03 PM 18/09/01 +0200, philip wrote: >i suppose there will be a number of poets exploiting human suffering to draw >attention to their work. it seems to me inappropriate to mask plain ascii in some >contrived language, which otherwise might work delightfully, in a situation where >communication should prevail. > >no one questions you are a wonderful writer, but using it to attack humanity with >trite blame, is beyond me. dear readers, it deeply saddens me that philip chooses to x.tract such negative meaning from my wurks...that my attempt 2 communicate/cogitate the USAevents via mechanisms that obviously rn't typical r taken 2 be n.trinsically a trivialisation of events.....this echos terribly the segregation of "the other"... [i won't bother addressing philip directly; my attempts 2 give contextual nuances 2 my wurks was obviously n.terpreted as some type of glorification. i'm not n.terested in n.gaging with ppl who r determined to actively misinterpret s.sues in order 2 attack and denigrate wot they don't/refuse 2 understand, and want 2 provoke rather than discuss.] cheers, ][mez][ . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ .antithetical..n.struments..go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... From menso at r4k.net Wed Sep 19 05:43:28 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:13:28 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Painful cartoon Message-ID: <20010919021328.R12357@r4k.net> Hi, I thought some of you might be interested in seeing this cartoon, which seems to represent the thoughts of more people than the creator of it: http://www.sacbee.com/voices/sac/babin/babin_page.cgi?babin_20010913.gif Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From menso at r4k.net Wed Sep 19 06:43:34 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 03:13:34 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] HOW-TO: Filter out that Bad Karma, baby! Message-ID: <20010919031334.S12357@r4k.net> How to filter out that Bad Karma, baby! or: client-side filtering to prevent unwanted email from bothering you. The following text is a brief yet usuable description on how to filter e-mail in various, commonly used mail software. Unfortunately my system is already running Outlook 6, so I cannot provide a detailed description on how to do this in earlier versions. The options are present there already too though, and are called "Mail Rules" or "Inbox Assistant" I believe. They are pretty much self explanatory. It describes Outlook Express Client version 6, Hotmail and the procmail mail filtering software. Persons that can provide instructions on Yahoo and other popular systems are welcome to as I see great rising demand for these features :) IN OUTLOOK VERSION 6: Click "Tools" menu -> Message Rules -> Blocked Sender List Click on the "Add" button in the new window that appears. Fill in the email address from which the Bad Karma originates, for example: someone at t-online.de Click OK As you can see the source of the Bad Karma is now showing up in the Blocked Senders List, click OK again to close this window. Messages that are coming from where the Bad Karma originates are now automatically moved to the "Deleted Items" folder! IN HOTMAIL: After logging in click on the "options" button next to the folder tabs. Then, in the "Mail handling" column in the middle of the page that now appears, choose the option "Block Sender". On the page that then loads fill in the email address from which the Bad Karma originates, for example: someone at t-online.de After you filled this in, click the "Add" button and then press the "Ok" button. * Note that messages handled by this filter are deleted before delivery (hurray!) and thus will not even show up in your deleted items folder! IN PROCMAIL: (common mail filtering system on Unix machines) Edit the .procmailrc file in your home directory. Add the following to the top of rules so that it gets processed first before it might be copied to specific mailinglist folders. :0: * ^(From:).*someone at t-online.de /dev/null This will move the file to the Infinite Infinity, also known on Unix systems as /dev/null. Do not worry about the amount of Bad Karma the system can take, experts whisper that the amount is infinite! NOTE: Client-side filtering on mailinglists is generally not a nice thing to do since it prevents discussion from taking place. Yet one must understand that the path of discussion is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish, and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the discussion through the valley of stupidity, for he is truly the mail filter user and finder of thoughts lost in traffic. Yet the filter will strike down with great vengeance and furious anger upon those who attempt to poison and destroy discussion! And you will know it *works* when you find your mailbox free again. [1] So, keep that funky flow of things moving and perhaps enjoy your new mail settings! Menso [1] Obviously based on Tarantino's version of "Ezekiel 25:17" -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From jotarun at yahoo.co.uk Wed Sep 19 06:48:39 2001 From: jotarun at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Jo=20and=20Tarun?=) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:18:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] just a suggestion In-Reply-To: <200109181554.RAA09989@mail.intra.waag.org> Message-ID: <20010919011839.14806.qmail@web9101.mail.yahoo.com> If we could just provide URLs of the essays one is quoting rather than reproduce them in all their glory, we would make the list more functional and friendly. reader-list-request at sarai.net wrote: Send Reader-list mailing list submissions to reader-list at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to reader-list-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at reader-list-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Reader-list digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD (Rana Dasgupta) 2. Re: the liberal response (philip pocock) 3. Australian Arabic Council statement on 11/9 (Alex English) 4. RE: BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD (Steef Heus) 5. Re: ..a post.ing as yet not sent... (ap][e][ologger) 6. Re: Alan Sonheim's net art? /text on the missing (Frederic Madre) 7. On critical integrity of the list (Monica Narula) 8. Re: the liberal response (Boud Roukema) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 02:26:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Rana Dasgupta Subject: Re: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD To: reader-list at sarai.net May I protest to the list and to Philip for this kind of mail (below). As Menso Heus suggested yesterday, I think the reader list is not the place for ad hominem attacks of this kind. If anyone suspects someone else of being "psychopathic" can they either keep it to themselves or advise the relevant person of their concern in private emails? My own assumption is that this list is for engaging with ideas and not the defects of its members' personalities. Moreover, it is a place that I come to because of a presumed openness as to what kind of ideas are deserving of attention and discussion. With the diversity of backgrounds and interests of people on this list it is quite likely - and desirable - that disagreements will arise. These are not to be erased in the name of the same sort of emotional blackmail that is currently jamming the mainstream media. There is no point launching an investigation of a situation of hatred and vengeance if I/we/you try to shut it down as soon as I/we/you feel your interests or your point of view to be offended. Sorry to waste members' time by stating what I thought would have been obvious. But (to quote another list member, this time in reference to the attached mail): >it undermines open and honest criticism and dialogue >concerning real human issues and a complete waste of >at least my time. R --- philip pocock wrote: > > > Pradip Saha wrote: > > > this is the last one: > > > > i actually recognise my numbness to be terrible, > and decided to be honest, > > rather than to be nice and do a lip service. > > you appear to be psychopathic, with all options open > to be manipulated by your > character. > > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:20:43 +0200 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Reply-To: philip.pocock at t-online.de To: Rana Dasgupta CC: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: Re: [Reader-list] the liberal response Rana Dasgupta wrote: > But I have to confess to wondering what the point of > this stuff is right now. Are we just trying to say to > the US, "You deserved it"? Are we attempting to > remain above the sensationalism of the TV networks by > saying "Chill out - it was always going to happen"? > Or are we hoping that the US will temper its response > as a result of these reminders of its own wrongs? > this is good thinking, simple basic focussed thinking. the misuse of the notion of karma as some sort of timeless contextless pingpong game is equivalent to the blame game of guilt giving and evokes useless emotion that is a smokescreen for some sort of intolerance. the 'you deserve it' routine is rootless, for action-reaction is the endless chain that vedic karmic thinking is trying to escape not exploit for casting blame. it is the same as newton attempted on a pragmatic and physically abstract level. the intolerance held in the soul of the blamer saying 'you deserved it'. as one person on the list did, they owned up to why they backhandedly praised bin laden, at least honestly displaying their troubled mind and human numbness so that orientation and more importantly their own soul-searching process may begin to heal their lazy anger. but usually the answer to the question above is self-dishonety, cowardice and fear. --__--__-- Message: 3 Reply-To: "Alex English" From: "Alex English" To: Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:29:02 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Australian Arabic Council statement on 11/9 The following is an article concerning the events in New York of September 11 2001, written by Alexander Kouttab of the Australian Arabic Council. apologies for the bad wrapping; I've done the best I could... Alexandra English. Melbourne, Australia. - - The haunting footage of United Airlines Flight 175 rapidly approaching the South Tower of the World Trade Centre in downtown Manhattan, the massive explosion that followed, the thick black smoke, the confusion and disbelief, the two towers collapsing within a short time of each other - these are placed to become some of the most enduring images of human vulnerability and tragedy in our time. The sophistication, scale and sheer audacity of the operation behind the suicide attacks in New York and Washington became apparent in the hours that followed. In targeting the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and the White House, those responsible had intended to simultaneously destroy America's economic, military and political infrastructure. At the same time, they had sought to undermine America's dominance as an untouchable military power by preying on its internal vulnerability and providing the world with some of the most visually arresting images of destruction and powerlessness. Today, four days after the suicide attacks and the wider global impact is also beginning to take shape. Most notably, this includes the rethinking of international security and protection under the banner of 'collective security'; the crackdown on suspected terrorist organizations; fears of a downturn in the global market; and the geopolitical realignments that will later surface as the U.S seeks to consolidate what it is calling an 'international coalition against terrorism'. Some of the most prescient commentaries over the last few days are those that in trying to understand the motivations behind the attacks, have sought answers that go beyond the wholesale vilification of an entire region and its people. They are commentaries that see these events as an indelible reminder of the unfolding tragedy of recent global history. If the scale of this attack on American soil is unprecedented, the horror it speaks of has a long history of colonization, imperialism and resistance; of ideological divisions and countless lives lost; of global antagonism and the 'East-West' divide, out of which terrorism has emerged as an ugly manifestation propagated by the fanatical few in an increasingly militarised world. Nothing happens in an historical vacuum, and after the shock and anger have abated, it is this tragic history, one that has now engulfed America, that must come to insinuate itself into our making sense of why this happened. Nothing can justify the taking of innocent lives, and there is no cause or God in the name of which such devastation can be sanctioned. The images of Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Centre and the carnage that followed portray the tragic underside of a global history that has not spared any corner of the world. They portray a human story in which humanity has somewhere gone terribly wrong. And they predict a future where the cycle of grievance and revenge is making it increasingly difficult to see a light at the end of the tunnel. For many, however, the lines of battle seem already in place. With those suspected of hijacking the four planes all Arabic and all Muslim, this has quickly become cause for some in the West to judge the entire Arab world as guilty. With familiar gusto, the Middle East is readily placed in opposition to the 'democratic', 'free' and 'civilized' world. It is a rehearsal of old divisions that only serve to further compound the tragedy of September 11th, not resolve it. One cannot help feeling that the battle between good and evil, democracy and tyranny, civilization and barbarity is somewhere and somehow going to eventually implicate the whole of the Arab and Islamic world as the enemy against which we are warned to remain vigilant. Indeed, the increasing appearance of blatant anti-Arab racism in some sections of the media and the enormous jump in race hatred crimes at Australian schools, in Australian workplaces and on Australian streets indicates that the street is already one step ahead. This wholesale vilification and 'scapegoating' of Arabic communities around the world also has a long history whose ideological origins are well known. Racism was around before the suicide attacks in the U.S and it shall linger long after or as long as racists scramble to find justification for their actions in ways that parallel the delusion of those responsible for the attacks. Arab mosques and churches have been fire bombed; women who wear the Muslim headscarf have been spat at on trams and threatened with rape when they walk down the street; our businesses have been vandalised and have been spray painted with swastika's; Arabic schools have been forced to close and the parents of children attending non-Arabic schools are keeping their kids at home amid threats of violence and retribution. Members of the Arabic community respond to September 11th as any decent person would, with both shock and horror. Our community and religious leaders have emphatically condemned the attacks and offered their full support to those in Australia who have lost friends and loved ones. They have been at pains to point out that 'Islamic fundamentalism' is a narrow, unrepresentative and distorted interpretation of Islam that is held together by anti-American sentiment and whose influence is restricted to a few pockets across the globe. Leaders in the Arabic world were amongst the first to condemn the attacks and have been unambiguous in their opposition to terrorism. This should all be patently obvious, yet Arabic community groups in Australia are having to defend our community's very innocence. For the present, it seems that we are all under suspicion, so much so that opposition leader Kim Beazley has, with characteristic simplicity and confusion, called on our community to 'dob in' terrorists. Not far behind is Peter Reith's appalling attempt to capitalize on the tragedy by manipulating it into a justification for the current government's hysterical and xenophobic reaction to asylum seekers arriving in Australia. With an absence of political leadership shown by either main political party at the Federal level, it is left to the wider community to rediscover a sense of humanity that is inclusive rather than exclusive, that is interconnected rather than racially and religiously divisive, one that brings home our need to differentiate right from wrong both here and abroad. And it is those from the wider community who are shocked at the devastation in New York and Washington and equally appalled at the current racial vilification of the Arabic community in Australia who with dignity, have taken up the challenge of finding a light at the end of the tunnel. Alexander Kouttab. --__--__-- Message: 4 Reply-To: From: "Steef Heus" To: "Rana Dasgupta" , Subject: RE: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:38:44 +0200 This posting of Rana has my full support! Steef Heus > -----Original Message----- > From: reader-list-admin at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-admin at sarai.net]On > Behalf Of Rana Dasgupta > Sent: dinsdag 18 september 2001 11:27 > To: reader-list at sarai.net > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] BLACK TUESDAY: THE VIEW FROM ISLAMABAD > > > May I protest to the list and to Philip for this kind > of mail (below). > > As Menso Heus suggested yesterday, I think the reader > list is not the place for ad hominem attacks of this > kind. If anyone suspects someone else of being > "psychopathic" can they either keep it to themselves > or advise the relevant person of their concern in > private emails? > > My own assumption is that this list is for engaging > with ideas and not the defects of its members' > personalities. Moreover, it is a place that I come to > because of a presumed openness as to what kind of > ideas are deserving of attention and discussion. > > With the diversity of backgrounds and interests of > people on this list it is quite likely - and desirable > - that disagreements will arise. These are not to be > erased in the name of the same sort of emotional > blackmail that is currently jamming the mainstream > media. There is no point launching an investigation > of a situation of hatred and vengeance if I/we/you try > to shut it down as soon as I/we/you feel your > interests or your point of view to be offended. > > Sorry to waste members' time by stating what I thought > would have been obvious. But (to quote another list > member, this time in reference to the attached mail): > > >it undermines open and honest criticism and dialogue > >concerning real human issues and a complete waste of > >at least my time. > > R > > > --- philip pocock wrote: > > > > > > Pradip Saha wrote: > > > > > this is the last one: > > > > > > i actually recognise my numbness to be terrible, > > and decided to be honest, > > > rather than to be nice and do a lip service. > > > > you appear to be psychopathic, with all options open > > to be manipulated by your > > character. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Reader-list mailing list > > Reader-list at sarai.net > > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > __________________________________________________ > Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? > Donate cash, emergency relief information > http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:49:35 +1000 To: reader-list at sarai.net From: "ap][e][ologger" Subject: Re: [Reader-list] ..a post.ing as yet not sent... Cc: reader-list at sarai.net At 11:04 AM 18/09/01 +0200, philip pocock wrote: >save your out-of-date concrete poetry to yourself. were you a ee cummings and >the clock was wound back 50 years i might delve in to read and image your >gibberish. > >email is a voice and ee cummings was a response to that in print media. update >and cut the nostalgia. you wont get my attention. > dear readers, of course my last posting was in no way intended to "get the attention" of list members like philip, and i wasn't trying at all to discuss my personal wurk. howeva, in light of this ][offensive and highly inappropriate][ response, i'll post some quotes regarding the wurk i produce in order to give it some context. ][mez][ ****************** "...Mez's writing proceeds with irregular energy... in the sense of the type of context sensitivities she sets up that proceed simultaneously in various directions. Ingenious in the manner of the representation of 'regular expressions' in the mathematics of computer science, for instance. As though it contained its own hyper links..her voice is electric and acoustic in a single phrase.....and the sense of sound is phenomenal, the humour startling...Mez's language...is particularly strong in voice. Strong in voice and bristling with innovation and possibility. This is, in itself, 'serious'. Past 'language poetry', for instance. Suited to this medium in important ways." -Jim Andrews, webartery "mez's writings are, in my view, examples of reflecting the virulence of digital text without actually coding in programming language. - The beauty of 'mezangelle' is that it uses elements of programming language syntax as material, i.e. reflecting formal programming language without being one. Of course, many other aesthetic options in Internet poetry exist, and many of them may have an aesthetics which totally separates the textuality of the digital poem from the internal textuality of the machine. I just prefer if the latter is the product of an aesthetically conscious decision _against_ algorithmic coding (i.e. as its negative reflection) The code poetry of, among others, mez, Alan Sondheim and Ted Warnell seems to build on two developments a) the re-coding of traditional pictorial ASCII art into amimetical noise signals by net artists like Jodi, antiorp, mi-ga and Frederic Madre, (b) the mass proliferation of programming language syntax through web and multimedia scripting languages and search engines. For the reader of mez's "netwurks", it remains all the more an open question whether the "mezangelle" para-code of parentheses and wildcard characters only mimics programming languages or is, at least partially, the product of programmed text filtering." [in Cream 1: Collaborative Research into Electronic Art Memes]" -Florian Cramer, lecturer in Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin "When I first encountered mez's work the association with contemporary clichés of language didn't even occur to me for quite some time - i saw it as something else completely. the difference: CONTENT/intent. mez doesn't play this way with language because of trendi-ness or eaze, but with deliberate intent/choice. [this] FORM as integral to her content, and as [a] form of communication which is distinguished by her particular content/treatment/meaning ... also, it doesn't read with the eaze that phonetic treatment of language usually duz - in youth filled chat rooms for instance - one has to dig a bit, step back and read with conscious intent/concentration if one's is to actually gather what's being said, which brings a new attention to reading, akin to that which we bring to Shakespeare, etc." -Claire Dinsmore, Cauldron & The Net "...during a period of time from approximately 1995 to 1997 interface as a concern was investigated in earnest, and in some cases brilliantly realized by a very few of the original net.artists (Bunting, JODI, MEZ, Lialina)...Mez is without doubt one of the most consistent, prolific, innovative artists working new media today. Mez's work with language has had a considerable effect on the language of many..." -Ted Warnell, warnell.com "...Mez reaches into the very structure of the word, creating an entire para-language, called "m[ez]ang.elle," which is readable by readers of English, but only at the cost of a dramatically slowed reading speed. She organizes textual performances which she designates as e-mail trawling, hacker attacking, open source kode poetri, or electronic channeling. Though this work uses many of the devices of so-called L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, fluid spacing, bracketing, and ambiguous punctuation to obtain a simultaneity of reference that tests fixed neuronal patterns, it also tests these, simultaneously,through choreographed and random kinetic oscillations of the Web environment, re-converting the process of reading to a process of action, perhaps somewhat akin to what oral cultures undertook when print first spread through them." -Stephanie Strickland, from "Dali Clocks: TIME DIMENSIONS OF HYPERMEDIA", at Digital Arts and Culture Conference, Norway 00. === message truncated === --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Get your free Yahoo! address at Yahoo! Mail: UK or IE. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010919/901e23c4/attachment.html From geert at desk.nl Wed Sep 19 08:25:17 2001 From: geert at desk.nl (geert) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:55:17 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] just a suggestion References: <20010919011839.14806.qmail@web9101.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <027d01c140b6$8dba31e0$c900000a@bigpond.com> Jo and Tarun wrote: > If we could just provide URLs of the essays one is quoting rather than reproduce them in all their glory, we would make the list more functional and friendly. I have to disagree here. I am online only few times a day on a slow dialup connection. If people copy-paste texts into a mail that's a great help to me as the chance that I will go online, find the site and wait for the info to be downloaded is rather slim. Best, Geert From mazzarel at uchicago.edu Tue Sep 18 22:16:51 2001 From: mazzarel at uchicago.edu (William Mazzarella) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:46:51 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Re: [Reader-list] Images and Weapons Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20010918114523.02db3918@nsit-popmail.uchicago.edu> > > > >Re: Shuddha's post on the politics of images. In the past few days, I have >noted, on several email lists, reactions of intense disgust when attempts >have been made to come to terms with the aesthetic politics of recent >events. The very word 'aesthetics' carries some of that load. In modern >times, it has come to mean a quasi-autonomous domain, the realm of 'art' >and transcendence as opposed to the instrumental concerns of the everyday >world. Consequently, people who are interested in discussing it are >dismissed, under conditions such as the ones we are now facing, as mere >'aesthetes.' > >But the older meaning of the term refers to our entire sensory and >embodied relation to the world. As such, it is the arena where we need to >ask questions about the seeable and the sayable, the sensible and the >intelligible, images and the discourses that are deployed to make sense of >them - in the media, on street corners, in secret meetings, around the >dinner table. This is NOT an appeal to apply the mystifying balm of >cultural studies to injuries of an inexplicable magnitude. Rather, it is a >call to recognize that we MUST, as Shuddha suggests, start thinking about >the ethics of the images that we circulate. > >What is crucial is that we understand that there is no rigorous separation >to be made between 'media' and 'authentic' images. It is not a matter of >'ideology' versus 'experience.' An event of this magnitude begins to bring >home to us that, as interconnected as we now must be, the lines between >'participant,' 'spectator' and 'commentator' cannot remained clearly >defined. We all felt the shock, in our various ways. We all saw. And we >are all busily - and exasperatedly - trying to talk our way into some >semblance of...."sense?" > >We live in a time when the circulation of mass-mediated images has become >truly pervasive. For a long time now, there has been a sense of >disjuncture between the accepted and established discursive languages of >'politics' and the intensely political yet affect-laden domain of images >that pour out of what used to be called the culture industries. What >happened on Tuesday does not change this. But I hope that perhaps it might >help us to see that we need to harness the profound energies of our own >sensory experience - the root of all politics, the root of all ethics - to >the task of developing a critical engagement with a world in which this >could happen. > >At 08:01 PM 9/17/2001 +0530, you wrote: >>Two interesting ideas can be drawn out of the discussions on this list for >>the past few days. Its all about Images and Weapons. >> >>1.It is possible to lie with images >>(whether or not the CNN footage of the cheering Palestinian kids is true to >>the moment is less important than the fact that News Networks do sometimes >>muddy the truth with images) >> >>2. It is possible for people to kill themselves and thousands of other >>people >>for the sake of an image. >>This image can be a picture of heaven, or hell. >>(here, consider - the image of an after life that is preferable to life >>as it >>is - the program that ticks in the suicide bombers mind - as suggested by >>Richard Dawkins's essay) >> >>Why should we be so reluctant to accept this fact? >> >>Images cause as much sorrow as they cause joy, or wonder. To pretend that >>the >>realm of images and of image making is devoid of ethical dilemmas is to >>presume that images are actually not about life as it is lived and about >>death as it is died. >> >>We are happy to hold an ethical torch to science, we are happy to ask >>difficult questions about technology, what makes religion, the spirit, the >>arts, culture, holier than nuclear physics, finance capital or military >>strategy ? >> >>Once, someone said, "when I hear the word culture, it makes me reach for my >>gun". It could be said today, "when you hear the word, gun, you reach for >>your culture". As if guns and culture need not go hand in hand. They do, and >>then again, they dont. >> >>The national anthems that goad people to war are also music. >>The mysticism that produces jihadis, crusaders, dharamyoddhas is also >>mysticism. >>Just as the science that produces chemical, biological and nuclear >>weapons is >>also science. >> >>There is nothing less scientific in a smart bomb. There is nothing less >>musical in a war song, or less mystical in the cult of martyrdom. >> >>Anyone who makes images , or deals in images, or circulates images(artists, >>photographers, filmmakers, new media practitioners, writers, prophets, >>mystics, curators, art dealers) is as culpable, or not, depending on the >>images, as those who make weapons, deal in weapons, circulate weapons. >> >>Because some images can be weapons. >> >>Just as some weapons ( planes crashing into tall buildings) can become >>images, which in turn can be used as weapons again. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Reader-list mailing list >>Reader-list at sarai.net >>http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > >William Mazzarella >Assistant Professor >University of Chicago >Department of Anthropology >1126 E 59th St >Chicago, IL 60637 > >tel: (773) 834-4873 >fax: (773) 702-4503 William Mazzarella Assistant Professor University of Chicago Department of Anthropology 1126 E 59th St Chicago, IL 60637 tel: (773) 834-4873 fax: (773) 702-4503 From kshekhar at bol.net.in Wed Sep 19 09:59:01 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:59:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 22.9.2001: Dadar-Matunga Message-ID: Dear Friends: In our next meeting, we will host a panel discussion and presentation by several individuals researching on the locality of Dadar and Matunga, comprising the neighbourhoods of Hindu Colony, Parsi Colony, Matunga Central, Ruia and Poddar Colleges, King's Circle, Five Gardens, and the Catholic Colony in Wadala. This historic locality was the first consciously planned suburban development of the city. A plotted residential scheme with institutional and commercial developments for its working middle-class inhabitants, it was modelled on the British "garden city" paradigm in the 1920s and 1930s. ANIRUDH PAUL, Deputy Director of the Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture (KRVIA) and PRASAD SHETTY, Project Coordinator of the Design Cell, KRVIA, will present on the architecture and environment of these neighbourhoods, on the basis of their study for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Heritage Conservation Society. NIKHIL RAO, doctoral candidate at the Department of History, University of Chicago, U.S.A. will discuss his ongoing research into the social and cultural history of these early suburbs, and their formation as "ethnic neighbourhoods" in the late colonial period. Renowned architect and long-time resident of Five Gardens, KAMU IYER, will also participate in the discussion. Mr Iyer has recently edited Buildings that Shaped Bombay: The Works of G.B. Mhatre, F.R.I.B.A. (Mumbai: KRVIA and Urban Design Research Institute, 2000). This session will also be attended by representatives of the various residents associations of these neighbourhoods, whom we have invited to participate in this broad discussion of the history and ethnography, ecology and architecture of this unique locality. This session will be on SATURDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2001, at 10.00 A.M., on the SECOND FLOOR, Rachna Sansad, 278, Shankar Ghanekar Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, next to Ravindra Natya Mandir. Phone: 4301024, 4310807, 4229969; Station: Elphinstone Road (Western Railway); BEST Bus: 35, 88, 151, 161, 162, 171, 355, 357, 363, to Ravindra Natya Mandir, 91 Ltd, 305 Ltd, A1 and A4 to Prabhadevi. ABOUT the MUMBAI STUDY GROUP The MUMBAI STUDY GROUP meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, at the Rachana Sansad, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, at 10.00 A.M. Our conversations continue through the support extended by Shri Pradip Amberkar, Principal of the Academy of Architecture, and Prof S.H. Wandrekar, Trustee of the Rachana Sansad. Conceived as an inclusive and non-partisan forum to foster dialogue on urban and global issues, we have since September 2000 held conversations about various historical, political, legal, cultural, social and spatial aspects of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Our discussions are open and public, no previous membership or affiliation is required. We encourage the participation of urban researchers and practitioners, experts and non-experts, researchers and students, and all individuals, groups and associations in Mumbai to join our conversations about the the city.The format we have evolved is to host individual presentations or panel discussions in various fields of urban theory and practice, and have a moderated and focussed discussion from our many practical and professional perspectives: whether as architects or planners, lawyers or journalists, artists or film-makers, academics or activists.Through such a forum, we hope to foster an open community of urban citizens, which clearly situates Mumbai in the theories and practices of urbanism globally. Previous sessions have hosted presentations by the following individuals: Kalpana Sharma, Associate Editor of The Hindu; Kedar Ghorpade, Senior Planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority; Dr Marina Pinto, Professor of Public Administration, retired from Mumbai University; Dr K. Sita, Professor of Geography, retired from Mumbai University, and former Garware Chair Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Dr Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), Mumbai; Rahul Srivastava, Lecturer in Sociology at Wilson College; Sandeep Yeole, General Secretary of the All-India Pheriwala Vikas Mahasangh; Dr Anjali Monteiro, Professor and Head, and K.P. Jayashankar, Reader, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Unit for Media and Communications; Dr Sujata Patel, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Pune; Dr Mariam Dossal, Head, Department of History, Mumbai University; Sucheta Dalal, business journalist and Consulting Editor, Financial Express; Dr Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Culture and Communications at New York University; Dr Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University, and member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective; Dr Sudha Deshpande, Reader in Demography, retired from the Department of Economics, Mumbai University and former consultant for the World Bank, International Labour Organisation, and Bombay Municipal Corporation; Sulakshana Mahajan, doctoral candidate at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., and former Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Rachana Sansad. Previous panel discussions have comprised of the following individuals: S.S. Tinaikar, former Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Sheela Patel, Director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), and Bhanu Desai of the Citizens' Forum for the Protection of Public Spaces (Citispace) on urban policy making and housing; Shirish Patel, civil engineer and urban planner, Pramod Sahasrabuddhe and Abhay Godbole, structural engineers on earthquakes and the built form of the city; B. Rajaram, Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation, and Dr P.G. Patankar, from Tata Consultancy Services, and former Chairman of the Bombay Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) on mass public transport alternatives; Ved Segan, Vikas Dilawari, and Pankaj Joshi, conservation architects, on the social relevance of heritage and conservation architecture; Debi Goenka, of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, Professor Sudha Srivastava, Dr Geeta Kewalramani, and Dr Dipti Mukherji, of the University of Mumbai Department of Geography, on the politics of land use, the city's salt pan lands, and the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Act. We invite all urban researchers, practitioners, students, and other interested individuals to join us in our fortnightly conversations, and suggest topics for presentation and discussion. For any more information, kindly contact one of the Joint Convenors of the Mumbai Study Group: ARVIND ADARKAR, Architect, Researcher and Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Phone 2051834, ; DARRYL D'MONTE, Journalist and Writer, 6427088 ; SHEKHAR KRISHNAN, Coordinator-Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), 4462728, ; PANKAJ JOSHI, Conservation Architect, Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, and PUKAR Associate, 8230625, . From monica at sarai.net Wed Sep 19 12:57:02 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:57:02 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] just a suggestion In-Reply-To: <027d01c140b6$8dba31e0$c900000a@bigpond.com> References: <20010919011839.14806.qmail@web9101.mail.yahoo.com> <027d01c140b6$8dba31e0$c900000a@bigpond.com> Message-ID: Dear Jo and Tarun, Thankyou for suggesting that we all use urls - i agree that would make for lighter mailboxes - but as Geert has pointed out (and as i said in a posting many moons ago), there are many members who would/could not go online to read. May i request here that could you please - and this is for other members as well - delete the original email when you hit Reply? (unless of course it is relevant to what you are writing). That would definitely also make for lighter mailboxes. I would also request members to try and clean up forwards as much as possible!! Also, please do not forward attachments, but ensure that the email that you are forwarding is inline text. (especially useful to check if you are sending from yahoo/hotmail/etc. mailboxes.) best Monica Narula List Administrator At 12:55 PM +1000 19/9/01, geert wrote: >Jo and Tarun wrote: > >> If we could just provide URLs of the essays one is quoting rather than >reproduce them in all their glory, we would make the list more functional >and friendly. > >I have to disagree here. I am online only few times a day on a slow dialup >connection. If people copy-paste texts into a mail that's a great help to me >as the chance that I will go online, find the site and wait for the info to >be downloaded is rather slim. > >Best, Geert > >_______________________________________________ >Reader-list mailing list >Reader-list at sarai.net >http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From jeebesh at sarai.net Wed Sep 19 13:19:09 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:19:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Surveillance after September 11 Message-ID: Its been a week. the War Machine is slowly engulfing us into its sensorial field. But a more insidious mechanism is at work within state territories. The talk of economic hardship, more security, tougher rules on immigration, more vigilance, active self defense, is gathering momentum. We are going to witness an emergence of a very vicious kind of spatial and technological configuration and sadly it will get a consent amidst the images of the debris. I am enclosing a article written by RMS that speaks to this trend. Jeebesh ===================== Thousands dead, millions deprived of civil liberties? By Richard Stallman The worst damage from many nerve injuries is secondary -- it happens in the hours after the initial trauma, as the body's reaction to the damage kills more nerve cells. Researchers are beginning to discover ways to prevent this secondary damage and reduce the eventual harm. If we are not careful, the deadly attacks on New York and Washington will lead to far worse secondary damage, if the U.S. Congress adopts "preventive measures" that take away the freedom that America stands for. I'm not talking about searches at airports here. Searches of people or baggage for weapons, as long as they check only for weapons and keep no records about you if you have no weapons, are just an inconvenience; they do not endanger civil liberties. What I am worried about is massive surveillance of all aspects of life: of our phone calls, of our email, and of our physical movements. These measures are likely to be recommended regardless of whether they would be effective for their stated purpose. An executive of a company developing face recognition software is said to be telling reporters that widespread deployment of face-recognizing computerized cameras would have prevented the attacks. The September 15 New York Times cites a congressman who is advocating this "solution." Given that the human face recognition performed by the check-in agents did not keep the hijackers out, there is no reason to think that computer face recognition would help. But that won't stop the agencies that have always wanted to do more surveillance from pushing this plan now, and many other plans like it. To stop them will require public opposition. Even more ominously, a proposal to require government back doors in encryption software has already appeared. Meanwhile, Congress hurried to pass a resolution giving Bush unlimited power to use military force in retaliation for the attacks. Retaliation may be justified, if the perpetrators can be identified and carefully targeted, but Congress has a duty to scrutinize specific measures as they are proposed. Handing the president carte blanche in a moment of anger is exactly the mistake that led the United States into the Vietnam War. Please let your elected representatives, and your unelected president, know that you don't want your civil liberties to become the terrorists' next victim. Don't wait -- the bills are already being written. Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman rms at gnu.org -- http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/ http://www.complit.fu-berlin.de/institut/lehrpersonal/cramer.html GnuPG/PGP public key ID 3200C7BA "c u in he][l][avan" (mez, _Viro.Logic Condition][ing][ 1.1_) From sopan_joshi at yahoo.com Wed Sep 19 16:59:45 2001 From: sopan_joshi at yahoo.com (Sopan Joshi) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 16:59:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Images and Weapons: "The Power of Taste" -- Zbigniew Herbert Message-ID: I am forwarding this email, especially in the context of Mr Mazzarella's very interesting posting. Monica ========================== Dear Monica Many of the recent postings were quite saddening, and I hope that this doesn't continue. In the context of the discussion on aesthetics, I am sending an English translation of a poem entitled "The Power of Taste" by the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, an exile who resisted the Polish communist regime through his poetry and aesthetics. It is followed by a write-up on Herbert from the Internet that might be contextual to some of the discussions on the list. Best Sopan ============================== THE POWER OF TASTE -- by Zbigniew HERBERT It didn't require great character at all our refusal disagreement and resistance we had a shred of necessary courage but fundamentally it was a matter of taste Yes taste in which there are fibers of soul the cartilage of conscience Who knows if we had been better and more attractively tempted sent rose-skinned women thin as a wafer or fantastic creatures from the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch but what kind of hell was there at this time a wet pit the murderers' alley the barrack called a palace of justice a home-brewed Mephisto in a Lenin jacket sent Aurora's grandchildren on into the field boys with potato faces very ugly girls with red hands .............. So æsthetics can be helpful in life one should not neglect the study of beauty Before we declare our consent we must carefully examine the shape of the architecture the rhythm of the drums official colors the despicable ritual of funerals Our eyes refused obedience the princes of our senses proudly chose exile (Translated by John Carpenter and Bogdana Carpenter) _____________________________________________________ Brief write-up on Herbert: "A major part of contemporary art declares itself on the side of chaos, gesticulates in a void, or tells the story of its own barren soul" -- Zbigniew HERBERT (1924-1998) - poet and essayist, author of plays and radio dramas. He was a writer of great accomplishment and an exceptional artistic and moral authority whose biography was tragically enmeshed in the history of the twentieth century. He is one of the most frequently translated Polish writers. The distinguished work of Zbigniew Herbert has brought world-wide recognition to Poland. He has been unanimously and rightfully recognized as a great, perhaps the greatest Polish poet of the twentieth century; a universal poet who is at the same time very much rooted in the realities of his own country. It would be impossible to get to know and completely understand Poland's fortunes and its soul over the course of the twentieth century without Herbert's subtle and classically lucid work. Thanks to it, many people (not just in Poland) have been made aware of a choice that is theirs to make - between conformism and the responsibility to higher values and human dignity, wherever it is threatened. In our countries there is and has been a great number of talented artists, but not many of them are deep thinkers. Herbert not only wrote exquisite poems, but developed his own system of thought, too, which treats of the individual and of the collectivity known as the Nation. As an imperative of everyday life and immediate experience, he invoked the foundational values of European culture; revived the ancient kalokagatia - the unity of beauty, truth, and goodness; kindled chivalry; and, with his stoic attitude, perceived values that could save humans in the throes of chaos. In his struggle with utilitarianism and pragmatism, he showed that "the knight's reward is his virtue; the sage's reward is his wisdom; and the reward of the artist is the beauty of his creations and the inner beauty that comes as their result." It is to these profoundly considered values that Herbert's poetry owes its international popularity. Nowadays, anyone who feels responsible for anything beyond his own well-being runs the risk of being ridiculed. Herbert's well-known invention, the simultaneously heroic and ironic character Mr. Cogito, teaches us, in our standstill at the precipice, how to fight the monster. But what sort of monster? The monster of the generation of this century's latter half has had one kind of countenance. For the generations to come in ten, twenty years, it will have another. But what enslaves mankind will always need to be resisted, and the "Herbertian attitude" will never vanish from the horizon of the world to come. The verse collection 89 Poems is a remarkable attempt to create "a canon of one's own", a distillation of the most significant elements of a poet's material. For the translator, it presents a rare occasion to examine one's own processes and intuitions in making choices from such rich poetic material. Throughout the work's five sections, like books of the Bible, Herbert's entire universum shines - from the macro-cosmos of social issues to more intimate chords of love and sorrow. We can only be grateful for the poet's great effort despite his extremely poor health, and for the generosity of another poet, Ryszard Krynicki, for presenting us with this uncommon book - a Herbertian testament. From monica at sarai.net Wed Sep 19 16:56:44 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 16:56:44 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] FAIR reporting Message-ID: We are surrounded by the diatribe of the war machine - and from all sides we find ourselves submerged in what the Media is giving to us. The FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, 130 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001, www.fair.org) organisation sets out to review and analyse the rhetoric of hate and the aggressive posturing of this machine. It is definitely a place to go to when looking for a necessary perspective. I am attaching below an extract from the website which is reviewing some recent speech/writing. It would be great if someone were to do a similar audit of press/TV in India. (consider the fact that Star News has become a subsidiary of Fox News, a channel that FAIR calls the most biased, with an extraordinary right wing tilt) Monica ============= http://www.fair.org/press-releases/wtc-war-punditry.html MEDIA ADVISORY: Media March to War September 17, 2001 In the wake of the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many media pundits focused on one theme: retaliation. For some, it did not matter who bears the brunt of an American attack: "There is only one way to begin to deal with people like this, and that is you have to kill some of them even if they are not immediately directly involved in this thing." --former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger (CNN, 9/11/01) "The response to this unimaginable 21st-century Pearl Harbor should be as simple as it is swift-- kill the bastards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." --Steve Dunleavy (New York Post, 9/12/01) "America roused to a righteous anger has always been a force for good. States that have been supporting if not Osama bin Laden, people like him need to feel pain. If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution." --Rich Lowry, National Review editor, to Howard Kurtz (Washington Post, 9/13/01) "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilites should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." --Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Thomas Woodrow, "Time to Use the Nuclear Option" (Washington Times, 9/14/01) Bill O'Reilly: "If the Taliban government of Afghanistan does not cooperate, then we will damage that government with air power, probably. All right? We will blast them, because..." Sam Husseini, Institute for Public Accuracy: "Who will you kill in the process?" O'Reilly: "Doesn't make any difference." --("The O'Reilly Factor," Fox News Channel, 9/13/01) "This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack.... We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." --Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter (New York Daily News, 9/12/01) "Real" Retribution Many media commentators appeared to blame the attacks on what they saw as America's unwillingness to act aggressively in recent years. As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, 9/12/01) wrote: "One of the reasons there are enough terrorists out there capable and deadly enough to carry out the deadliest attack on the United States in its history is that, while they have declared war on us, we have in the past responded (with the exception of a few useless cruise missile attacks on empty tents in the desert) by issuing subpoenas." The Washington Post's David Broder (9/13/01), considered a moderate, issued his own call for "new realism -- and steel -- in America's national security policy": "For far too long, we have been queasy about responding to terrorism. Two decades ago, when those with real or imagined grievances against the United States began picking off Americans overseas on military or diplomatic assignments or on business, singly or in groups, we delivered pinprick retaliations or none at all." It's worth recalling the U.S. response to the bombing of a Berlin disco in April 1986, which resulted in the deaths of two U.S. service members: The U.S. immediately bombed Libya, which it blamed for the attack. According to Libya, 36 civilians were killed in the air assault, including the year-old daughter of Libyan leader Moamar Khadafy (Washington Post, 5/9/86). It is unlikely that Libyans considered this a "pinprick." Yet these deaths apparently had little deterrence value: In December 1988, less than 20 months later, Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in an even deadlier act of terrorism the U.S. blames on Libyan agents. More recently, in 1998, Bill Clinton sent 60 cruise missiles, some equipped with cluster bombs, against bin Laden's Afghan base, in what was presented as retaliation for the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa. One missile aimed at Afghan training camps landed hundreds of miles off course in Pakistan, while a simultaneous attack in Sudan leveled one of the country's few pharmaceutical factories. Media cheered the attacks (In These Times, 9/6/98), though careful investigation into the case revealed no credible evidence linking the plant to chemical weapons or Osama bin Laden, the two justifications offered for the attack (New York Times, 10/27/99, London Observer, 8/23/98). Despite the dubious record of retributory violence in insuring security, many pundits insist that previous retaliation failed only because it was not severe enough. As the Chicago Tribune's John Kass declared (9/13/01), "For the past decade we've sat dumb and stupid as the U.S. military was transformed from a killing machine into a playpen for sociologists and political schemers." This "playpen" dropped 23,000 bombs on Yugoslavia in 1999, killing between 500 and 1,500 civilians, and may have killed as many as 1,200 Iraqis in 1998's Desert Fox attack (Agence France Presse, 12/23/98). The Wall Street Journal (9/13/01) urged the U.S. to "get serious" about terrorism by, among other things, eliminating "the 1995 rule, imposed by former CIA Director John Deutsch under political pressure, limiting whom the U.S. can recruit for counter-terrorism. For fear of hiring rogues, the CIA decided it would only hire Boy Scouts." One non-Boy Scout the CIA worked with in the 1980s is none other than Osama bin Laden (MSNBC, 8/24/98; The Atlantic, 7-8/01)-- then considered a valuable asset in the fight against Communism, but now suspected of being the chief instigator of the World Trade Center attacks. Who's to Blame? In crisis situations, particularly those involving terrorism, media often report unsubstantiated information about suspects or those claiming responsibility-- an error that is especially dangerous in the midst of calls for military retaliation. Early reports on the morning of the attack indicated that the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine had claimed responsibility on Abu Dhabi Television. Most outlets were careful with the information, though NBC's Tom Brokaw, while not confirming the story, added fuel to the fire: "This comes, ironically, on a day when the Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is scheduled to meet with Yasser Arafat. Of course, we've had the meeting in South Africa for the past several days in which the Palestinians were accusing the Israelis of racism"--as if making such an accusation were tantamount to blowing up the World Trade Center. Hours after a spokesperson for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine denied any responsibility for the attack, the Drudge Report website still had the headline "Palestinian Group Says Responsible" at the top of the page. Though the threat from a Palestinian group proved unsubstantiated, that did not stop media from making gross generalizations about Arabs and Islam in general. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wondered (9/13/01): "Surely Islam, a grand religion that never perpetrated the sort of Holocaust against the Jews in its midst that Europe did, is being distorted when it is treated as a guidebook for suicide bombing. How is it that not a single Muslim leader will say that?" Of course, many Muslims would -- and did -- say just that. Political and civil leaders throughout the Muslim world have condemned the attacks, and Muslim clerics throughout the Middle East have given sermons refuting the idea that targeting civilians is a tenet of Islam (BBC 9/14/01, Washington Post 9/17/01). Why They Hate Us As the media investigation focused on Osama bin Laden, news outlets still provided little information about what fuels his fanaticism. Instead of a serious inquiry into anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East and elsewhere, many commentators media offered little more than self-congratulatory rhetoric: "[The World Trade Center and the Pentagon] have drawn, like gathered lightning, the anger of the enemies of civilization. Those enemies are always out there.... Americans are slow to anger but mighty when angry, and their proper anger now should be alloyed with pride. They are targets because of their virtues--principally democracy, and loyalty to those nations which, like Israel, are embattled salients of our virtues in a still-dangerous world." --George Will (Washington Post, 9/12/01) "This nation symbolizes freedom, strength, tolerance, and democratic principles dedicated to both liberty and peace. To the tyrants, the despots, the closed societies, there are no alterations to the policies, no gestures we can make, no words we can say that will convince those determined to continue their hate." --Charles G. Boyd (Washington Post, 9/12/01) "Are Americans afraid to face the reality that there is a significant portion of this world's population that hates America, hates what freedom represents, hates the fact that we fight for freedom worldwide, hates our prosperity, hates our way of life? Have we been unwilling to face that very difficult reality?" --Sean Hannity (Fox News Channel, 9/13/01) "Our principled defense of individual freedom and our reluctance to intervene in the affairs of states harboring terrorists makes us an easy target." --Robert McFarlane (Washington Post, 9/13/01) One exception was ABC's Jim Wooten (World News Tonight, 9/12/01), who tried to shed some light on what might motivate some anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East, reporting that "Arabs see the U.S. as an accomplice of Israel, a partner in what they believe is the ruthless repression of Palestinian aspirations for land and independence." Wooten continued: "The most provocative issues: Israel's control over Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem; the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia near some of Islam's holiest sites; and economic sanctions against Iraq, which have been seen to deprive children there of medicine and food." Stories like Wooten's, which examine the U.S.'s highly contentious role in the Middle East and illuminate some of the forces that can give rise to violent extremism, contribute far more to public security than do pundits calling for indiscriminate revenge. -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From monica at sarai.net Wed Sep 19 17:17:39 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:17:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Many paths Message-ID: Below is a long list of urls on the Attack, and covering a wide variety of aspects/facets such as "War", "Architecture and Engineering", "Comment", "Background", "Maps", "Civil Liberties", "Photo Essays", etc. ==================== Taken from RRE List War When Evil Itself Becomes the Primary Foe ("eliminating evil" is a dangerous formula for a permanent, total, futile war) http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000074971sep18.story "New War" to Be Fought With Unprecedented Secrecy (secrecy is sometimes necessary, but it also corrodes democracy) http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/17/ret.us.secret.war/ Analysts: Bin Laden Seeks Islamic Uprising (and going around bombing is exactly what bin Laden wants Bush to do) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0109180322sep18.story the logistical problems of attacking Afghanistan http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1548000/1548842.stm Afghan Taliban Sees Holy War Against US http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010918/ts/attack_afghan_holywar_dc_4.html Clerics Put Off Meet on Osama http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/01190001.htm Pak Mufti Talks Jihad Ahead of US Strike http://news.sify.com/cgi-bin/sifynews/news/content/news_fullstory.jsp?article_oid=7521356&category_oid=-20609&page_no=1 White House Apologizes for Using "Crusade" to Describe War on Terrorism http://www.masslive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0720_BC_Attacks-Crusade&&news&newsflash-washington http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?db=*&term=crusade India Identifies Air Bases for US http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1325922827 Mubarak Calls for Counterterrorism Treaty http://washingtontimes.com/world/20010917-97599642.htm China Demands US Attack Evidence http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1550000/1550495.stm "how far can the United States push Pakistan before it cracks up?" http://slate.msn.com/pol/01-09-17/pol.asp Pakistan's Nuclear Wild Card http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000074988sep18.story Nuclear Installations Are Safe, Says Dr. Qadeer http://www.frontierpost.com.pk/main.asp?id=18&date1=9/18/2001 US Embassy, Interests in France Targeted by Terrorists: Officials http://www.ttc.org/pa10918a.htm EU Calls Emergency Summit on Terrorism http://www.ttc.org/da10918a.htm Soviet Union's Afghan Lessons http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/18/ret.russia.afghanwar/ Iraqi Terror Connection? (is this disinformation or not? in a secret total war we can never know) http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,311414-412,00.shtml Fleeing Afghans Go From Frying Pan to Fire http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010918/wl/attack_afghan_camps_dc_1.html UN Refugee Commission Readies for Afghan Crisis http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-17-01.html Terrorist Cell Networks: Mapping the Invisible Enemy http://www.orgnet.com/tnet.html Architecture and engineering before-and-after aerial photos (watch out: the "after" photo is gigantic) http://www.planetizen.com/oped/files/20010917fullmanhattanbefore.jpg http://a573.g.akamai.net/7/573/5036/v002/www.spaceimaging.com/ikonos/wtc0915_2.jpg World Trade Centre: Some Engineering Aspects http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm#general Trade Center Towers' Design Not at Fault in Collapse http://www.pioneerplanet.com/news/ncl_docs/134452.htm The Pentagon's Weak Defenses http://www.cincypost.com/2001/sep/13/pent091301.html Building Giants Ponder Reconstruction http://www.theage.com.au/business/2001/09/14/FFXLYRTFJRC.html Powerful Symbols of America's Power Now Reflect Its Weaknesses http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/13/MN216641.DTL Building Debate: Should Twin Towers Go Up Again? http://www.dallasnews.com/national/472263_nycarchitect_1.html We Cannot Allow Fear to Dictate Commercial Architecture http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/sep01/goulcol17091601a.asp The End of Tall Buildings http://www.planetizen.com/oped/item.php?id=30 Rebuild or Not: Architects Respond http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/magazine/23REBUILD.html The Disaster and Its Urban Consequences http://www.hughpearman.com/articles2/wtc.html Comment Good Guys and Bad Guys: Mr. Bush's Map of the World Is Redrawn http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,553601,00.html Crusader Bush Blunders Into His Own Holy War http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/19/world/world9.html Bush Is Walking Into a Trap http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0916-06.htm comments on terrorism and revenge from Nepal http://www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishdaily/ktmpost/2001/sep/sep18/editorial.htm No Sympathy From China's Cyber Elite http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2001/nf20010917_8982.htm Terrorist Attack on US: Turning-Point in Post-Cold War Pattern (Chinese government publication) http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200109/14/eng20010914_80248.html audio of Canadian radio interview program about the attacks on Thursday http://radio.cbc.ca/insite/AS_IT_HAPPENS_TORONTO/2001/9/14.html Questions: Seeking Uncommon Ground http://www.uia.org/musings/uncommon.htm Khobar Towers: A Case of Futility http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/nwlink.cgi?ACG=ZZZPX58TQRC Media March to War http://www.fair.org/press-releases/wtc-war-punditry.html This New War Requires a Break With the Past http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpgit182370261sep18.story The Need for Dissent http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,553744,00.html No Blank Check on Economic Policy (deficits are back: liberals and conservatives are greatly relieved) http://www.americanprospect.com/webfeatures/2001/09/kuttner-r-09-18.html The Bigger They Come the Harder They Fall http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0915-13.htm WWII Pilot Urges Caution in Response to Terrorists http://www.citizen-times.com/news/16690241.shtml a Lebanese-American's thoughts on citizenship and the war http://www.farha.com/american.html Did We Handcuff the CIA? (No) http://slate.msn.com/pol/01-09-18/pol.asp A Tinderbox in Palestine http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2523/seitz2523.html Violence Breeds More Violence (bin Laden wants Bush to provoke a global intifada -- will Bush go along?) http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-000074774sep17.story disturbing rhetoric at National Review Online http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2001_09_16_archive.html#5755134 more craziness about guns on planes (the first one sees and raises by advocating racial profiling as well) http://www.theweeklystandard.com/magazine/mag_7_2_01/dealey_art_7_2_01.asp http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-16-Sun-2001/opinion/17003646.html http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel091401.shtml jargon: "the West must stop apologizing for the greatness of our civilization" (this statement is so aggressively twisted, it causes me real concern) http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001154 still the Bush hagiographers can do no better than "exceeds expectations" (even as he proves himself to be a vulgar jerk) http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2001/9/16/125727 incredibly bizarre conservative attack on "Satanic" America (isn't this what "anti-American" is supposed to mean) http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24458 Background long background piece on the Taliban ("even Taliban officials are said to be fleeing the capital") http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=786722 biography of Osama bin Laden http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010924/wosama.html the strange story of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the gum arabic trade (I have no idea) http://www.tdo.com/local/graphics/laden/html/2c.htm http://www.house.gov/wolf/2000907gumarabic.htm http://www.gumarab.com/body.htm http://www.plthomas.com/ Uzbekistan News (an "Islamic Uzbekistan" site; no items on this page after March 2001) http://www.ummah.com/uzbekistan/news.html Aiding the Investigators: What the RFPA Allows You To Do (how financial privacy laws affect banks helping police investigations) http://www.privacyheadquarters.com/priv_basics/aidinv.html On Edge: Afghanistan's Neighbours (Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Isbekistan, and Turkmenistan) http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1548000/1548452.stm photo essays on Afghani refugees http://www.iranian.com/Arts/2001/September/Afghan/ http://www.iranian.com/Arts/2000/June/Afghan/ About the Ismaili Imamat and the Origin of Shiism http://www.akdn.org/imamat/imamat.html more background links on Afghanistan and the Taliban http://www.windweaver.com/politics/terrorism.htm lots of maps http://oddens.geog.uu.nl/browse.html http://oddens.geog.uu.nl/browsepages/atlases.html http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/english/htmain.htm http://www.grida.no/db/maps/prod/level0/ Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf (1991) http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Scholarly/Lakoff_Gulf_Metaphor_1.html Civil liberties, security, tolerance, and so on Senate amendment, passed Thursday, to expand wiretapping http://www.cdt.org/security/091101response.shtml/ New York Legislature Approves Sweeping Anti-Terrorism Package http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/nwlink.cgi?ACG=ZZZGDPEYQRC Disposable Phones: A Security Risk? http://news.excite.com/news/zd/010917/20/disposable-phones-a-security Who's Protecting Our Infrastructure? (better question: who's making them design it right in the first place?) http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2001/nf20010918_8931.htm Gore Commission Demanded Airline Security, Airlines and Conservatives Said No http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4532 New Security Rules Leave Workers Idle http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000074975sep18.story Potential Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks http://www.nipc.gov/warnings/advisories/2001/01-021.htm http://www.dshield.org/ Making Planes Safer by Making Fuels Safer http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/science/18BOMB.html Anti-War Songs Banned by Commercial Radio Giant (somehow they missed "Working for the Clampdown" and "Maggie's Farm") http://www.seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6934&group=webcast Band's Web Site Bulletin Board Is Pulled http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-091501band.story Pop Culture Takes a Serious Reality Check (this page also has pointers to photo essays and other materials) http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000074965sep18.story Anti-Muslim Violence Up, Officials Say http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000074972sep18.story News and information How Americans Used the Internet After the Terror Attack http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=45 Canadian news magazine special issue on the attack http://www.macleans.ca/default.asp Institute for War and Peace Reporting (covers Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans in some depth) http://www.iwpr.net/ Iranian-American magazine and online community http://www.iranian.com/today.html News Navigator (directory of world newspapers etc) http://www.transnational.org/new/TNN.html Search the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States http://www.gpo.gov/nara/pubpaps/srchpaps.html Sudan Globe http://www.sudanglobe.com/ Response fairly reasoned petition against military retaliation for the attack http://home.uchicago.edu/~dhpicker/petition teachers who took care of the children affected by the New York attack http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/opinion/18TUE3.html "schools respond with lessons in working together and trying to understand" http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0918/p15s1-lekt.html National Association of School Psychologists: Coping with a National Tragedy http://www.nasponline.org/NEAT/crisis_0911.html Reflections on Humanity and Media after Tragedy http://web.mit.edu/cms/reconstructions/ Disaster Response Information Portal http://www.sla.org/content/Help/webcomms/sept11help/disip/index.cfm Disaster Relief for Taxpayers Affected by the September 11th Terrorist Attack http://www.irs.gov/news/n-01-61.pdf Giuliani Earning Praise for His Displays of Compassion http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010918/3639129s.htm Red Cross National Headquarters Statement on Internet Fraud -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From subscribed at red56.co.uk Wed Sep 19 21:41:20 2001 From: subscribed at red56.co.uk (Tim Diggins) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:11:20 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] "War on sharks" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A propos the problem of declaring "war" on an as yet unspecified enemy (or on "evil" itself), I am reminded of an article which appeared in the (London) Guardian in the "lull period" of August which mentioned a previous war-declaration, whose aims were bigger than possibilities: "[...]So when Charles Vansant was killed by a great white shark while swimming off the New Jersey shore in July 1916, the news was met with disbelief. Only when the same shark struck again six more times over a 12-day period - killing four people and at one point swimming 17 miles up an inlet in search of its prey - did the horror sink in. A shocked President Wilson ordered the coastguard to kill all the sharks off the east coast in a "war on sharks" - an obviously impossible mission which was soon abandoned after the rogue white shark was caught in a fishermen's net, killed and split open to reveal the remains of its four human victims. " -- the full story on shark hysteria, then and now: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4250650,00.html {Melanie Cooke, Guardian, Wednesday September 5, 2001) I've found this list very interesting and mind-expanding over the last few weeks (that's not to say I've agreed with everything). Thanks very much! best Tim Diggins -----Original Message----- From: reader-list-admin at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-admin at sarai.net]On Behalf Of Monica Narula Sent: 19 Sep 2001 12:48 To: reader-list at sarai.net Subject: [Reader-list] Many paths Below is a long list of urls on the Attack, and covering a wide variety of aspects/facets such as "War", "Architecture and Engineering", "Comment", "Background", "Maps", "Civil Liberties", "Photo Essays", etc. ==================== Taken from RRE List War When Evil Itself Becomes the Primary Foe ("eliminating evil" is a dangerous formula for a permanent, total, futile war) http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000074971sep18.story From geeta.patel at verizon.net Thu Sep 20 02:48:02 2001 From: geeta.patel at verizon.net (Geeta Patel) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:18:02 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: THE BURDEN OF SANITY Message-ID: <011a01c14150$91e6dda0$6401a8c0@inteva> This is from an organization in Karachi that has been involved in alternative organizing for a while, please circulate. Ajmal sent it out to all the people I had sent a message to. g ----- Original Message ----- From: Ajmal Kamal To: Geeta Patel Cc: Kath Weston ; Jason Foster ; Aparna Sen ; Carolyn Dinshaw ; ; ; Holly Hughes ; Aishwarya Lakshmiratan ; AAJ ; Neloufer de Mel ; Anindyo Roy ; Jyotirmoy Chaudhuri ; Ziauddin Sardar ; Zia Ziauddin ; VIVIECHANA Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 11:10 AM Subject: THE BURDEN OF SANITY > In the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pantagon on 11 > September 2001, there is a real danger of the US government and people > bahaving > irresponsibly and putting the world peace in danger. Apprehension have > been > expressed regarding a deterioration in the treatment of Muslims living > the US as > a result of these tragic events. The following is an appeal to the US > authorities and citizens for maintaining sanity. > > 1. Although the FBI's initial investigations are reported to indicate > that the > hijackers, who delibrately crashed the commercial aircrafts with > civilian > pasengers on board, were Arabs who had entered the US and gained access > to the > training facilities in flying inside the country abusing the laws in > force, the > entry of people of the Arab or other Muslim origin and their access to > such > training and other facilities in the US must not be curtailed. > > 2. Although the Taliban have ordered all non-Muslim foreigners to leave > Afghanistan at once, the US authorities must not consider deporting > Arab, > Afghan, Pakistani and other Muslims living in the US. > > 3. The US legislature must not make law that would result in the > discriminatory > treatment of the Muslim immigrants living in the US in the manner > Pakistan's > Qadianis are treated after the country's National Assembly passed the > famous > amendment to the constitution in 1974. > > 4. The US citizens must not attack the settlements of the Muslim > immigrants as > Qadiani settlements are occasionally attacked in Pakistan resulting in > death and > injury to men, women and children and damage to their property. > > 5. In case of any such attacks on Muslims in the US police must not > arrest the > victims of the attacks just as several Qadiani families (men, women and > children) - victims of an attack by Muslims in a town in Punjab, > Pakistan, a few > weeks ago - were arrested and locked up inside the police station > because, > according to the police, "they were not safe outside." > > 6. The Muslims living in the US must not be regularly killed in ones and > twos as > those belonging to the minority Shia community are being killed in > Karachi and > other cities of Pakistan these days. > > 7. The people of USA should refrain from harassing Muslim consulting > physicians > and surgeons working here the way Shia consulting physicians and > surgeons are > being threatened regularly in Pakistan. Several such doctors were given > three > days to sell off their property and leave Pakistan (on pain of getting > killed) > in the last few months. Most complied and moved to the US. It would be > rather > unjust if they are asked to leave the US and return to Pakistan where > they are > likely to be murdered. > > 8. The angered people of the US must not attack the places of worship of > different sects of the US Muslim community in the manner these people > attack > each other's places of worship in Pakistan, resulting in multiple deaths > of > people praying inside. > > 9. The religious freedom of the Muslims in the US must continue to be > guaranteed. In the incident mentioned in 5 above, the Qadianis were > planning to > watch on satellite TV a speech by their religious leader, which the > majority > community did not allow them to do. They shifted their gathering to a > private > house, on which their place of worship, which they are not allowed to > call a > "masjid", was attacked and damaged. There should be no such treatment of > the > Muslims in the US. > > 10. The US citizens belonging to the majority community must not scare > the > Muslims by conducting public meetings inside their neighbourhoods with > speakers > making derogatory remarks againts their religion and religious leaders > such as > the Pakistan's majority commuinity routinely does inside the settlements > of > Qadianis and Shias. > > 11. In general, the US (and other western countiries) must continue to > grant > visa, immigrant status and nationality to the liberal minds of the > Muslim > countries because they have a danger to be persecuted, harassed and even > killed > in their native countries. > > The US authorities and citizens should display sanity and do the above > and much > more. And, they must not ask the present sermonizer why the governments > and > citizens of Muslim countries should not be urged to do the same with the > "aliens" living there. From sopan_joshi at yahoo.com Thu Sep 20 12:29:10 2001 From: sopan_joshi at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sopan=20Joshi?=) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 07:59:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Fwd: A view from Afghanistan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20010920065910.27513.qmail@web9801.mail.yahoo.com> > > > Greetings All, > > > Subject: A view from Afghanistan > > > Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 > > > > > > Dear Friends, > > > > > > The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is > > > an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant > > > people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he > > > talks, I listen. > >Here > > > is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. - > > > Gary T. > > > Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread: > > > > > > I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back > > > to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed > > > that this > would > > > mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with > > > this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral > > > damage. What > >else > > > can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing > > > whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." > > > > > > And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard > > > because I > am > > > from Afghanistan, and, even though I've lived here for 35 years, > > > I've > >never > > > lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone > > > who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I > > > speak as one who > hates > > > the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind > > > that > these > > > people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree > > > that something must be done about those monsters. > > > > > > But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not > > > even > the > > > government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant > psychotics > > > who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political > > > criminal > with > >a > > > plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazi SS. When you think Bin > > > Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of > > > Afghanistan" think > "the > > > Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan > > > people > had > > > nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of > > > the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in > > > there, take > out > >the > > > Taliban and clear out the rat's nest of international thugs > > > holed up > in > > > their country. > > > > > > Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the > > > Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, > > > incapacitated, suffering > A > > > few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are > > > 500,000 > >disabled > > > orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. > > > There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying > > > these widows > alive > >in > > > mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms > > > were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the > > > reasons why the > Afghan > > > people have not overthrown the Taliban. > > > > > > We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the > > > Stone > Age. > > > Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it > > > already. > Make > > > the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering Level their > > > houses? > Done. > > > Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their > >hospitals? > > > Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine > > > and > >health > > > care? Too late. Someone already did all that. > > > > > > New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would > > > they at > >least > > > get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the > > > Taliban > eat, > > > only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and > > > hide. > Maybe > > > the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't > > > move > too > > > fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul > > > and > dropping > > > bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did > > > this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common > > > cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've > > > been raping all this time So what else is there? What can be > > > done, then? Let me now speak > with > > > true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go > > > in > there > > > with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do > > > what > >needs > > > to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to > > > kill as > many > > > as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about > > > killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. > > > What's actually > on > > > the table is Americans dying. And not just because some > > > Americans > would > >die > > > fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. > > > It's > much > > > bigger than that, folks. Because to get any troops to > > > Afghanistan, > we'd > > > have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The > conquest > >of > > > Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just > > > stand > >by? > > > You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between > > > Islam > >and > > > the West And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's > > > exactly > >what > > > he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and > > > statements. > It's > > > all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the West. > > > It > might > > > seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world > > > into > Islam > >and > > > the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a > > > holocaust > in > > > those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose; > > > even > >better > > > from Bin Laden's point of view. > > > > > > He's probably wrong, in the end the West would win, whatever > > > that > would > > > mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, > > > not > just > > > theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does > > > Anyone > else? > > > > > > ~ Tamim Ansary ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie From shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in Thu Sep 20 07:44:31 2001 From: shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in (Shohini) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:14:31 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] just a suggestion References: <20010919011839.14806.qmail@web9101.mail.yahoo.com> <027d01c140b6$8dba31e0$c900000a@bigpond.com> Message-ID: <000101c141a1$756555c0$0d75c8cb@shohini> Cut-and-Paste Full Text VS URL I completely agree with Geert. I too have a slow dial-up connection and frequently get disconnected.I have found the ciculation of the texts immensely helpful as I can also print them out and ciculate as hard copies. There are still a lot of people out there without internet connections. Shohini Ghosh From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Thu Sep 20 03:01:22 2001 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:31:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Old Hat Message-ID: <20010919213122.33367.qmail@web8101.in.yahoo.com> Now we knew that when not so Young Goodman Lenin (oh! how the Man on the Hill is going to hate this, and Hawthorne) went very, very late into the country called Russia without even a majority opinion [think, as Hobsbawm asks us to do: why is the October Revolution the October Revolution? Didn't the Czar abdicate in Feb. of that year?], he didn't know what the fuck to do. Yet, today, we could argue that the most important event of the twentieth century was The Russian Revolution. There followed an almost impeccable balkanisation of the terrain that separated (apparently evermore) commie Russia from the rest of Western Europe (Enlightened, if you please; Democratic, if you'd like to believe). There was only one hitch in the Complete Paranoiac Plan to Shut Russia Away, called CPPSRA: Central Asia. Now Osama Bin Laden the designated (by the US, not me) asshole of all time (as the US calls him, not me)has apparently masterminded the strikes on the World Whatever Towers and so justified a complete Christian American "crusade" on terrorism that will result, I think, on the US creating a complete, permanent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Whatever militray base in central Asia. The US wants to shut Russia out for all time to come (no communist threats, forever; no International, as happened in the US itself in 1880 -- all this is too traumatic). It wishes to complete the barrier between Russia, and the rest of the world. Also it wants to place itself in the hitherto unpatrolled Central Asian region for once and evermore (Compared to Edgar Allen Poe, this Bush is completely Raven). This emplacement is what will give the US true world or global hegemony. The US is desperate today. They have the Moral Advantage (not the ethical imperative). This is their chance. Behind the emotional sabre-rattling lies an old design. It is a design that Alexander (feeding on the weakness of the Greek city-states that never recovered from the Peloponesian War) tried to carry out. It is a design that Napoleon thought possible (financed by the Rothschilds). It is a design that Hitler believed in (he made the same mistake that Napoleon made: attacking Russia). It is a design that Stalin (a name the cobbler Dzhugashvilli took upon himself, meaning 'Man of Steel')thought he ruled over and had the last word on. What is this design? Simply, World Conquest Today the conquest of the world cannot take place through Arms. It must take place via the Man ( that Old Guy postmodernism has not been able to dislodge and does notm. More insiduously, it must take place via the control of finance capital. Even more insiduously it must take place via the wants of the rural elite that is intent upon destroying the signs of its involvement in the project of becoming the world power ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in.groups.yahoo.com From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 20 13:24:40 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:24:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Ghassan Hage: The Shrinking Society, forwarded form Nettime, with an introduction Message-ID: <01092013244000.01382@sweety.sarai.kit> This is a forwarded posting form Nettime, with a longish introductory note, from me. I thought that this posting might be interesting to read in the light of the concerns expressed earlier on this list with what might be a 'liberal' response to the state of the world. As Ghassan Hage's text demonstrates, a 'liberal'' stance on many diffcult issues has tended to veer between moral heavy breathing, and a tough-talking pragmatism that is cynicism cloaked by concern. While Ghassan Hage's text takes on issues at once larger and smaller than what we have been discussing for a while - mainly the events of September 11, it takes it's peg from another, unspoken bit of violence elsewhere, namely the refusal to let a boatload of Afghan and Iraqi refugees land in Australia. It is strange to see the governments of the world decide that they must bomb Afghanistan to free its people form the 'terrorist harbouring' regime currently in power over most of its territory, and at the same time, deploy a naval blocakade and spend a large amount of money and military power, so that ordinary men, women and children, fleeing the same 'terrorist' regime may not land on their territory. Public memory is short, but a few months ago, a plane load of Afghans similarly fleeing Afghanistan was turned back from Heathrow Airport. The rulers of the great democracies seem to think that it is better for people to be bombed while they stay on the territory of a repressive regime, than to have their lives saved by fleeing from it. No wonder people tend to be a bit skeptical about the rhetoric of freedom when it comes from the mouths of the mighty. Subscribers to the list might also note that yesterday the ministry of Home Affairs of the Republic of India, decided that the time has come for all Afghan nationals to be registered in India. Legally the Republic of India has no laws which specify that a person is a refugee and has no instruments for offering asylum, all foreigners who enter the country and stay for reasons other than tourism, business, official work or academic study are 'illegal alins'. India is one of the most difficult countries of the world to get into, and stay in, if you are not a happy tourist, or a dollar spending businessman. On the other hand, there are many people, form Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who try to do presicsely this, becuase they fear for their lives in the places they have left behind. On the one hand they have no status other than that of a UNHCR card, on the other hand, they are constantly asked to prove the validity of their stay. The UNHCR representative in India, yesterday in a television interview, welcomed the minsitry of home affiars move as a step in the right direction. So ID cards for Afghans are in the offing. And routine checks, and in the event of war with Afghanistan, and if India decides to join the coalition of combatants, in real or in symbolic terms, the next step would be the internment of 'enemy aliens' - There are 30, 000 or so Afghans in India, mainly in Delhi, and many more Bangladeshis. We have heard mutterings about the necessity to cleanse our cities of 'illegal alines' before, one wonders what form these mutterings might take in a climate of war. Ghassan Hage's text raises important questions about the draining away of hope that permits opinion shapers in our societies, who speak more and more glibly about acts of 'legitimate' violence in the media, and turning people away, cleansing cities, and making them more inhospitable for many. Ghassan Hage traces the decline of palpable hope and relates it to the developments within political economy that, while it is speculative, is interesting to follow as an argument. While I have doubts about whether the nation state has ever been a hospitable or hopeful location for anyone other than rulers(or whether that perception of hospitality or hope is anything other than the imirage of paradise that drives people to become martyrs and suicide bombers) there is no denying the fact that a great deal of hope seems to have vaporized of late. What are the images and thoughts and forms that can take its place? I invite you all to reflect on this text ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (posted to nettime with permission of the author /geert) From: "Ghassan Hage" Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 5:11 PM The Shrinking Society Ethics and Hope in the Era of Global Capitalism Ghassan Hage Ethics and Hope in Australia Today The majority of the polls published in the media are clear. At the very least, fifty percent of all Australians support John Howard's 'tough' stand on the refugee issue. While the Prime Minister's capacity to be 'in touch with the views of ordinary people' is celebrated by some, it is interesting to note that the 'non-ordinary people', the minority opposing this stand see themselves as a moral opposition. They oppose in the name of things like 'compassion' and 'hospitality' rather than in the name of a left/right political divide. This has become a pattern in the last ten years or so. >From Mabo to the Tampa, via the 'apology' for the Stolen Children and the conditions in the refugee detention centres, a small-l liberal, largely but not solely middle-class population, supported by churches and human right organizations increasingly perceives itself as the outraged defender, the last bastion, of a decent and ethical society. Now that the moral majority is in power it has been shown to be clearly less moral than it initially claimed and instead, we have a moral minority in opposition. It argues that, under John Howard, ethics and morality have been thrown out the window. Interestingly, conservative intellectuals, who in Australia are newspaper commentators who have mastered a slightly comical neo-tough journalistic style of the 'hey softie, let me tell you about what reality is really all about' variety, seem to agree despite themselves with the liberals. They argue that there is no place for ethics and morality in a world where people can viciously 'exploit our compassion and generosity'. Consequently, the disagreement is not about the lack of ethics and morality in social life but about what to do about it. The small-l liberals see themselves as courageously fighting to maintain a glimmer of ethical life within society. The incredibly pragmatic neo-tough ones condemn the soft liberals for being naïve. Being very ordinary themselves, they are like the Prime Minister they support, incredibly in touch with ordinary people. As such, they are particularly down on the small-l liberals whom they see as of privileged class background, unable to see the relation between their pompous airs of tolerance, compassion and hospitality and their comfortable life style. But it is not clear why the assertion that a certain ethical point of view is the product of middle class comfort makes such view less ethical. It is more ethical to be hospitable to needy people than not to be. It is more ethical not to be racist than to be one. It is also more ethical to be a racist and acknowledge it than to be one and deny it. The list is a long one. It is more ethical to acknowledge that we are reaping the benefits of the decimation of indigenous society than not to do so. And it is more ethical not to marginalise and vilify a whole community under the excuse of fighting crime than to do so. No amount of neo-tough huffing and puffing against imaginary threats of political correctness can change this. Nevertheless, it is also true that small-l liberals often translate the social conditions that allow them to hold certain superior ethical views into a kind of innate moral superiority. They see ethics as a matter of will. And they see Howard (and Hanson)'s people as not wanting rather than not being able to offer marginalised others the kind of hope they ought to be offered as fellow human-beings. For there is no doubt that this is what we are talking about here: the availability, the circulation and the exchange of hope. Compassion, hospitality and the recognition of oppression are all about giving hope to marginalised people. But to be able to give hope one has to have it. This is why the neo-tough ones are right here. Those who are unable to give hope to others, who see in every indigenous or refugee a person aiming to snatch whatever bit of hope for a decent life they've got, are not immoral people as such. They are just people who precisely have very little hope to spare or to share. And so Howard's supporters might feel triumphant that 'more than fifty percent' of Australia 's population are unwilling to be hospitable to the boat people. But only idiotic neo-tough ones find reasons to celebrate here. For the statistics, more than anything else, beg a rather sad question: why is it that in Australia today 'more than fifty percent' of the population are left with so little hope for themselves, let alone for sharing with others. National Capitalism and the distribution of hope within society In a lecture presented in London, the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Slavoj Zizek, reflected on the inability of the British left to dent Margaret Thatcher's electoral appeal among the working classes with their usual strategy of emphasising the massive inequalities her policies were generating. For Zizek, in its preoccupation with inequalities in the distribution of wealth and the distribution of goods and services, the opposition left out of its sight the very area where Thatcher's strength resided: her capacity to distribute 'fantasy'. 'Fantasy' here is a psychoanalytic term for the set of subliminal beliefs that individuals hold and which makes them feel that their life has a purpose, a meaningful future. Fantasy, that is, is the psychoanalytic version of what has been referred to above as hope. Thatcher distributed hope primarily through a racist emphasis on the causal power of the British character and through highlighting the possibility of the small shopkeeper's dreams of rising above one's situation and experiencing upward social mobility. Her message was simple and clear: if you 'possessed' the 'British character', you possessed the capacity to experience upward social mobility even if, in the present, you are at the bottom of the heap. The British character did not give you immediate equality and the good life but it enabled you to hope for a future good life. You could look at your Pakistani neighbours living in the same conditions you are living in and say: 'sure we're in the same hole, but, I' ve got the British character, so I can at least hope to get out of this hole, while these black bastards are hopelessly stuck where they are'. This capacity to distribute hope (particularly the capitalist-specific dreams of upward social mobility) in the midst of massive social inequality has been the secret of the ability of the nation-state to provide such an enduring framework for capitalist accumulation. Michelet, the eighteenth century observer and historian of the rise of nationalism, relates to us well, in his famous description of the 'birth of a Frenchman', how the nation worked as an apparatus for the distribution of hope. No sooner was the person born as a 'Frenchman', he informs us, that he was immediately 'recognised' and 'accounted for' as a person. Through 'his' inclusion as part of a national society, the nation-state provided 'him' with a recognition of 'his' moral worth and 'he' could immediately 'claim his dignity as a man'. At the same time, Michelet stresses, the national subject is made to feel in 'control over the national territory'. No sooner is 'he' born that he is 'put at once in possession of his native land'. But most importantly the sense of being included, of being accounted for and of being in control all add up to what is in a sense the finality of the process: the national's capacity to receive, as Michelet called it, 'his share of hope'. We should remember that in the history of the West access to a share of 'dignity and hope' was not always open to the European lower classes. The rising bourgeoisie of Europe inherited from the court aristocracies of earlier times a perception of peasants and poor city people as a lower breed of humanity. The lower classes were 'racialised' as innately inferior beings considered biologically ill-equipped to access human forms of 'civilisation' which included particularly 'human dignity and hope'. 'Human' society within each emerging nation at that time did not coincide with the boundaries of the nation-states. Its borders were the borders of 'civilised' bourgeois culture. What Michelet's work describes to us is the important historical shift that began occurring in the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century: the increasing inclusion of nationally delineated peasants and lower classes into the circle of what each nation defined as its own version of human society. But this de-racialisation of the interior went hand in hand with the intensification of the colonial racialisation of the exterior. Now skin colour in the form of European Whiteness was emphasised, more than ever before, as the most important basis for one's access to 'dignity and hope'. Nevertheless, Michelet captures the birth of the nation-state proper: A state committed to distribute hope, to 'foster life' as Foucault has put it, within a society whose borders coincide with the borders of the nation itself. It is no secret that under capitalism government has always given primacy to the interest of investors. But thanks to the framework provided by the nation-state, the interest of investors did not seem to contradict a commitment to the construction of a viable society within national boundaries. Hope, as Ernest Bloch has theorised it in his 'Principles of Hope' made people determined 'by the future'. The capacity to dream a better future that is 'not too far off' was capable of overriding the determining power of the inequalities of the present. This worked well with capitalism. Hospitality towards migrants and refugees in this national system was also part of this dual economic/social logic. They represented an extra source of (often cheap) labour, but their reception was also represented as a commitment to an ethic of the good society in general. The fact that they were received reflected something positive about the quality of life within the host society and legitimised it in the eyes of its very nationals as capable of producing a surplus of hope. This was so even when this surplus was itself the product of the colonial plundering of resources, and the destruction of existing social structures which undermined the hopes of millions of people in what became known the Third World. The vacuum of hope left behind is still felt today within the societies of the colonised, whether in terms of the hopelessness found in some colonised indigenous societies or the migration generated by dysfunctional colonially produced nation-states unable to provide a sufficient 'share of hope' but to a small minority of their citizens. Until recently, the capacity of the great majority of migrants to settle in Western Society was dependent on the availability of a Western 'surplus of hope'. This surplus is the pre-condition of all forms of hospitality. But it is clear today, that while the West is producing a surplus of many things, hope is not among them. This has been perhaps the most fundamental change that global capitalism has introduced to Western and non-western Society alike. In the era of global capitalism, the successful growth of the economy, the expansion of firms and rising profit margins no longer go hand in hand with the state's commitment to a distribution of hope within society. In fact what we are witnessing is not just a decrease of the state' s commitment to an ethical society but a decrease in its commitment to a national society tout court. We seem to be reverting to the time where the boundaries of society coincided with the boundaries of upper class society. Hope stops where the investment of global capital stops. Global Capitalism and the shrinking configuration of hope It is well acknowledged today that what characterises the global corporation most and sets it apart from its multinational and national predecessors is the absence of a permanent national anchorage point that the corporation sees as its 'true home'. In the era of the dominance of colonial or international capitalist enterprise, partly because industries were in their great majority physically hard to re-locate, capitalism had a specific and stable national base. This was so even when its operations spread anywhere in the world it was capable of exploiting resources and labour. With the rise of the big multinational companies we begin to see a shift. The multinational firm, as its name implied, was no longer associated with a single nation-state. It had core bases in many parts of the world, though wherever it was, it was operated within a nation-state framework. The most important political aspect of global capitalism is the end of this reliance on a nation-state framework of operation. On one hand, global capitalism is simply the intensification of the tendencies of multinational capitalism towards capital accumulation outside the traditional industrial sector. Now there is a clear dominance of the finance sector and a massive expansion of an economy of services. These are also accompanied with the rise of a relatively new field of capital accumulation: the information sector. Partly because of the above, the global firm is characterised by an almost complete loss of a specific national anchoring. It is not that, like the multinational corporation, it has many, but rather that it hasn't got any. Wherever it locates itself, it is considered a home on a conjunctural non-permanent basis. Capitalism goes transcendental so to speak. It simply hovers over the earth looking for a suitable place to land and invest. until it is time to fly again. It is here that emerges a significant phenomenon. The global corporation needs the state but does not need the nation. National and sub-National (like State) Governments all over the world are transformed from being primarily the managers of a national society to being the managers of the aesthetics of investment space. For among the many questions that guide government policy one becomes increasingly paramount: how are we to make ourselves attractive enough to entice this transcendental capital hovering above us to land in our nation? This involves a socio-economic aesthetic: How do we create a good work environment such as a well-disposed labour force or a suitable infrastructure? But it also involves an architectural and touristic aesthetics: how do we create a pleasing living environment for the culturally diverse, mobile managers and workers associated to these global firms to make them desire to come and live among us for a while? 'Please come here Mr capital, please invest here' every government is begging. 'Even if you can't bind yourself to stay here forever, I can provide your multicultural workers with the tallest buildings which offer unbeatable views, I can provide them with the grooviest coffee shops you can imagine, equipped with the latest Italian coffee making machines, the best baristas and the best macchiatos. All of this is guaranteed if you come and invest here, Mr. Capital'. The global aestheticised city is thus made beautiful to attract others rather than to make its local occupants feel at home within it. Thus even the government's commitment to city space stops being a commitment to society. This global urban aesthetics comes with an authoritarian spatiality specific to it. More so than any of its predecessors, the global city has no room for marginals. How are we to rid ourselves of the homeless sleeping on the city's benches? How are we to rid ourselves of those under-classes, with their high proportion of indigenous people, third world looking (ie, yucky looking) migrants and descendants of migrants, still cramming the non-gentrified parts of the city? Not that long ago, the state was committed, at least minimally, to prop up and distribute hope to such people in order to maintain them as part of society. Now, the ideological and ethical space for perceiving the poor as a social/human problem has shrunk. In the dominant modes of representation the poor become primarily like pimples, an 'aesthetic nuisance.' They are standing between 'us' and the yet-to-land transcendental capital. They ought to be eradicated and removed from such a space. The aesthetics of globalisation is the aesthetics of zero tolerance. As the state retreats from its commitment to the general welfare of the marginal and the poor, they are increasingly, at best, left to their own devices. At worst, they are actively portrayed as outside society. The criminalisation and labelling of ethnic cultures, is one of the more unethical and lowly forms of such processes of exclusion. This is partly why globalisation has gone so well with the neo-liberal dismantling of the welfare state The state's retreat from its commitment to see poverty as a socio/ethical problem goes hand in hand with the increased criminalisation of poverty and the deployment of a penal state to fill in the void left by the retreat of the welfare state. Hope is not related to an income level. It is about the sense of possibility that life can offer. Its enemy is a sense of entrapment not a sense of poverty. As the withdrawal of the state from society and the existing configuration of hope begins shrinking many people, even with middle class incomes, urban dwellers paradoxically stuck in insecure jobs, farmers working day and night without 'getting anywhere', small-business people struggling to keep their businesses going, all of these and more have begun suffering from various forms of hope scarcity. They join the already over-marginalised populations of indigenous communities, homeless people, poor immigrant workers and the chronically unemployed. But unlike them they are not used to their state of marginality, they don't know how to dig for new forms of hope where there is none, and they live in a state of denial, still hoping that their 'national identity' is bound to be a passport of hope for them. They become self-centred, jealous of anyone perceived to be 'advancing' while they are stuck, vindictive and bigoted and always ready to 'defend the nation' in the hope of re-accessing their lost hopes. They are not necessarily like this. Their new life condition brings the worst out of them as it would of any of us. That is the story of many of Howard's 'more than fifty percent'. They are the no-hopers produced by global capitalism and the policies of neo-liberal government, the 'refugees of the interior'. And it is ironic to see so many of them mobilised in defending 'the nation' against 'the refugees of the exterior'. Global rejects against global rejects. Only the lowly can rejoice at this sight. Ghassan Hage is a senior lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sydney. He is the author of White Nation: Fantasies of White Surpremacy in a Multicultural Society, Pluto Press, Sydney: 1998. This article is based on research conducted as part of an Australian Research Council Large Grant on 'Globalisation, Migration and the Quest for Viability'. More on Ghassan Hage's White Nation: http://www.plutoaustralia.com/db/161.html. White Nation also appeared as a Routledge title (New York, 2000). # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 20 13:49:46 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:49:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] B92 Interview with Chomsky, Message-ID: <01092013494600.01679@sweety.sarai.kit> Interview with Noam Chomsky, Radio B92, Belgrade forwarded from Nettime B 92 : Why do you think these attacks happened? C : To answer the question we must first identify the perpetrators of the crimes. It is generally assumed, plausibly, that their origin is the Middle East region, and that the attacks probably trace back to the Osama Bin Laden network, a widespread and complex organization, doubtless inspired by Bin Laden but not necessarily acting under his control. Let us assume that this is true. Then to answer your question a sensible person would try to ascertain Bin Laden's views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of supporters he has throughout the region. About all of this, we have a great deal of information. Bin Laden has been interviewed extensively over the years by highly reliable Middle East specialists, notably the most eminent correspondent in the region, Robert Fisk (London Independent), who has intimate knowledge of the entire region and direct experience over decades. A Saudi Arabian millionaire, Bin Laden became a militant Islamic leader in the war to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. He was one of the many religious fundamentalist extremists recruited, armed, and financed by the CIA and their allies in Pakistani intelligence to cause maximal harm to the Russians -quite possibly delaying their withdrawal, many analysts suspect -- though whether he personally happened to have direct contact with the CIA is unclear, and not particularly important. Not surprisingly, the CIA preferred the most fanatic and cruel fighters they could mobilize. The end result was to "destroy a moderate regime and create a fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans" (London Times correspondent Simon Jenkins, also a specialist on the region). These "Afghanis" as they are called (many, like Bin Laden, not from Afghanistan) carried out terror operations across the border in Russia, but they terminated these after Russia withdrew. Their war was not against Russia, which they despise, but against the Russian occupation and Russia's crimes against Muslims. The "Afghanis" did not terminate their activities, however. They joined Bosnian Muslim forces in the Balkan Wars; the US did not object, just as it tolerated Iranian support for them, for complex reasons that we need not pursue here, apart from noting that concern for the grim fate of the Bosnians was not prominent among them. The "Afghanis" are also fighting the Russians in Chechnya, and, quite possibly, are involved in carrying out terrorist attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russian territory. Bin Laden and his "Afghanis" turned against the US in 1990 when they established permanent bases in Saudi Arabia from his point of view, a counterpart to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, but far more significant because of Saudi Arabia's special status as the guardian of the holiest shrines. Bin Laden is also bitterly opposed to the corrupt and repressive regimes of the region, which he regards as "un-Islamic," including the Saudi Arabian regime, the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime in the world, apart from the Taliban, and a close US ally since its origins. Bin Laden despises the US for its support of these regimes. Like others in the region, he is also outraged by long-standing US support for Israel's brutal military occupation, now in its 35th year: Washington's decisive diplomatic, military, and economic intervention in support of the killings, the harsh and destructive siege over many years, the daily humiliation to which Palestinians are subjected, the expanding settlements designed to break the occupied territories into Bantustan-like cantons and take control of the resources, the gross violation of the Geneva Conventions, and other actions that are recognized as crimes throughout most of the world, apart from the US, which has prime responsibility for them. And like others, he contrasts Washington's dedicated support for these crimes with the decade-long US-British assault against the civilian population of Iraq, which has devastated the society and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths while strengthening Saddam Hussein -- who was a favored friend and ally of the US and Britain right through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, as people of the region also remember well, even if Westerners prefer to forget the facts. These sentiments are very widely shared. The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 14) published a survey of opinions of wealthy and privileged Muslims in the Gulf region (bankers, professionals, businessmen with close links to the U.S.). They expressed much the same views: resentment of the U.S. policies of supporting Israeli crimes and blocking the international consensus on a diplomatic settlement for many years while devastating Iraqi civilian society, supporting harsh and repressive anti-democratic regimes throughout the region, and imposing barriers against economic development by "propping up oppressive regimes." Among the great majority of people suffering deep poverty and oppression, similar sentiments are far more bitter, and are the source of the fury and despair that has led to suicide bombings, as commonly understood by those who are interested in the facts. The U.S., and much of the West, prefers a more comforting story. To quote the lead analysis in the New York Times(Sept. 16), the perpetrators acted out of "hatred for the values cherished in the West as freedom, tolerance, prosperity, religious pluralism and universal suffrage." U.S. actions are irrelevant, and therefore need not even be mentioned (Serge Schmemann). This is a convenient picture, and the general stance is not unfamiliar in intellectual history; in fact, it is close to the norm. It happens to be completely at variance with everything we know, but has all the merits of self-adulation and uncritical support for power. It is also widely recognized that Bin Laden and others like him are praying for "a great assault on Muslim states," which will cause "fanatics to flock to his cause" (Jenkins, and many others.). That too is familiar. The escalating cycle of violence is typically welcomed by the harshest and most brutal elements on both sides, a fact evident enough from the recent history of the Balkans, to cite only one of many cases. B 92 : What consequences will they have on US inner policy and to the American self reception? C : US policy has already been officially announced. The world is being offered a "stark choice": join us, or "face the certain prospect of death and destruction." Congress has authorized the use of force against any individuals or countries the President determines to be involved in the attacks, a doctrine that every supporter regards as ultra-criminal. That is easily demonstrated. Simply ask how the same people would have reacted if Nicaragua had adopted this doctrine after the U.S. had rejected the orders of the World Court to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua and had vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law. And that terrorist attack was far more severe and destructive even than this atrocity. As for how these matters are perceived here, that is far more complex. One should bear in mind that the media and the intellectual elites generally have their particular agendas. Furthermore, the answer to this question is, in significant measure, a matter of decision: as in many other cases, with sufficient dedication and energy, efforts to stimulate fanaticism, blind hatred, and submission to authority can be reversed. We all know that very well. B 92 : Do you expect U.S. to profoundly change their policy to the rest of the world? C : The initial response was to call for intensifying the policies that led to the fury and resentment that provides the background of support for the terrorist attack, and to pursue more intensively the agenda of the most hard line elements of the leadership: increased militarization, domestic regimentation, attack on social programs. That is all to be expected. Again, terror attacks, and the escalating cycle of violence they often engender, tend to reinforce the authority and prestige of the most harsh and repressive elements of a society. But there is nothing inevitable about submission to this course. B 92 : After the first shock, came fear of what the U.S. answer is going to be. Are you afraid, too? C : Every sane person should be afraid of the likely reaction -- the one that has already been announced, the one that probably answers Bin Laden's prayers. It is highly likely to escalate the cycle of violence, in the familiar way, but in this case on a far greater scale. The U.S. has already demanded that Pakistan terminate the food and other supplies that are keeping at least some of the starving and suffering people of Afghanistan alive. If that demand is implemented, unknown numbers of people who have not the remotest connection to terrorism will die, possibly millions.Let me repeat: the U.S. has demanded that Pakistan kill possibly millions of people who are themselves victims of the Taliban. This has nothing to do even with revenge. It is at a far lower moral level even than that. The significance is heightened by the fact that this is mentioned in passing, with no comment, and probably will hardly be noticed. We can learn a great deal about the moral level of the reigning intellectual culture of the West by observing the reaction to this demand. I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled. It would be instructive to seek historical precedents. If Pakistan does not agree to this and other U.S. demands, it may come under direct attack as well with unknown consequences. If Pakistan does submit to U.S. demands, it is not impossible that the governmentwill be overthrown by forces much like the Taliban who in this case will have nuclear weapons. That could have an effect throughout the region, including the oil producing states. At this point we are considering the possibility of a war that may destroy much of human society. Even without pursuing such possibilities, the likelihood is that an attack on Afghans will have pretty much the effect that most analysts expect: it will enlist great numbers of others to support of Bin Laden, as he hopes. Even if he is killed, it will make little difference. His voice will be heard on cassettes that are distributed throughout the Islamic world, and he is likely to be revered as a martyr, inspiring others. It is worth bearing in mind that one suicide bombing -- a truck driven into a U.S. Military base -- drove the world's major military force out of Lebanon 20 years ago. The opportunities for such attacks are endless. And suicide attacks are very hard to prevent. B 92 : The world will never be the same after 11.09.01". Do you think so? C : The horrendous terrorist attacks on Tuesday are something quite new in world affairs, not in their scale and character, but in the target. For the US, this is the first time since the War of 1812 that its national territory has been under attack, even threat. It's colonies have been attacked, but not the national territory itself. During these years the US virtually exterminated the indigenous population, conquered half of Mexico, intervened violently in the surrounding region, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines (killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos), and in the past half century particularly, extended its resort to force throughout much of the world. The number of victims is colossal. For the first time, the guns have been directed the other way. The same is true, even more dramatically, of Europe. Europe has suffered murderous destruction, but from internal wars, meanwhile conquering much of the world with extreme brutality. It has not been under attack by its victims outside, with rare exceptions (the IRA in England, for example). It is therefore natural that NATO should rally to the support of the US; hundreds of years of imperial violence have an enormous impact on the intellectual and moral culture. It is correct to say that this is a novel event in world history, not because of the scale of the atrocity -- regrettably -- but because of the target. How the West chooses to react is a matter of supreme importance. If the rich and powerful choose to keep to their traditions of hundreds of years and resort to extreme violence, they will contribute to the escalation of a cycle of violence, in a familiar dynamic, with long-term consequences that could be awesome. Of course, that is by no means inevitable. An aroused public within the more free and democratic societies can direct policies towards a much more humane and honorable course. From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 20 13:51:48 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:51:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Susan Sontag on September 11 Message-ID: <01092013514801.01679@sweety.sarai.kit> Susan Sontag on September 11 (forwarded from Nettime) The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word cowardly" is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards. Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live in infamy and America is now at war. But everything is not O.K. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President who assures us that America still stands tall. A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out of office, who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad by this Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that they stand united behind President Bush. A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and ounter-intelligence, about options available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense. But the public is not being asked to bear much of the burden of reality. The nanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and mediacommentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy. Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management.Politics,the politics of a democracy—which entails disagreement, which promotes candor—has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen. "Our country is strong," we are told again and again. I for one don't find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that America is strong? But that's not all America has to be. — From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Thu Sep 20 13:52:14 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 01:22:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] the liberal response In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20010920082214.59450.qmail@web14608.mail.yahoo.com> thanks to Boud Roukema for very useful reply which divided proper response to terrorist acts into short-term and long-term strategies. a couple of further questions. -with regard to your short term response, you say that the US should adopt various guiding principles - e.g. providing evidence of culpability to chosen targets, not bypassing UN Security Council etc. but we know that conservative opinion in the US is impervious to such bids for external auditing and control at the best of times. can we make better arguments to the US government for adopting such principles than the three you cited (ineffectiveness, human rights violations, repression of justice movement) which have never moved them much in the past. -with regard to the following: > (1) The best way to deal with terrorism is to > address its root > causes. Perhaps some terrorism would exist even if > the > grievances of the people of the Third World were > dealt with > -- grievances that lead to anger, despair, > frustration, > feelings of powerlessness, and hatred -- but > certainly the > ability of those who would commit terror without > grievances > to recruit others would be tremendously reduced. the 'root causes' you cite are very large indeed. there is much speculation about what precisely might have motivated bin laden to declare war on the US - the bombing of iraq from saudi bases; the continued support of israel; the general enmity towards islam; the ugliness and ungodliness of US culture; and the mere fact that, with his money and resources, he can. what would your view be on this question? R __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ From Philip.Pocock at t-online.de Thu Sep 20 15:16:46 2001 From: Philip.Pocock at t-online.de (philip pocock) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:46:46 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] signing off - last ascii for a while References: <20010920065910.27513.qmail@web9801.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3BA9BAFA.7C2BDF68@t-online.de> Sopan Joshi wrote: > > > > Greetings All, > > > > Subject: A view from Afghanistan > > > > Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 > Gary T. > > The Taliban are a > cult of ignorant > > psychotics > a sort of corresponding witness to the remark i made concerning the tasteless bin laden remark made in response to a postive remark about pakistan. since i have asked for comment from those who at length protested my response to that hypercynical socially unacceptable statement concerning bin laden, asking for their position on the most indecent mail i have ever read on any list i have attended, and ano response from the list moderator and one other who protested my comment on that vicious psychopathic mail (see above comment) i will galdly remove my name from here, as an art and design professor in germany and a longstanding artist working with networks dating back to remote video performances and a cyberroad movie in the canadian arctic online in 1995 http://www.dom.de/acircle, leading a team to make another project in africa, uganda along the equator produced by documenta x http://aporee.org/equator/ and recently proposing and writing up and collaborating on a remapping of cinema and south america, sponsored by the zkm karlsuhe, museum of modern art paris and several other international spaces as a way to introduce myself by leaving a trace before leaving this list on humanitarian gorunds. i wish those good luck with their intolerance and secret agendas, anti-american prophetering, all of which deny the solution to problems and are only fog in the illusion as the bhagavad gita begins 'assembled on the field of dharma'. 'w' bush is only a mayic illusion and the enemy, so-called as well, both, in fact the many puzzle peices out of joint in this event are 'assembled' of the field of the 'soul' the dharma. it is the meta level of aggression and hate, the hiding behind political ideology which is the problem and if one is clear the illusion as both oppositions are not opposotions and are in fact assembled, come togeter on the field of dharma, which in this instance is the political spirituality that the few members protesting me and protecting indecency ignore and remain deep in the illusion and fog as intended by the evil at work. but below all that there is dharma and soul and spirit as unpopular as that may sound to some. i will not protest any more. i wish those who support a human indecency so base that i must protest by leaving will find some enlightenment rather than encouragement. there are many places to be and no list is indeispensible. i have enjoyed many mails particularly practical ones concerning software and hacker situations in india. i have been very disappointed with the discussion of cinema on this list, and the emergence on potentially new hypercinematic forms that defy authorship and replace an aethetic of consumption with participation (this being my intention in joining the sarai list in the beginning as i am involved in a large future of cinema curatorial team at zkm karlsruhe) and in months i have not found here any useful urls or project descriptions of multi- and nonlinear hypernarrative, hypermedial, ongoing net-based documentary of fictional low budget events collaborations or future ideas from sarai most disappointingly. clearly concerns are otherwhere, i will not venture to guess where that is but only wish the moderators the best of conceptual fortune with their level and attitude of engagement possible. and as a net person i understand the provisional nature of experience and outlook and in no way am i speaking absolutely. it is just against my human spirit and political spirit (not ideoloagy) to remain in this space right now and there are other positive less hateful rhetoric and manipulation of intellectual data to attend right now. get below party and power politics, cultural theory and reealize it is at that level 'assembling on the field of dharma... what did they do?', it is the answer to that question which constitutes the entire bhagavad gita where one realizes opposition is an illusion, irrelevent that i hate george bush, in fact damaging to deepening the discusion on the level the problem is infecting, and it is the field of the spirit of things which is the thing, basic human decency and antibody building to the viral warmakers in our midst as the consensual global immune response that strengthens the health of the political spirit not the divisionary tactics of old fashioned power politics which is not addressed here very often. i hope that the focus on cnn, bush and bin laden looks back to the bhagavad gita ond yogic philosophy in connection to all great pursuits in thought. the dali lama's book "interconnectedness of all thihs" and the scurrilous 'from watergate to the garden of eden' and other 'electronic revolution' essays by ginsberg come to mind from but the top of my head, and there find that the rhetoric diffusion here is not on the level of need, just a smoke screen a foucaultian fog hiding some secret agendas for illusionary power politics, which will of course be addressable when the assembly on the field is recongnized and that means human decency, not tacit blame-based 'understanding' for purely psychopathic and sociopathic misdeeds. this look to america as some sort of deserving victim, is against the meaning of karma. that bin laden was 'created' by america is a myth og power politics, there is a chain of wrongdoing and one could invoke stalin and the stasi as impetous for the american misdeeds, and so on. it is escape from this cycle not the rationalization of blame and revenge that karmic teaching expounds. karma asks as well for the release from this linear action-reaction thinking. enough, good by, my mail address is philip.pocock at t-online.de. let me know if there is any response to my protest of the human indecency which resulted in protests to my cellurar gut response as an antobody to war, particularly viral war. i remain open and busy, virulent and tolerant. From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 20 15:32:37 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 15:32:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] apologies for double posting Message-ID: <01092015323700.02054@sweety.sarai.kit> my apologies to the list for having posted the Susan Sontag text, I hadnt noticed that Harsh Kapoor had already posted it. will be more careful in future Shuddha From jeebesh at sarai.net Thu Sep 20 16:23:03 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:23:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] signing off - last ascii for a while In-Reply-To: <3BA9BAFA.7C2BDF68@t-online.de> References: <20010920065910.27513.qmail@web9801.mail.yahoo.com> <3BA9BAFA.7C2BDF68@t-online.de> Message-ID: Hi Philip, read your signing off mail. a few comments. 1. Why keep so many things under wrap for so long about the `lacks` in the list. It would have been great if you posted the areas that you wanted information and discussion in a regular manner. If all subscribers to a list keep their expectations under wrap then how would the list grow. Why treat a list as if it is an intimate friend who should know the unexpressed desires of each of us. The list is shaped by expressed desires, to discuss this or that topic. I wonder if the feelings of betrayal lead any of us anywhere? 2. Agreed that action-reaction sequence creates an endless acceleration of spiralling violence and fog. But i feel that your postings too are framed within the same `action-reaction` frame. You act and someone retorts and then again you attack. And it can go on endlessly. To get out of the `action-reaction` chain we have to probably workout a different literary style. 3. Debunking others as moral cowards and then withdrawing leads us no where. It gives us a safer position to be on higher plane but it does not loosen up our inner contradictions and allow doubt about our thoughts, positions & beliefs to breathe and move freely. Instead this only hardens our selves and erases doubt. best Jeebesh, a list member From ravis at sarai.net Thu Sep 20 17:36:38 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 17:36:38 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] naomi klein in the Nation Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010920173536.00ae8bc8@pop3.norton.antivirus> This one of the better pieces which looks at the mediscape of the coming war... Game Over Now is the time in the game of war when we dehumanize our enemies. They are utterly incomprehensible, their acts unimaginable, their motivations senseless. They are "madmen" and their states are "rogue." Now is not the time for more understanding--just better intelligence. These are the rules of the war game. Feeling people will no doubt object to this characterization: War is not a game. It is real lives ripped in half; it is lost sons, daughters,mothers, and fathers, each with a dignified story. Tuesday's act of terror was reality of the harshest kind, an act that makes all other acts seem suddenly frivolous, game-like. It's true: war is most emphatically not a game. And perhaps after Tuesday, it will never again be treated as one. Perhaps September 11, 2001 will mark the end of the shameful era of the video game war. Watching the coverage on Tuesday was a stark contrast to the last time I sat glued to a television set watching a real-time war on CNN. The Space Invader battlefield of the Gulf War had almost nothing in common with what we have seen this week. Back then, instead of real buildings exploding over and over again, we saw only sterile bomb's-eye-views of concrete targets--there and then gone. Who was in these abstract polygons? We never found out. Since the Gulf War, American foreign policy has been based on a single brutal fiction: that the US military can intervene in conflicts around the world--in Iraq, Kosovo, Israel--without suffering any US casualties. This is a country that has come to believe in the ultimate oxymoron: a safe war. The safe war logic is, of course, based on the technological ability to wage a war exclusively from the air. But it also relies on the deep conviction that no one would dare mess with the United States--the one remaining superpower--on its own soil. This conviction has, until Tuesday, allowed Americans to remain blithely unaffected by--even uninterested in--international conflicts in which they are key protagonists. Americans don't get daily coverage on CNN of the ongoing bombings in Iraq, nor are they treated to human-interest stories on the devastating effects of economic sanctions on that country's children. After the 1998 bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan (mistaken for a chemical weapons facility), there weren't too many follow up reports about what the loss of vaccine manufacturing did to disease prevention in the region. And when NATO bombed civilian targets in Kosovo--including markets, hospitals, refugee convoys, passenger trains, and a TV station--NBC didn't do "streeter" interviews with survivors about how shocked they were by the indiscriminate destruction. The United States has become expert in the art of sanitizing and dehumanizing acts of war committed elsewhere. Domestically, war is no longer a national obsession, it's a business that is now largely out-sourced to experts. This is one of the country's many paradoxes: Though the engine of globalization around the world, the nation has never been more inward looking, less worldly. No wonder Tuesday's attack, in addition to being horrifying beyond description, has the added horror of seeming, to many Americans, to have arrived entirely out of the blue. Wars rarely come as a complete shock to the country under attack but it's fair to say that this one did. On CNN, USA Today reported Mike Walter was asked to sum up the reaction on the street. What he said was: "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I just can't believe it." The idea that one could ever be prepared for such inhuman terror is absurd. However, viewed through the US television networks, Tuesday's attack seemed to come less from another country than another planet. The events were reported not so much by journalists as by the new breed of brand-name celebrity anchors who have made countless cameos in TimeWarner movies about apocalyptic terrorist attacks on the United States--now, incongruously reporting on the real thing. The United States is a country that believed itself not just at peace but war-proof, a self-perception that would come as quite a surprise to most Iraqis, Palestinians and Colombians. Like an amnesiac, the United States has woken up in the middle of a war, only to find out it has been going on for years. Did the United States deserve to be attacked? Of course not. That argument is ugly and dangerous. But here's a different question that must be asked: did US foreign policy create the conditions in which such twisted logic could flourish, a war not so much on US imperialism but on perceived US imperviousness? The era of the video game war in which the United States is always at the controls has produced a blinding rage in many parts of the world, a rage at the persistent asymmetry of suffering. This is the context in which twisted revenge seekers make no other demand than that American citizens share their pain. Since the attack, US politicians and commentators have repeated the mantra that the country will go on with business as usual. The American way of life, they insist, will not be interrupted. It seems an odd claim to make when all evidence points to the contrary. War, to butcher a phrase from the old Gulf War days, is the mother of all interruptions. As well it should be. The illusion of war without casualties has been forever shattered. A blinking message is up on our collective video game console: Game Over. NAOMI KLEIN From ravis at sarai.net Thu Sep 20 17:48:31 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 17:48:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Alexander Cockburn's take on the crisis Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010920174429.00ae9728@pop3.norton.antivirus> I have mixed feelings about Alexander Cockburn, his old-left writing often borders on the conspiratorial, but he is a sharp journalist, and gutsy... check our http://www.counterpunch.org/ for very good coverage. Another is http://www.thenation.com/ apart from Tarq Ali's lead essay (nothing there that you did not know already) the other essays are first-rate Ravi Sundaram -------------- Attack Bolsters Nuke Lite Lobby By Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn Make the desert glow for a thousand years. Wipe them off the face of the Earth. Pulverize them. Such is the unrestrained blood lust that masquerades as military punditry these days. The Washington Times has called on the Bush administration the use of nuclear weapons against Afghanistan and Iraq. Absurd? Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had the question put to them directly and neither would rule out the use of nuclear bombs as an option. Rumsfeld's deputy, the blood-thirsty, Paul Wolfowitz has warned that the Pentagon is poised to unleash "a very big hammer", a hammer capable of "ending states that support terrorism." (Rumsfeld says the Pentagon has identified nearly 60 such states.) "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilites should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." These are not the words of a columnist for the war-mongers at the New York Post. No. These are the considered sentiments of Thomas Woodrow, a former officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency. We now find ourselves closer to the unthinkable possibility of launching a nuclear first strike than at any time since the thawing of the Cold War. What is important to understand is the fact that there are people inside the Pentagon and the nuclear labs who have been urging just such a posture, even before the events of 9/11. Now they feel vindicated and ready to strike. The Pentagon has come to a remarkable conclusion with regard to the nuclear weapons: smaller is better. These days the Wizards of Armageddon are palpably anxious to develop a new class of nuclear weapons, the so-called "deep penetrator" warheads. These are relatively low-yield weapons, packing warheads as small as 10 kilotons. Rear Admiral George P. Nanos excitedly refers to this new breed of nukes as "hard target killers". During testimony before the House in May, General John A. Gordon, director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, groused that for the past decade the Pentagon had not been able to actively pursue new weapons designs. He said he wanted to "reinvigorate" planning for a new generation of "advanced nuclear warheads". "This is not a proposal to develop new weapons in the absence of requirements", Gordon told the committee in a gem of Pentagon doublespeak. "But I am not now exercising design capabilities, and because of that, I believe this capacity and capability is atrophying rapidly". Gordon wasn't being truthful. Over the past decade the Pentagon and its weapons designers have been quietly busy crafting a variety of new weapons. Indeed, although the Clinton administration generated a lot of hoopla by supporting the comprehensive test ban treaty (which it promptly violated with a string of subcritical tests), the Department of Energy and the Pentagon were busy developing new breeds of weapons. In 1997, they unveiled and deployed the B61-11, described as a mere modification of the old B61-7 gravity bomb. In reality, it was largely a new "package", the prototype for the "low-yield" bunker blasting nuke that the weaponeers see as the future of the US arsenal. The nuclear priesthood is salivating at the prospect of a new generation of nukes and new infusions of cash under the Bush regime, which has been stockpiled with nuclear hawks, ranging from Richard Armitage and Paul Wolfowitz to Assistant Secretary of Defense Jack Couch, who a couple of years ago wrote that the US should consider dropping a small nuke on North Korea to teach them a lesson. The Pentagon, of course, isn't the only one pushing new bombs. So are the nuclear labs and their legions of contractors. "There's an overwhelming desire to develop new nuclear weapons and there are a lot of rationales put forward to justify the expenditure and the risks", says Don Moniak, an organizer with the Blue Ridge Environmental League in Aiken, South Carolina. "For example, the nuclear labs have said they make new design weapons if only to maintain design expertise". Moniak monitors weapons production and plutonium storage and reprocessing at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, which Moniak says is being geared up to begin producing plutonium pits, the triggers for hydrogen bombs. This spring the labs made a big pitch for the Bush administration to overhaul the nation's nuclear policy. The plea came in the form of a white paper by Paul Robinson, the director of the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque. Robinson titled his essay Pursuing a New Nuclear Policy for the 21st Century and began thus: "I recently began to worry that because there were few public statements by US officials in reaffirming the unique role which nuclear weapons play in ensuring US and world security, far too many people (including many in our own armed forces) were beginning to believe that perhaps nuclear weapons no longer had value". Robinson doesn't want to let go a single part of the nuclear arsenal. He even argues that Russia remains a threat, although he inverts the alleged source from that of an opposing superpower to that of a disintegrating nation. As backup for this rationale he quotes US National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice: "America is threatened less by Russia's strength than by its weakness and incoherence". This stretch is used to justify an upgrading of the most destructive and expensive weapons in the US arsenal, the so-called Category I strategic weapons capable of incinerating large-scale cities. Robinson also sees no reason to scale-back the US stockpile of Category II weapons, the kind of all-purpose nuclear missile that Robinson dubs the "To Whom It May Concern Force". Robinson hedges identifying exactly who the targets of these weapons might be, but he eventually concedes that they include the other nuclear and near-nuclear nations, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and, presumably, France, though definitely not Israel. These weapons, primarily low-yield single rocket missiles, would mainly be an investment in the Navy's submarine-launched arsenal to give the US the all-important "forward-basing" advantage-which mainly means that the US wouldn't have to worry about the touchy diplomatic issue of launching nuclear bombs over the territory of non-combatants. (Apparently, this good neighbor policy hasn't infected the Bush Star Wars team, which is toiling away on a contraption that would, if it works, knock incoming missiles down and onto the fields of the Poland, Germany and France.) But Robinson's real passion is for the Category III weapon, the bunker-busting nuke that is designed for the assassination of the leadership of "rogue regime", a not so subtle code word for Iraq, although it really does serve as a stand-in for any troublesome non-nuclear nation. Robinson, in a scenario that perhaps even Edward Teller himself may not have envisioned, wants the Bush administration to publicly change its policy to target heads of state with nuclear bombs. "I believe it will be important to make a part o our declaratory policy that the United States' ultimate intent, should it ever have to unleash a nuclear attack against any aggressor, would be to threaten the survival of the regime leading the state", Robinson writes. "Unless that state's leaders are deterred from the acts we are seeking to deter, our war aims would be single-minded-to destroy that leadership's ability to govern". And now we see the prospect of nuclear weapons being used not against a regime, but against an indistinct enemy, largely untargetable, couched in the forbidding recesses of the Hindu Kush, one the world's most hostile natural landscapes. The only possible objective for their use would be to kill broadly and indiscriminately and to obliterate the distinction between intentional and collateral damage. From fatimazehrarizvi at hotmail.com Thu Sep 20 22:45:42 2001 From: fatimazehrarizvi at hotmail.com (zehra rizvi) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:15:42 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] interview with noam chomsky Message-ID: amazing isnt it how chomsky is like one of the most respected american thinkers and he gets NO MEDIA coverage here....? zehra. ---------------------------- > >Interviewing Chomsky >Radio B92, Belgrade > >>Why do you think these attacks happened? >> >>To answer the question we must first identify the perpetrators of the >>crimes. >>It is generally assumed, plausibly, that their origin is the Middle East >>region, and that the attacks probably trace back to the Osama Bin Laden >>network, a widespread and complex organization, doubtless inspired by Bin >>Laden but not necessarily acting under his control. Let us assume that >>this >>is true. Then to answer your question a sensible person would try to >>ascertain Bin Laden's views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of >>supporters he has throughout the region. About all of this, we have a >>great >>deal of information. Bin Laden has been interviewed extensively over the >>years by highly reliable Middle East specialists, notably the most eminent >>correspondent in the region, Robert Fisk (London _Independent_), who has >>intimate knowledge of the entire region and direct experience over >>decades. A >>Saudi Arabian millionaire, Bin Laden became a militant Islamic leader in >>the >>war to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. He was one of the many >>religious fundamentalist extremists recruited, armed, and financed by the >>CIA >>and their allies in Pakistani intelligence to cause maximal harm to the >>Russians -- quite possibly delaying their withdrawal, many analysts >>suspect >>-- though whether he personally happened to have direct contact with the >>CIA >>is unclear, and not particularly important. Not surprisingly, the CIA >>preferred the most fanatic and cruel fighters they could mobilize. The end >>result was to "destroy a moderate regime and create a fanatical one, from >>groups recklessly financed by the Americans" (_London Times_ correspondent >>Simon Jenkins, also a specialist on the region). These "Afghanis" as they >>are >>called (many, like Bin Laden, not from Afghanistan) carried out terror >>operations across the border in Russia, but they terminated these after >>Russia withdrew. Their war was not against Russia, which they despise, but >>against the Russian occupation and Russia's crimes against Muslims. >>The "Afghanis" did not terminate their activities, however. They joined >>Bosnian Muslim forces in the Balkan Wars; the US did not object, just as >>it >>tolerated Iranian support for them, for complex reasons that we need not >>pursue here, apart from noting that concern for the grim fate of the >>Bosnians >>was not prominent among them. The "Afghanis" are also fighting the >>Russians >>in Chechnya, and, quite possibly, are involved in carrying out terrorist >>attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russian territory. Bin Laden and his >>"Afghanis" turned against the US in 1990 when they established permanent >>bases in Saudi Arabia -- from his point of view, a counterpart to the >>Russian >>occupation of Afghanistan, but far more significant because of Saudi >>Arabia's >>special status as the guardian of the holiest shrines. >>Bin Laden is also bitterly opposed to the corrupt and repressive regimes >>of >>the region, which he regards as "un-Islamic," including the Saudi Arabian >>regime, the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime in the world, apart >>from the Taliban, and a close US ally since its origins. Bin Laden >>despises >>the US for its support of these regimes. Like others in the region, he is >>also outraged by long-standing US support for Israel's brutal military >>occupation, now in its 35th year: Washington's decisive diplomatic, >>military, >>and economic intervention in support of the killings, the harsh and >>destructive siege over many years, the daily humiliation to which >>Palestinians are subjected, the expanding settlements designed to break >>the >>occupied territories into Bantustan-like cantons and take control of the >>resources, the gross violation of the Geneva Conventions, and other >>actions >>that are recognized as crimes throughout most of the world, apart from the >>US, which has prime responsibility for them. And like others, he contrasts >>Washington's dedicated support for these crimes with the decade-long >>US-British assault against the civilian population of Iraq, which has >>devastated the society and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths while >>strengthening Saddam Hussein -- who was a favored friend and ally of the >>US >>and Britain right through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of >>the >>Kurds, as people of the region also remember well, even if Westerners >>prefer >>to forget the facts. These sentiments are very widely shared. The _Wall >>Street Journal_ (Sept. 14) published a survey of opinions of wealthy and >>privileged Muslims in the Gulf region (bankers, professionals, businessmen >>with close links to the U.S.). They expressed much the same views: >>resentment >>of the U.S. policies of supporting Israeli crimes and blocking the >>international consensus on a diplomatic settlement for many years while >>devastating Iraqi civilian society, supporting harsh and repressive >>anti-democratic regimes throughout the region, and imposing barriers >>against >>economic development by "propping up oppressive regimes." Among the great >>majority of people suffering deep poverty and oppression, similar >>sentiments >>are far more bitter, and are the source of the fury and despair that has >>led >>to suicide bombings, as commonly understood by those who are interested in >>the facts. >>The U.S., and much of the West, prefers a more comforting story. To quote >>the >>lead analysis in the _New York Times_ (Sept. 16), the perpetrators acted >>out >>of "hatred for the values cherished in the West as freedom, tolerance, >>prosperity, religious pluralism and universal suffrage." U.S. actions are >>irrelevant, and therefore need not even be mentioned (Serge Schmemann). >>This >>is a convenient picture, and the general stance is not unfamiliar in >>intellectual history; in fact, it is close to the norm. It happens to be >>completely at variance with everything we know, but has all the merits of >>self-adulation and uncritical support for power. >>It is also widely recognized that Bin Laden and others like him are >>praying >>for "a great assault on Muslim states," which will cause "fanatics to >>flock >>to his cause" (Jenkins, and many others.). That too is familiar. The >>escalating cycle of violence is typically welcomed by the harshest and >>most >>brutal elements on both sides, a fact evident enough from the recent >>history >>of the Balkans, to cite only one of many cases. >> >>What consequences will they have on US inner policy and to the American >>self >>reception? >> >>US policy has already been officially announced. The world is being >>offered a >>"stark choice": join us, or "face the certain prospect of death and >>destruction." Congress has authorized the use of force against any >>individuals or countries the President determines to be involved in the >>attacks, a doctrine that every supporter regards as ultra-criminal. That >>is >>easily demonstrated. Simply ask how the same people would have reacted if >>Nicaragua had adopted this doctrine after the U.S. had rejected the orders >>of >>the World Court to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua >>and had vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states to >>observe >>international law. And that terrorist attack was far more severe and >>destructive even than this atrocity. >>As for how these matters are perceived here, that is far more complex. One >>should bear in mind that the media and the intellectual elites generally >>have >>their particular agendas. Furthermore, the answer to this question is, in >>significant measure, a matter of decision: as in many other cases, with >>sufficient dedication and energy, efforts to stimulate fanaticism, blind >>hatred, and submission to authority can be reversed. We all know that very >>well. >>Do you expect U.S. to profoundly change their policy to the rest of the >>world? >>The initial response was to call for intensifying the policies that led to >>the fury and resentment that provides the background of support for the >>terrorist attack, and to pursue more intensively the agenda of the most >>hard >>line elements of the leadership: increased militarization, domestic >>regimentation, attack on social programs. That is all to be expected. >>Again, >>terror attacks, and the escalating cycle of violence they often engender, >>tend to reinforce the authority and prestige of the most harsh and >>repressive >>elements of a society. But there is nothing inevitable about submission to >>this course. >> >>After the first shock, came fear of what the U.S. answer is going to be. >>Are >>you afraid, too? >> >>Every sane person should be afraid of the likely reaction -- the one that >>has >>already been announced, the one that probably answers Bin Laden's prayers. >>It >>is highly likely to escalate the cycle of violence, in the familiar way, >>but >>in this case on a far greater scale. >>The U.S. has already demanded that Pakistan terminate the food and other >>supplies that are keeping at least some of the starving and suffering >>people >>of Afghanistan alive. If that demand is implemented, unknown numbers of >>people who have not the remotest connection to terrorism will die, >>possibly >>millions. Let me repeat: the U.S. has demanded that Pakistan kill possibly >>millions of people who are themselves victims of the Taliban. This has >>nothing to do even with revenge. It is at a far lower moral level even >>than >>that. The significance is heightened by the fact that this is mentioned in >>passing, with no comment, and probably will hardly be noticed. We can >>learn a >>great deal about the moral level of the reigning intellectual culture of >>the >>West by observing the reaction to this demand. I think we can be >>reasonably >>confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what >>is >>being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled. It would be >>instructive to seek historical precedents. >>If Pakistan does not agree to this and other U.S. demands, it may come >>under >>direct attack as well -- with unknown consequences. If Pakistan does >>submit >>to U.S. demands, it is not impossible that the government will be >>overthrown >>by forces much like the Taliban -- who in this case will have nuclear >>weapons. That could have an effect throughout the region, including the >>oil >>producing states. At this point we are considering the possibility of a >>war >>that may destroy much of human society. >>Even without pursuing such possibilities, the likelihood is that an attack >>on >>Afghans will have pretty much the effect that most analysts expect: it >>will >>enlist great numbers of others to support of Bin Laden, as he hopes. Even >>if >>he is killed, it will make little difference. His voice will be heard on >>cassettes that are distributed throughout the Islamic world, and he is >>likely >>to be revered as a martyr, inspiring others. It is worth bearing in mind >>that >>one suicide bombing -- a truck driven into a U.S. military base -- drove >>the >>world's major military force out of Lebanon 20 years ago. The >>opportunities >>for such attacks are endless. And suicide attacks are very hard to >>prevent. >> >>"The world will never be the same after 11.09.01". Do you think so? >> >>The horrendous terrorist attacks on Tuesday are something quite new in >>world >>affairs, not in their scale and character, but in the target. For the US, >>this is the first time since the War of 1812 that its national territory >>has >>been under attack, even threat. It's colonies have been attacked, but not >>the >>national territory itself. During these years the US virtually >>exterminated >>the indigenous population, conquered half of Mexico, intervened violently >>in >>the surrounding region, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines (killing >>hundreds of thousands of Filipinos), and in the past half century >>particularly, extended its resort to force throughout much of the world. >>The >>number of victims is colossal. For the first time, the guns have been >>directed the other way. The same is true, even more dramatically, of >>Europe. >>Europe has suffered murderous destruction, but from internal wars, >>meanwhile >>conquering much of the world with extreme brutality. It has not been under >>attack by its victims outside, with rare exceptions (the IRA in England, >>for >>example). It is therefore natural that NATO should rally to the support of >>the US; hundreds of years of imperial violence have an enormous impact on >>the >>intellectual and moral culture. >>It is correct to say that this is a novel event in world history, not >>because >>of the scale of the atrocity -- regrettably -- but because of the target. >>How >>the West chooses to react is a matter of supreme importance. If the rich >>and >>powerful choose to keep to their traditions of hundreds of years and >>resort >>to extreme violence, they will contribute to the escalation of a cycle of >>violence, in a familiar dynamic, with long-term consequences that could be >>awesome. Of course, that is by no means inevitable. An aroused public >>within >>the more free and democratic societies can direct policies towards a much >>more humane and honorable course. >> >> > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From geert at desk.nl Fri Sep 21 02:51:28 2001 From: geert at desk.nl (geert) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 07:21:28 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] signing off - last ascii for a while References: <20010920065910.27513.qmail@web9801.mail.yahoo.com> <3BA9BAFA.7C2BDF68@t-online.de> Message-ID: <02fa01c1422d$0b0011c0$c900000a@bigpond.com> philip pocock wrote: > as an art and design professor in germany and > a longstanding artist working with networks dating back to remote video > performances and a cyberroad movie in the canadian arctic online in 1995 > http://www.dom.de/acircle, leading a team to make another project in > africa, uganda along the equator produced by documenta x > http://aporee.org/equator/ and recently proposing and writing up and > collaborating on a remapping of cinema and south america, sponsored by > the zkm karlsuhe, museum of modern art paris and several other > international spaces what has the CV of philip pocock got to do with all this? i am puzzled by the McEgo character of this mail. with jeebesh i think there are more sharp, and deep cutting forms of rethoric possible beyond the boring and predicable yes/no/yes/no format of the flamewar. best, geert From WallaceP at missouri.edu Thu Sep 20 21:29:49 2001 From: WallaceP at missouri.edu (Wallace, Paul) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:59:49 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] RE: Fw: THE BURDEN OF SANITY Message-ID: <44D2ED0AC0121146BF01366481060EBE019EAA24@umc-mail02.missouri.edu> Excellent points. I'm very familiar with the many incidents of bigotry as reported in our media against Muslims as well as against other identities that are considered to be Muslim. On the other hand, I also have been very active with the media in the state of Missouri averaging about five interviews and/or live presentations a day since I teach terrorism. I do hear outrageous statements, but without exception the talk show host or whoever is responsible hasn't hesitated to put the person down for unfairly stereotyping. The language is basic: e.g. "a few bad apples down't spoil a barrell" or "you're playing into the terrorist's hands." My major concern is about the actions of our government and its allies in regard to military actions. The situation can become much worse. Prof. Paul Wallace Dept. of Political Science University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri 65211-6030 573/882-2820 fax: 573/884-5131 e-mail: WallaceP at missouri.edu > ---------- > From: Jerry Barrier > Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 8:00 AM > To: geeta.patel at verizon.net > Cc: p.bacchetta at worldnet.att.net; shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in; > alakshmi at firstclass.wellesley.edu; rajini.srikanth at umb.edu; > seshadrk at bc.edu; kvis at mail.utexas.edu; aarondek at cats.ucsc.edu; > Reader-list at sarai.net; sabooks at juno.com; ic23 at hotmail.com; > wallacep at missouri.edu > Subject: Re: Fw: THE BURDEN OF SANITY > > To my colleagues. I appreciate receiving these messages and will do what > I can from this end. The Sikhs also are under attack, and am working with > Sikh groups on that score. Americans have gone over the edge in many > instances,and we need to get their attention and focus. > NG Barrier > Paul, for your information.J > > On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:18:02 -0400 "Geeta Patel" > writes: > > This is from an organization in Karachi that has been involved in > > alternative organizing for a while, please circulate. Ajmal sent it > > out to > > all the people I had sent a message to. g > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Ajmal Kamal > > To: Geeta Patel > > Cc: Kath Weston ; Jason Foster > > ; Aparna Sen ; > > Carolyn > > Dinshaw ; > > ; > > ; Holly Hughes ; Aishwarya > > Lakshmiratan ; AAJ ; > > Neloufer de > > Mel ; Anindyo Roy ; Jyotirmoy > > Chaudhuri > > ; Ziauddin Sardar ; > > Zia > > Ziauddin ; VIVIECHANA > > > > Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 11:10 AM > > Subject: THE BURDEN OF SANITY > > > > > > > In the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pantagon > > on 11 > > > September 2001, there is a real danger of the US government and > > people > > > bahaving > > > irresponsibly and putting the world peace in danger. Apprehension > > have > > > been > > > expressed regarding a deterioration in the treatment of Muslims > > living > > > the US as > > > a result of these tragic events. The following is an appeal to the > > US > > > authorities and citizens for maintaining sanity. > > > > > > 1. Although the FBI's initial investigations are reported to > > indicate > > > that the > > > hijackers, who delibrately crashed the commercial aircrafts with > > > civilian > > > pasengers on board, were Arabs who had entered the US and gained > > access > > > to the > > > training facilities in flying inside the country abusing the laws > > in > > > force, the > > > entry of people of the Arab or other Muslim origin and their > > access to > > > such > > > training and other facilities in the US must not be curtailed. > > > > > > 2. Although the Taliban have ordered all non-Muslim foreigners to > > leave > > > Afghanistan at once, the US authorities must not consider > > deporting > > > Arab, > > > Afghan, Pakistani and other Muslims living in the US. > > > > > > 3. The US legislature must not make law that would result in the > > > discriminatory > > > treatment of the Muslim immigrants living in the US in the manner > > > Pakistan's > > > Qadianis are treated after the country's National Assembly passed > > the > > > famous > > > amendment to the constitution in 1974. > > > > > > 4. The US citizens must not attack the settlements of the Muslim > > > immigrants as > > > Qadiani settlements are occasionally attacked in Pakistan > > resulting in > > > death and > > > injury to men, women and children and damage to their property. > > > > > > 5. In case of any such attacks on Muslims in the US police must > > not > > > arrest the > > > victims of the attacks just as several Qadiani families (men, > > women and > > > children) - victims of an attack by Muslims in a town in Punjab, > > > Pakistan, a few > > > weeks ago - were arrested and locked up inside the police station > > > because, > > > according to the police, "they were not safe outside." > > > > > > 6. The Muslims living in the US must not be regularly killed in > > ones and > > > twos as > > > those belonging to the minority Shia community are being killed in > > > Karachi and > > > other cities of Pakistan these days. > > > > > > 7. The people of USA should refrain from harassing Muslim > > consulting > > > physicians > > > and surgeons working here the way Shia consulting physicians and > > > surgeons are > > > being threatened regularly in Pakistan. Several such doctors were > > given > > > three > > > days to sell off their property and leave Pakistan (on pain of > > getting > > > killed) > > > in the last few months. Most complied and moved to the US. It > > would be > > > rather > > > unjust if they are asked to leave the US and return to Pakistan > > where > > > they are > > > likely to be murdered. > > > > > > 8. The angered people of the US must not attack the places of > > worship of > > > different sects of the US Muslim community in the manner these > > people > > > attack > > > each other's places of worship in Pakistan, resulting in multiple > > deaths > > > of > > > people praying inside. > > > > > > 9. The religious freedom of the Muslims in the US must continue to > > be > > > guaranteed. In the incident mentioned in 5 above, the Qadianis > > were > > > planning to > > > watch on satellite TV a speech by their religious leader, which > > the > > > majority > > > community did not allow them to do. They shifted their gathering > > to a > > > private > > > house, on which their place of worship, which they are not allowed > > to > > > call a > > > "masjid", was attacked and damaged. There should be no such > > treatment of > > > the > > > Muslims in the US. > > > > > > 10. The US citizens belonging to the majority community must not > > scare > > > the > > > Muslims by conducting public meetings inside their neighbourhoods > > with > > > speakers > > > making derogatory remarks againts their religion and religious > > leaders > > > such as > > > the Pakistan's majority commuinity routinely does inside the > > settlements > > > of > > > Qadianis and Shias. > > > > > > 11. In general, the US (and other western countiries) must > > continue to > > > grant > > > visa, immigrant status and nationality to the liberal minds of the > > > Muslim > > > countries because they have a danger to be persecuted, harassed > > and even > > > killed > > > in their native countries. > > > > > > The US authorities and citizens should display sanity and do the > > above > > > and much > > > more. And, they must not ask the present sermonizer why the > > governments > > > and > > > citizens of Muslim countries should not be urged to do the same > > with the > > > "aliens" living there. > > > > South Asia Books > > From aiindex at mnet.fr Thu Sep 20 23:34:38 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 19:04:38 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Rumors that came out of WTC attacks of 11 sept Message-ID: Rumors of War A collection of links to pages discussing the various rumors to come out of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States of America. http://www.snopes2.com/info/rumors.htm -- From gchat at vsnl.net Fri Sep 21 11:52:31 2001 From: gchat at vsnl.net (Gayatri Chatterjee) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:52:31 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On critical integrity of the list Message-ID: Dear Monica, A timely "administering"! Here is responding to your call for silent voices to speak up. I was looking at Benjamin's Arcadian Project in Susan Buck-More's book --- something to go to at a time like this. Benjamin's magnum opus is huge and unfinished. If a "bigger is better" mentality was behind the fall of those cities he was studying, then it is quite significant, an allegory almost, that this grand project of his remained incomplete. Bush is already talking about re-building the towers, without having to say anything about the tens of thousands loosing their jobs just because planes have not flown for a week. Does this make any sense.....the airline people here and some industrialists do not believe airline companies there are telling the truth. Is the American government promoting these lay offs so more people join the army? Why cannot the owners of these companies release some funds and why must the American government bale them out? Do you have anything on that? How strange are some particular/individual histories: Benjamin committed suicide when Paris fell to the Nazis and he did not obtain permission to escape to America and join Adorno, etc --- the Frankfurt school being in America, then. What would Benjamin have said of the American Arcadian dream.... as he had been writing about the "unfulfilled western dreams" of/in Paris, Berlin, etc? One would think when one wakes up from a dream, one is back into "reality"; but what if the dream is quickly supplanted by other dreams? How is it that one does not even know one actually should be saying "nightmare" and not "dream"? These are important clue to what is happening. Last night there was a film on HBO (banal, but so timely and topical that I stopped to see) called "Epoch" (written by Philip Roth and some others). Four billion years of intelligence "something that we have been calling God" decides to be manifested in Bhutan, in order to bring about a yuga-change (only it is expressed in scientific terms). America sends scientists under military supervision to check it out and annihilate it since it is not "understandable" and also because the Chinese are coming. The scientist is terminally ill, but is cured by his proximity to this structure that houses the infinite intelligence (it can reorganise DNA molecules and is going to start History all over again). When the military personnel wants to bomb the structure and when the perceptive humane (liberal) scientist intervenes, the military man says, "I am paid not to think". The end of the film is just "amazing"....the superintelligence decides not to alter the course of human history, so impressed is It with the American man & woman lead pair of the narrative. In an American narrative, Nation (government) creates problems, Individuals provide answer......as do cities and buildings, roads and parks. It is a very old story...in earlier times, it used to be society vs. individual.....I am groping....there seems to be other stories that await telling. What have we been paid, for not to think? But we are thinking...so, where have all the thoughts, all those other kinds of thoughts gone....going? What has been happening in this list is not untypical. It is at a time like this that we can ask (but there is no time for any thinking and asking, it would seem) why we cannot speaking properly to or hear each other? I had tried to initiate conversation amongst two (separate) smaller groups, thinking it would be more intimate and we would be in a position to ask stupid questions, terrible questions, be free to show confusions and not feel the compulsion of coming up with smart, intelligent thoughts. It did not work; everyone was impatient.... individual fear manifesting in different ways...there was an occasional quick 'sorry', but no long term follow up on questions and opinions --- on the lack of the same. Joining up with Shuddha's thoughts on image: is it time to move slightly away from so much priority accorded to Image. The "sound" behind images are deafening or sobering, but filtered out of our senses. Can we hear the "sound" contained within images of those two tall giant crashing buildings? All the war footage that we see, we see them without the accompanying "sound". One of the guards digging there had said also something about the "smell that is like taste". Well! Yes, please let us move away from the yes/no action/reaction binaries. The list is providing such wealth of information. Let us not be discouraged by one incidence and let us again engage in discussions, in trying to understand these details fully, spread that understandings and turn around and ask questions --- intelligent or stupid, it does not matter. best, Gayatri From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Fri Sep 21 12:55:01 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:25:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Bush's speech from yesterday Message-ID: <20010921072501.64696.qmail@web14609.mail.yahoo.com> The speech comes straight from some kind of sci-fi inter-galactic battle scene where the american leader rouses his hi-tech ranks to destroy the aliens. In this instance, there's also a hint of impotence since the swift victory that you get when you have american grit and american technology on your side is denied to him here. The spectacular war (the war of the spectacle) is the one he knows well how to fight. The one that is demanded of him here doesn't make such a good movie - or such a good speech. Still there are [literally] lots of trumpets and flags. R WASHINGTON (AP) � President Bush's address Thursday to a joint session of Congress, as transcribed by eMediaMillWorks Inc.: Mr. Speaker, Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of Congress, and fellow Americans: In the normal course of events, presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people. We have seen it in the courage of passengers who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground. Passengers like an exceptional man named Todd Beamer. And would you please help me welcome his wife Lisa Beamer here tonight? We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers working past exhaustion. We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers in English, Hebrew and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own. My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of union, and it is strong. Tonight, we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done. I thank the Congress for its leadership at such an important time. All of America was touched on the evening of the tragedy to see Republicans and Democrats joined together on the steps of this Capitol singing ''God Bless America.'' And you did more than sing. You acted, by delivering $40 billion to rebuild our communities and meet the needs of our military. Speaker Hastert, Minority Leader Gephardt, Majority Leader Daschle and Senator Lott, I thank you for your friendship, for your leadership and for your service to our country. And on behalf of the American people, I thank the world for its outpouring of support. America will never forget the sounds of our national anthem playing at Buckingham Palace, on the streets of Paris and at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. We will not forget South Korean children gathering to pray outside our embassy in Seoul, or the prayers of sympathy offered at a mosque in Cairo. We will not forget moments of silence and days of mourning in Australia and Africa and Latin America. Nor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own. Dozens of Pakistanis, more than 130 Israelis, more than 250 citizens of India, men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan, and hundreds of British citizens. America has no truer friend than Great Britain. Once again, we are joined together in a great cause. I'm so honored the British prime minister has crossed an ocean to show his unity with America. Thank you for coming, friend. On Sept. 11, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars, but for the past 136 years they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war, but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks, but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day, and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack. Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, ''Who attacked our country?'' The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al-Qaida. They are some of the murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole. Al-Qaida is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money. Its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere. The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans and make no distinctions among military and civilians, including women and children. This group and its leader, a person named Osama bin Laden, are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries. They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan, where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction. The leadership of al-Qaida has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan we see al-Qaida's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized, many are starving and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough. The United States respects the people of Afghanistan - after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid - but we condemn the Taliban regime. It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban. Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of al-Qaida who hide in your land. Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities. Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating. These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate. I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them. Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. Americans are asking, ''Why do they hate us?'' They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa. These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us because we stand in their way. We're not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They're the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies. Americans are asking, ''How will we fight and win this war?'' We will direct every resource at our command - every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence and every necessary weapon of war - to the destruction and to the defeat of the global terror network. Now this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat. Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From steef at cwac.nl Fri Sep 21 14:47:19 2001 From: steef at cwac.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:17:19 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] just a suggestion In-Reply-To: <027d01c140b6$8dba31e0$c900000a@bigpond.com> Message-ID: And to make it even more practival: never use HTML in your email, only plain text. If one copies text from a site, be sure to re-format it in to plain text before you send it. STeef > -----Original Message----- > From: reader-list-admin at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-admin at sarai.net]On > Behalf Of geert > Sent: 19 september, 2001 4:55 > To: reader > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] just a suggestion > > > Jo and Tarun wrote: > > > If we could just provide URLs of the essays one is quoting rather than > reproduce them in all their glory, we would make the list more functional > and friendly. > > I have to disagree here. I am online only few times a day on a slow dialup > connection. If people copy-paste texts into a mail that's a great > help to me > as the chance that I will go online, find the site and wait for > the info to > be downloaded is rather slim. > > Best, Geert > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > From menso at r4k.net Fri Sep 21 16:37:55 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 13:07:55 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Bush's speech from yesterday In-Reply-To: <20010921072501.64696.qmail@web14609.mail.yahoo.com>; from rana_dasgupta@yahoo.com on Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 12:25:01AM -0700 References: <20010921072501.64696.qmail@web14609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20010921130755.V12357@r4k.net> On Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 12:25:01AM -0700, Rana Dasgupta wrote: > The speech comes straight from some kind of sci-fi > inter-galactic battle scene where the american leader > rouses his hi-tech ranks to destroy the aliens. In > this instance, there's also a hint of impotence since > the swift victory that you get when you have american > grit and american technology on your side is denied to > him here. > > The spectacular war (the war of the spectacle) is the > one he knows well how to fight. The one that is > demanded of him here doesn't make such a good movie - > or such a good speech. Still there are [literally] > lots of trumpets and flags. > > R > To me, something weird happens here: > The leadership of al-Qaida has great influence in > Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in > controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan we > see al-Qaida's vision for the world. Afghanistan's > people have been brutalized, many are starving and > many have fled. > > Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be > jailed for owning a television. Religion can be > practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be > jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough. Sounds like "The people in Afghanistan are living horrible lives because of the Taliban which gets support from the al-Qaida group". > The United States respects the people of Afghanistan - > after all, we are currently its largest source of > humanitarian aid - but we condemn the Taliban regime. Sounds like "And we are going to end the way it treats it's people". > It is not only repressing its own people, it is > threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and > sheltering and supplying terrorists. > > By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is > committing murder. And tonight the United States of > America makes the following demands on the Taliban. > > Deliver to United States authorities all of the > leaders of al-Qaida who hide in your land. > > Release all foreign nationals, including American > citizens you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign > journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your > country. Close immediately and permanently every > terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over > every terrorist and every person and their support > structure to appropriate authorities. > > Give the United States full access to terrorist > training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer > operating. > > These demands are not open to negotiation or > discussion. Wait a minute, he forgot the demand that the Taliban government must allow every Afghan to practice it's basic human rights! Surely, this must be a mistake, he starts of so passionately about why the Taliban is such a terrible regime. > The Taliban must act and act immediately. > > They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share > in their fate. In other words, "despite all our nice words of bringing freedom to the rest of the world we actually meant preventing bombs from entering our little part. As long as that doesn't happen, we still don't give a fuck if regimes are mistreating people and ignoring human rights... including some samples of what they do makes a hell of a speech though!" Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From ravis at sarai.net Fri Sep 21 23:39:18 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:39:18 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Selling War (from the Washington Post0 Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010921233606.00a902d0@mail.sarai.net> I found this story tucked away in the Washington Post's on-line edition. An interesting insight into the selling of war Ravi ------------------- Operation War Language How the Pentagon Mints Its Campaign Monikers By Linton Weeks Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 21, 2001; First the U.S. military operation to lash out at Osama bin Laden was officially nicknamed Infinite Reach. Then Noble Eagle. Then Infinite Justice. But yesterday, that last name was being rethought because some Muslims might find it offensive, according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. What shall we call it, then? In another time, David Letterman's Top 10 List writers would have had a heyday with the question. Not now. The language of war is a serious, singular, often inscrutable and important art. "People have such complex associations with words," says Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. "I'm not surprised that some Muslims objected to 'Infinite Justice.' It shows that the associations are not always predictable." And the fact that naming this campaign is like tacking mercury to a tree illustrates what a slippery business this war on terrorism could prove to be. Giving nicknames to operational thrusts is a relatively new pursuit in the history of warfare, going back to the middle of the 20th century. Nowadays, the choice of operation names is made using computer-suggested terms, says a Pentagon source. Since 1975, the process has been aided by various software called the Code Word, Nickname and Exercise Term System. "Basically what happens," says the Pentagon source, "is that each of the theater CINCs -- the commanders in chief, that is the admirals and generals in charge of regional theaters -- is given a database of words." He continues: "A name is randomly selected -- normally a word that is pertinent to that region -- like 'desert' in Desert Storm and Desert Shield," for operations in the 1991 Gulf War. The commanders are then presented with a new database of words. They choose another word they like and pair it with the first. They are given some leeway, but they are instructed about which two letters to use first. In 1983, for instance, when the United States invaded Grenada, the Atlantic Command was asked to come up with a name whose first two letters were U and R, for complex reasons of cyber-military protocol. The result: Urgent Fury. The officers then send that two-word phrase "up the chain of command," the source says. Unacceptable phrases are weeded out, one after another, by people in charge. Ultimately the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense pick one. Between 1975 and 1988, names were pretty meaningless, writes Gregory Sieminski in the August 1995 issue of Parameters, the U.S. Army War College quarterly. The Libyan raid in 1986 was named Eldorado Canyon and the 1988 airstrike campaign against Iranian ships and oil platforms was dubbed Praying Mantis, as a guarantee against embarrassment. In his 1991 book "The Commanders," Bob Woodward writes that when Gen. James Lindsay, head of the Special Operations Command, learned in 1989 that the United States was planning to invade Panama, he phoned Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, on the Joint Chiefs staff, to talk about the name. Lindsay said he did not want the campaign to have a silly name. "Do you want your grandchildren to say you were in Blue Spoon?" he asked Kelly. After the call, Kelly summoned his deputy for current operations, Brig. Gen. Joe Lopez. "How about 'Just Action'?" Kelly said. "How about 'Just Cause'?" Lopez suggested. Sieminski writes: "Since 1989, major U.S. military operations have been dubbed with an eye toward shaping domestic and international perceptions about the activities they describe." For example: Operation Provide Comfort in Turkey and Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti. For centuries, humans waged military campaigns that were more or less anonymous, leaving the naming to historians. The practice of soldiers naming martial operations apparently began in Germany near the end of World War I. In America, the War Department used color names for operations just prior to World War II. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill harbored strong convictions on the subject, according to Christopher Chant's 1985 Encyclopedia of Code Names of World War II. "Operations," Churchill said, "ought not to be described by code-words which imply a boastful and over-confident sentiment." And names "ought not to be names of frivolous character. They should not be ordinary words." And "Names of living people should be avoided." Perhaps this is what made Rumsfeld reconsider "Infinite Justice." "The U.S. doesn't want to do or say things that create an impression on the part of the listener" that the campaign is against the Muslim religion, he said at a news conference yesterday. But in the mid-1940s, the U.S. Army began to use nicknames to inspire the troops and the populace. And many of Churchill's rules applied. W.H.P. Blandy, a vice admiral and commander of the joint task force on atom bomb testing on Bikini Atoll in 1946, called the endeavor Operation Crossroads. He chose the name carefully, he told a Senate committee, because "sea power, air power, and perhaps humanity itself . . . were at the crossroads." In Korea, operations received tough names: Roundup, Courageous and Killer. During the Vietnam War, bellicose names were softened by shifting public sentiment. Operation Masher became Operation White Wing. As the Gulf War neared, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf chose the name Peninsula Shield from a list of possibilities for the U.S. defensive mission, Sieminski writes. The name was rejected by the Joint Chiefs because it did not properly portray the region's terrain. Operation Desert Shield was born. Schwarzkopf also hand-picked Operation Desert Storm for the offensive stage of the war. At the end of his article, Sieminski offers four guidelines for naming operations in the future. 1. Make it meaningful. 2. Identify and target the critical audience. 3. Be cautious of fashions. 4. Make it memorable. Now Rumsfeld might add a fifth: If it doesn't work, rethink it. © 2001 The Washington Post Company From kali at kalital.com Sat Sep 22 00:24:44 2001 From: kali at kalital.com (Kali Tal) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:54:44 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] The Press and footage of Palestinians "celebrating" Message-ID: Marcio Carvalho's claim that the Palestinian footage was from 1991, and the ensuing rush to debunk his assertion tell us more about right-wing strategies for spinning news and manipulating public opinion than they actually tell us about the footage itself. If this was the claim of one guy who heard the story from a source he thought credible, and who jumped the gun and circulated the claim without seeing the evidence first, that's not such good fodder for the right-wing mill. But if the story can be spun so that it appears to be about 1) a person who deliberately falsified information; 2) the knee-jerk reaction of the left in believing this person and spreading the story because we hate American so much; and, 3) the recantment of that person, then the war-mongers score points. The fact that so many people thought the Brazillian students' claim about false CNN footage was credible is not testimony to anti-American sentiment on the left, or a stupid willingness to believe anything that bashes America. It is, instead, testimony to a well-documented tradition of deception and deliberate misinformation on the part of the government and the media, particularly when the media is dealing with volatile topics. We remember how TIME darkened OJ's fact to make him look more "criminal" (i.e., played on racism to create a pre-judgement of guilt): http://www.claykeck.com/patty/articles/timecover.htm We remember how CNN (the first network to come up with a logo and theme song for a war) played and replayed the single image of the "smart bomb" striking its target, and somehow forgot to report that 1) 93% of the bombs being dropped on Iraq were dumb as stumps; and, 2) only around 60% of the "smart" bombs actually hit their targets: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=9741 We remember the 110 pounds of cocaine found in Noriega's home in Panama during the American invasion, and that it turned out to be ... tamales. Of course, that wasn't reported until a month later, while reporters continued to endorse the war by reporting the US Army-approved perspective without any apparent critique: http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/panamainv.html We remember the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964, when the media gave us stories of "unprovoked" attacks on US ships -- later revealed to be provoked after all, and to have been only one attack when two were reported. American public sentiment about the misreported Tonkin Gulf incident moved us toward committing ground troops to a war in Viet Nam : http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940727.html I was deeply concerned by the rhetoric in the http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/outrage/cnn.htm attempt to debunk the story. First, I think it was incorrect to say that the author of the original claim "recanted." The author said that he could not lay his hands on the tapes and had been relying on the word of his professor. He promised to let the reporter who questioned him know if he found any further information. "Recant" is a term with a lot of emotional freight. It implies a deliberate attempt to deceive, and an apology. Neither of those were visible in the email response of the man who made the statement. But even more disturbing was the claim posted on snope2.com that even if the footage HAD been stock, the media could be excused for using it. > > > Yet even if the footage had been recycled from an earlier time, we >> > have to ask why there would have been an uproar over it. Credible >> > journalists were on hand and were observing the celebrations. If they >> > hadn't been able to make video recordings to display as a backdrop to >> > their reports, would harm have been done if stock footage were run >> > instead, footage that would give the viewing audience a far better > > > idea of the feel of events than a flat voice-only report would have? Journalistic ethics underline the importance of making a clear and visible distinction between stock and documentary footage each and every time the footage is shown. (Remember how furious the right was at Oliver Stone for NOT making that distinction in JFK?) The disingenous tone of the writer (and his political biases) are evident in the assumptions underlying his his later claims: > > > The primary issue should not really be whether older video footage was >> > used to represent a current event, but whether the news of event was >> > reported accurately. That is, was it correct to report that at least >> > some Palestinians were "celebrating" the news that terrorist attacks >> > had been made against the United States of America? Certainly CNN >> > wasn't the only news organization to report that information, as other >> > outlets such as Reuters and the Los Angeles Times carried the same >> > story. Also, other news outlets such as Fox News and The Jerusalem >> > Post reported that journalists were threatened for capturing images of >> > Palestinian celebrations, making real footage of the event harder to > > > obtain [...] As all media-watchers understand, the selection of images, the contextualization of images, and the repetition of images all shape the viewers' response. Again, the disingenuous tone masks a bias towards a right-wing, pro-Israel perspective. The single film clip was shown over and over and over on all networks. Despite the fact that all one could see in the relatively short clip were some 50 people, the number of participants in the celebration were magnified in the minds of viewers through the process of sheer repetition, turning, by implication, a single taped incident into a nation- and possible region-wide celebration of American death. The lack of corroborating footage has been been "explained" by US media outlets, who claim that journalists were threatened that if they photographed celebrations they would be harmed. There is not, as yet, any documentation of that claim, only a vague reference to "Israeli sources." It is the job of war reporters to take risks, and every war reporter understands that possible retaliation on the part of offended parties is included in the job description. The presence of Israeli forces in Palestinian neighborhoods makes it unlikely that any retaliation could have or would have taken place at the scene, and were Palestinian neighborhoods erupting in jubilee it is highly unlikely that only one film would have made it out of Israel. On the other hand, the Israeli paper, Ha'aretz, reported in its September 13 edition: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=74027&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y >Israel, according to the sources, is seeking full-length videotapes made by >Reuters and The Associated Press TV News agencies showing such >celebrations. Images broadcast on TV stations around the world yesterday >showed Palestinians near Damascus Gate celebrating by cheering and >passing out candy. The fact that, over a week later, such tapes have NOT been shown on US media outlets indicates that the Israelis have, despite their efforts, failed to locate film of more celebrations. Ha'aretz, in contrast to the US media, does not claim that the Palestinian Authority is "threatening" anyone about the films. The word that they used was the far more low-key "pressuring." Israeli news outlets have little hesitation when it comes to reporting genuine Palestinian threats, so it is fair to assume they used the word "pressure" advisedly. It may simply be that more footage did not exist because the celebrations were not particularly wide-spread or long lasting. But the snopes2.com "analysis" is so embedded in the US media interpretation, and in support for anti-Palestinian sentiment, that it doesn't do what any responsible journal should do -- analyze the claims of both sides objectively. War journalism isn't, by nature, objective, particularly when the large majority of media outlets are owned not by independent citizens, but by corporations with interests that often conflict with those of the American people. In order to defend ourselves from the relentless propaganda of a global-corporate media, we must simply approach everything presented to us via media as somehow "packaged" with an intent to manipulate the viewer. We can no longer afford the naive practice of trying to discern whether news is "true" or "false," for even "true" news can be spun in ways that create emotional reactions in the audience that work to the advantage of certain interests. And we should, whenever possible, patronize and support independent media. Those sources will also have their own biases, but they serve as counterpoint to the hegemonic global-corporate view of the world that inundates us. "When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty." -- Arthur Ponsonby Peace, Kali Tal _____________________ Professor of Humanities Arizona International College The Universtiy of Arizona kali at kalital.com From ravis at sarai.net Sat Sep 22 00:30:42 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:30:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] An Alternative speech that Bush could have given Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010922002856.00a72230@mail.sarai.net> From counterpunch.org A Speech George W. Bush Could Give to the Nation By Doug Morris Good evening, my fellow Americans. St. Augustine said that "hope has two beautiful daughters: anger and courage. Anger at the way things are, and courage to struggle to create things as they should be." These acts perpetrated against humanity on Tuesday were acts of anger at the way things are. They were not courageous acts, but horrendous atrocities, acts of anger laced with hate. Our first response must be support and compassion for the victims, and families and friends of the victims. But, in addition, we should ask ourselves "what conditions led these fellow humans to develop such anger and hatred, led them to commit such abominably inhumane acts, and why was it directed at these particular targets in the United States?" We should not repress our anger and indignation at these hateful and callous acts, or our anger and indignation at all hateful and callous acts, but our anger must be accompanied not by hate, but with love, and by the courage to struggle to create a more just world, and THAT my fellow Americans will require a major effort to question, understand, challenge, change and raise OUR national consciousness. Please, my fellow Americans, listen with open ears, open minds and open hearts. While no loving and decent human will tolerate acts of terror, we must try to understand the extremely difficult question: why? For example, what is the symbolic significance of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in the eyes of the world? And here, my fellow Americans we must search deep into our own history, our own policies, our own pursuits, our own impositions, and, our own hearts. It is painful, but, let us be blunt: the war against terrorism has begun, violently. The two most potent symbols of global military and economic violence, global military and economic terrorism, have been struck. These were cowardly and unconscionable acts, to be sure, and, as in most acts of terror, the innocent suffer most, the working class, the toiling class, the secretaries, the firemen, the rescue workers, etc. We must launch a war against terrorism, non-violently. A.J. Muste, committed pacifist, advised us that in a world built on violence "we must be revolutionaries before we are pacifists." That is, we must work to abolish the institutions of violence, non-violently. However, make no mistake, my fellow Americans, the Pentagon IS the center of world military violence and terrorism. The US is the world's leading exporter of tools of death and destruction. Let us be honest, we have been committed to violence as a way to address international conflicts for many, many years. And a PARTIAL list of the results of our commitment to violence includes: Korea ­ millions killed. Vietnam ­ millions killed. Cambodia ­ hundreds of thousands killed. Laos ­ hundreds of thousands killed. Iraq ­ hundreds of thousands killed. Guatemala ­ hundreds of thousands killed. Hiroshima and Nagasaki ­ hundreds of thousands killed. East Timor ­ hundreds of thousands killed. Nicaragua ­ tens of thousands killed. El Salvador ­ tens of thousands killed. Colombia ­ tens of thousands killed. Dominican Republic ­ thousands killed. Somalia ­ thousands killed. Haiti ­ thousands killed. Yugoslavia ­ thousands killed. Panama ­ hundreds killed. And let us not forget the ways in which we have mistreated the Cuban people for over 40 years now with our embargo and repeated acts of terrorism. Let us remember my father's words during the buildup to the US attack on Iraq: "there will be no negotiationswhat we say goes." "No negotiations" simply means we prefer violence. "What we say goes" expresses the arrogance, chauvinism and mystique of invincibility that has separated the US from the world. Both views express the notion that the US is above international law and the UN Charter, outside the family of nations. Is it any wonder that Harvard professor Samuel Huntington said that in the eyes of most of the world the US is seen as "THE rogue superpower," considered "THE single greatest external threat to their societies"? The world quakes in its boots wondering when we will attack, and what form of violence will ensue: cruise missiles, helicopter gunships, chemical or biological agents, nuclear bombs, F18's, F22's, B52's, fumigation campaigns, IMF/World Bank "Structural Adjustment Programs," or "Austerity Programs," embargoes, sanctions, disappearances, assassinations, massacres, tortures, cultural cooptation or erasure, etc., etc., etc. The Bible warns us: "what ye sew, ye shall reap." Today, sadly, we have experienced what we have sewn on much of the world. Today, as a country, we have learned that raining death and destruction on another country creates a toll far higher than simply destroyed buildings and dead bodies. Today our freedom came under attack. We thought we were free to impose military and economic violence anywhere we chose, with impunity. The freedom from impunity appears to no longer exist. The World Court attempted to sanction the US for our commitment to violence but the Reagan Administration claimed that the World Court had no jurisdiction over our actions. Yes, we have been, and we are a rogue state, and, my fellow Americans, it must stop! Tonight, while many are calling for vengeance, my fellow Americans we must raise a call of humility, a humility that does not in any way diminish humanity, but a humility that raises the respect for, and dignity of, all people, a humility that allows us to celebrate all human life. Let us recall the words of that great man of peace, Martin Luther King, Jr., who said: "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate...Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that." It is time that we joined the world, not as its major purveyor of violence and destruction, but as a peaceful participant who will work to end violence, end racism, end classism, end sexism, rather than increase them. The proposed Pentagon budget, the "violence" budget, for next year is $330 billion dollars. I am tonight proposing an immediate 50% decrease in this spending that promotes violence, and calling for a redistribution those funds to help ameliorate problems of hunger, poverty and poor-health around the world. It is a call to reach out with love, and a call to find the courage to struggle to create a more just, peaceful, healthful and equitable world, a world in which human creativity is celebrated rather than the human capacity for great violence. Tonight we must call on the world to forgive us OUR sins, forgive us OUR sordid and calamitous acts of violence that we have pursued without pause for over 50 years. Let this be the beginning of our reconciliation with the world. We now, to some degree, understand the pain, misery and suffering we have caused, the turmoil we have perpetrated, the hate we have elicited, the destruction we have imparted, the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual scars and unconscionable hurt we have created and that much of the world has endured because of our rapacious and destructive pursuit of wealth, power and privilege at the expense of human concerns and human lives. We humbly beg the forgiveness of all humanity, as we pray that you will offer your support, your compassion, your understanding, and your love in our time of suffering, mourning and loss. This is not a time, as it is never a time, to seek vengeance, but a time to seek the courage to forgive, to harbor the power of anger to be used in acts of love, and to uncover insights that will allow us to direct our indignation at the institutions of power, violence and greed, many of which, sadly, are centered in the US, and begin to transform them in order to increase our love for the victims of that power, violence and greed, including those who died and were injured in the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. When I attended the G8 meetings in Genoa recently I saw a banner in the street that said, "you are 8, we are 6 billion," and it struck me deeply. We have pursued for too long the interests of the few at the expense of the many. Wealth, privilege and power inequalities exacerbate every day. We have created, protected, endorsed and now imposed on the rest of the world an economic system, symbolized by the World Trade Center, and protected by the Pentagon, that must produce and expand in order to profit and survive, an economic system that treats everything as a commodity to be exploited whether it is water, food, air, soil, the rest of the environment, animals, fish, or our fellow humans, a system that puts corporate profit interests above human interests. This must stop. We, who represent and serve power, should have listened sooner. Let this horrible tragedy serve as our wake up call. Let us begin tonight to transform this monster before it is too late. This act of terror, infamous and abominable, will pale in comparison to the growing terrors of increasing global militarism of which we are the primary cause, increased global warming of which we are the primary cause, and intensifying environmental destruction of which we are the primary cause and which may soon make much of the world uninhabitable for humans, and surely increase human suffering, misery and death. If we are to overcome these acts of terror, and more importantly prevent future acts of terror against humanity, we must act out of a sense of hope and faith that the future is unfinished, that it is there to be created; and, we must be driven by a judicious anger at the way things are, anger at the monster we have created, anger that can be harbored in momentous acts of love, and the courage to struggle in cooperation, understanding, support and solidarity with the rest of humanity to create a world in which all will be happy to live. Tonight, and in the days and weeks to come, we must find the courage to not only reach out with love and understanding, but to find the courage to self-reflect honestly about what WE have done to the world so that we can understand why things are the way they are, and what we can and will do to struggle to create things as they should be ­ a world of less violence and greater peace; a world of diminished arrogance and greater humility; a world where more people do not die of hunger every two years than were killed in both World Wars combined, but a world in which all people have access to the great and nourishing bounties of the earth; a world of less disease and greater health; a world of less hate and greater love; a world of less vengeance and greater understanding; a world of less greed and greater sharing; a world of less destruction and greater creativity; a world of less disparity and greater equality; a world of less fundamentalism and more progressivism; a world of less mysticism and more humanism; a world of less criminality and greater justice; a world of less separatism and more solidarity; a world in which we live both an examined life and a committed life; a world of less militarism and more artistry; a world of less vilification and more celebration; a world in which life is worth living; a world in which we understand well the lesson of Rousseau who said "the fruits of our labor belong to us; the fruits of the earth belong to everyone; and, the world itself belongs to no one." So, in closing, my fellow Americans, allow us to support one another in our quest through hope, and anger, and courage, to make love our aim during this time of crisis, and in the future. And, let us remember and reflect upon the words stated in Corinthians 13:1-3: "though I may speak with the voice of angels; though I may understand all the mysteries; though I may have all the knowledge; though I may give all to feed the poor; though I may give my body to be burnedif I have not love, I have nothing at all." Thank you. Good night, and blessings, peace, justice, solidarity and love for all humanity. And now, my fellow Americans, in order to assist us in developing a much deeper understanding of all of these issues, I have invited MIT professor Noam Chomsky to share his views. Professor Chomsky will have unlimited time. Thank you. Professor Chomsky, welcome. CP From fatimazehrarizvi at hotmail.com Sat Sep 22 00:36:37 2001 From: fatimazehrarizvi at hotmail.com (zehra rizvi) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:06:37 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] edward said paper on WTC aftermath Message-ID: see attached for e.said paper. another voice of reason that will probably go largely ignored. z. rizvi _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: collective passion 2.doc Type: application/msword Size: 32768 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010921/de0336a9/attachment.doc From bijoyinic at yahoo.com Sat Sep 22 04:14:04 2001 From: bijoyinic at yahoo.com (Bijoyini Chatterjee) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:44:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] another news report link Message-ID: <20010921224404.40079.qmail@web13703.mail.yahoo.com> This website usually has some interesting articles too. http://www.thenation.com --bijoyini __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From suchita at del6.vsnl.net.in Thu Sep 20 10:49:26 2001 From: suchita at del6.vsnl.net.in (Suchita Vemuri) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:49:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] the south asian way? Message-ID: <000001c14202$51f89d20$0f75c8cb@such> comment from sept 21 new york times... "Failing to create strong governments at home, India and Pakistan have resorted to searching for security by stoking ethnic discord across each other's borders. That is the South Asian way: If you can't be strong at home, at least make trouble for your neighbors. Pakistan has aided the Sikh and Muslim rebellions in India. India helped the bengalis turn East Pakistan into Bangladesh..." anyone have any comments? -- suchita -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010920/421d1cdc/attachment.html From inke at snafu.de Sat Sep 22 19:14:24 2001 From: inke at snafu.de (Inke Arns) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 15:44:24 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] CNN says Reuters footage is "authentic" Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20010922154424.0090a340@pop.snafu.de> [Still haven't checked the Reuters or the CNN websites for information, just cleaning up my mailbox after a three-week lecture trip through India ... Greetings from Berlin, Inke] Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:27:03 +0200 To: Arpad.Ajtony at printemps.uvsq.fr From: iput at c3.hu (St.Auby Tamas) (CNN asks that you copy and e-mail this statement to whomever asks about it.) There is absolutely no truth to the information that is now distributed on the Internet that CNN used 10-year-old video when showing the celebrating of some Palestinians in East Jerusalem after the terror attacks in the U.S. The video was shot that day by a Reuters camera crew. CNN is a client of Reuters and like other clients, received the video and broadcast it. Reuters officials have publicly made the facts clear as well. The allegation is false. The source of the allegation has withdrawn it and apologized. It was started by a Brazilian student who now says he immediately posted a correction once he knew the information was not true. This is the statement by his university -- UNICAMP -- Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil. Again, please read this -- and copy it -- and send it to anyone you know who may have the false information. Thank you. OFFICIAL STATEMENT by Universidad de Campinas-Brasil 17/09/01 UNICAMP (Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil) would like to announce that it has no knowledge of a videotape from 1991, whose images supposedly aired on CNN showing Palestinians celebrating the terrorist attacks in the U.S. The tape was supposedly from 1991, and there were rumors that the images were passed off as current. This information was later denied, as soon as it proved false, by Márcio A. V. Carvalho, a student at UNICAMP. He approached the administration today, 17.09.2001, to clarify the following: -- the information he got, verbally, was that a professor from another institution (not from UNICAMP) had the tape; -- he sent the information to a discussion group e-mail list; -- many people from this list were interested in the subject and requested more details; -- he again contacted the person who first gave him the information and the person denied having the tape; -- the student immediately sent out a note clarifying what happened to the people from his e-mail list. The original message, however, was distributed all over the world, often with many distortions, including a falsified by-line article from the student. He affirms that a hacker attacked his domain. Several E-mails have been sent on his behalf and those dating from 15.09.2001 should be ignored. Among the distortions is the fact that UNICAMP would be analyzing the tape, which is absolutely false. The administration considers this alert definitive and will be careful to avoid new rumors. * - http://www.v2.nl/~arns/ From aiindex at mnet.fr Sun Sep 23 22:56:04 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:26:04 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Call for Papers **Electronic Publishing** Message-ID: Call for Papers **Electronic Publishing** The editors of Academic.Writing, CCC online, Enculturation, Kairos, and The Writing Instructor seek submissions for a special multi-journal issue on "Electronic Publishing." Projects may address but are not limited to these possible topics: Academic.Writing, "Literacy, assessment, disciplinarity " * Web sites in Rhetoric and Composition and their relationship to disciplinarity. * Post-print literacies and assessment. * Journal websites as advertising for print. * Electronic publishing and virtual/visual rhetorics/literacies. CCC-online, "Tenure and promotion" * The value of electronic publications in terms of the job market, tenure, merit pay, etc. * The value of editing e-journals for the above. * Ethos and electronic publishing. * The relationship between e-journals and academic presses and their role in tenure and promotion. Enculturation, "Hypertext and academic criticism" * Have we exhausted the academic possibilities of hypertext? * Are hypertext and academic discourse incompatible? "Where are the (critical) hypertexts?" * How (via what criteria) should we assess and/or edit (such) an electronic text? * What role should journals play in the transition from page to screen? Only traditional editing? Strictly purveyors of form and presentation? Kairos, "Archiving and historicity" * Histories of electronic publishing in the discipline (journals and web sites). * Issues of collaboration in writing/editing for the web. * Libraries, archives, databases and electronic publishing. Writing Instructor, "Viability and institutionality" * The Pros, Cons, Challenges, and Opportunities of Going Digital. * Relationships among Journals, Departments, and Universities. * Legal and Economic Issues of Electronic Publication. * The Politics of Reaching across Disciplinary and Digital Boundaries. IN ADDITION to academic writing, we are interested in narratives or editorials regarding positive or negative experiences with review committees or editorial boards; musings about the impact of the Internet on print journals or thoughts for future engagements; multi-media projects; reviews of relevant web sites/projects; reviews of e-journals. All submissions DUE by November 15, 2000. Please send submissions to: bhawk at gmu.edu, or Byron Hawk c/o Enculturation George Mason University English Department (MSN 3E4) 4400 University Drive Fairfax, VA 22030 From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Mon Sep 24 10:02:15 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 21:32:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Bertrand Russell on war in the future (1952) In-Reply-To: <200109240153.VAA01079@bbs.thing.net> Message-ID: <20010924043215.38581.qmail@web14610.mail.yahoo.com> From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Mon Sep 24 10:36:19 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 22:06:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Stratfor on civil liberties tensions in US following Sep 11 Message-ID: <20010924050619.77176.qmail@web14608.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.stratfor.com/home/0109212300.htm U.S. Measures May Incite Domestic Terror 2300 GMT, 010921 Summary In the wake of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the U.S. government is moving quickly to create a new Cabinet-level agency for homeland defense and ease restrictions on law enforcement agencies. But while these measures may prove effective against foreign attacks, they may also lead to increased domestic terrorism. Analysis In a televised State of the Union address Sept. 20, U.S. President George W. Bush announced the creation of a new Cabinet-level agency designed to "lead, oversee and coordinate" a national strategy to guard the United States against terrorism. Congress meanwhile is considering new laws to ease restrictions on wiretapping and eavesdropping. These new measures may be necessary components to protect the United States from further attacks by foreign terrorists. But they will also likely fuel the fears and anger of domestic groups such as the Michigan Militia or the North American Volunteer Militia. In time, as the U.S. security apparatus looks for threats coming from outside the country, the United States may again face attacks from within. More than 800 militia-style groups existed at the peak of the anti-government movement in the mid-1990s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The number has decreased dramatically in the past five years, thanks to a combination of a strong economy and heavy pressure from law enforcement agencies in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. The SPLC now identifies only 194 "Patriot" groups that were active in 2000. Generally Patriot groups define themselves as opposed to the "New World Order" or advocate extreme anti-government doctrines, fearing the growth of government bureaucracies and intrusion upon civil liberties. Such groups are likely to enjoy a resurgence in interest, membership and activities as the government adopts more stringent security measures. U.S. lawmakers historically have been very cautious about tipping the balance between law enforcement and civil liberties. It took Congress nearly a year to pass former U.S. President Bill Clinton's anti-terrorism bill after the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa. In the weeks before the recent terror attacks, privacy advocates hailed a major victory when a San Diego judge banned the use of automatic cameras to catch cars driving through red lights. But the attacks in New York and Washington have dramatically altered much of the nation's thinking, as many Americans are beginning to place a greater value on security. This shift is reflected in the federal government. The newly announced Office of Homeland Security, to be headed by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, is aimed at knitting together counter terrorism functions now scattered across more than 40 federal agencies, including the FBI, CIA, National Guard and local police and firefighting forces. It will focus not only on preventing terrorist attacks but also on fortifying potential targets by developing plans to protect the nation's transportation, power and food systems, according to officials cited by the Associated Press. The "Mobilization Against Terrorism Act" still under consideration in Congress would rewrite laws dealing with wiretapping, eavesdropping and immigration. Included in the bill are provisions to ease the restrictions the FBI faces on installing its Carnivore Internet-surveillance system as well as streamlining procedures to obtaining voicemail recordings. Further provisions include eliminating the statue of limitations for terrorism-related crimes and allowing federal authorities to detain without a court order non-U.S. citizens suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. Also under consideration is a modification to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for prosecutors in certain highly sensitive cases to look through the records of a business, credit card company or Internet provider. Fewer restrictions on law enforcement agents and the creation of a new federal office may be necessary steps to protect the United States from foreign terrorists. But powerful bureaucracies and narrowed civil liberties are exactly the sort of triggers that set off militia groups. We are likely to see a resurgence of militia group activity just at the time that law enforcement agencies are retasking themselves to counter foreign threats. Even if law enforcement agents continue to infiltrate militia groups, it is much more difficult to monitor and prevent activity from individuals. As militia ranks fill, it is not unlikely to expect some of them to resort to the same kind of armed activity as Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski did in the past. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Sep 24 11:17:52 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:17:52 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Perceptions on the street. Message-ID: Yesterday an `autoriskshaw` driver talking about the recent events made two comments. "Bandook, gola, barud aur paise to siyasat ke haath mein hi hote hai...ise baand karo to mahaul doosra ho" and " Aise mahaul mein samajh nahin aata paise kharch kare ya jamaye..bara mushkil ho jata hai" [ Translation: "Guns, bombs and money are in the hands of the rulers... only if these are taken away, will things change" and "Under the circumstances one does not know whether to consume or save for the future...it becomes difficult" ] Television commentators have picked up a new jargon of `global network of terrorism with cells in different locations` (as if it was otherwise before!). It will be interesting to map the global network (and pathways) of armaments that runs parallel to this other network. If people on reader-list could recount their conversations on the streets it may provide us an interesting entry point into the present situation. On a different note I am enclosing an article that points to an interesting dimension of `globalisation`. Chinese Working Overtime to Sew U.S. Flags By John Pomfret Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, September 20, 2001; Page A14\ SHANGHAI -- As America wraps its wounds in red, white and blue, flag factories in China are running nonstop to feed the overwhelming demand in the United States for the Stars and Stripes. At the Shanghai Mei Li Hua Flags Co., office director Wu Guomin has received orders for more than 500,000 flags from customers in the United States in the week since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. "I guess because we make so many of these things you could say we feel a little closer to the situation there," Wu said as he fingered an American flag. "We're working day and night." The Jin Teng Flag Co. in neighboring Zhejiang province reported orders of 600,000. "It's crazy and very, very sad," said Jin Teng, the factory owner. "Everyone is on overtime trying to satisfy demand." Jin and Wu said that even with China's National Day fast approaching on Oct. 1, they have stopped making Chinese flags so that they can fill U.S. orders. "We've been presented with an opportunity to make a lot more money than we usually do making these flags," said Wu, whose factory sells medium-size flags to U.S. distributors for about $1 apiece. "But we won't take it. We really didn't want to make too much of a profit on other people's sadness." At the Shanghai plant, Fei Xiaohua, a laborer, was sewing a 6-by-9-foot flag. "This is my 50th so far today," she said, her fingers working nimbly. "Sometimes I don't like this job. But this time, what I'm doing seems worth it." It is unclear what percentage of U.S. flags are made in China, but as with all textiles, the numbers have boomed in recent years. China produces more shoes and clothes for the U.S. market than any other country. In a few years, China will become the biggest producer of computer parts for the U.S. market as well. The flag business illustrates the increasingly close trade ties between China and the United States, valued last year at more than $100 billion. Those ties are expected to expand with China's imminent accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). China moved a giant step forward toward that goal last weekend when the organization generally agreed on its conditions for entry. "WTO should provide a great opportunity for us," said Wu, a suave 44-year-old manager. "Right now, no one around the world can really compete with us flag makers. We have good machines and rock-bottom labor costs." Wu and Jin said they hoped Americans would not mind that Chinese were making their flags. The manufacture of such patriotic symbols has caused trouble in the past. Following the April 1 collision of a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane and a Chinese jet fighter off China's southern coast, the Pentagon canceled contracts to outfit Army soldiers with a "Made in China" black beret. China, too, has used trade as a lever in relations with Washington, expressing occasional discontent with U.S. policies by cozying up to Europe's Airbus Industries instead of Boeing Co. But this time, in the days following the disaster, as the global airline market crashed, China repeated its commitment to buy 30 Boeing 737s, making it one of the world's bright spots for aviation firms. "We are living in a really global world right now," said Wu. "It's natural that China manufactures simple things for the whole world. We have a manufacturing economy." But Sun Zhenyu, a top trade official, warned today that China's export growth, a key element in China's economy, will likely face a serious threat for the remainder of the year, according to the official New China News Agency. Already, Chinese travel agents are reporting hundreds of cancellations. "The U.S. economy is already bad, surely this will affect the global economy, including China," Sun said. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010924/88dcb917/attachment.html From medias at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in Sat Sep 22 23:19:07 2001 From: medias at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in (Shikha Jhingan) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 23:19:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: What is to be done? Message-ID: <4.3.0.20010922231701.00a8d910@127.0.0.1> >Below is my attempt to come to some understanding in the current >context. I wrote the following for the world-system listserve. It is >about three paragraphs long. Thought it might interest you. >Krishnendu Ray >**************************************************************************** >Hello world-system folks. > >A legitimate question has been raised about the connection between >current events and world-system analysis, which I think needs a >better >response than 'we are ex-Marxists, what else would you expect!' > >In the first instance we are talking so much about the attack on the >WTC because many on this list live in the US. It may have nothing to >do with any particular theoretical perspective. Second, talking >about >it on this list provides some therapeutic outlet for the shock and >sorrow while avoiding the excessive flag waiving that surrounds us. >It >would be disingenuous to give a bigger reason than that. The shape of >this list mirrors the shape of the world-economy. > >Nevertheless, the question about the connection persists. And I >think >world-system analysis is often weak at making the connections >between >current politics, the medium term, and long-term analysis. A case in >point is Wallerstein's recent piece on the WTC incidents. I think, >it >is mostly generic, and what it says is 'as I have said repeatedly >this >is one more sign of the coming transition.' Well and good. Sometimes >such statements can even be prophetic but there is a difference >between prophecy and analysis. It does not enable us to connect our >current position to the larger perspective, hence most commentators >on >this list have resorted to listing US misdeeds in the past. That is >a >good corrective but inadequate analysis. > >In contrast I would argue that our political position should be a >three-pronged one. First, in the immediate context it is ok to argue >for a military/police offensive against the perpetrators on the >basis >of reasonable evidence (effectively the Chinese position). That is >the >basis on which the US in fact has re-invigorated its current >hegemony, >even Cuba, Libya, China and Russia have joined in support. Hegemony >entails some elements of real leadership. > > Second, the above position has to be linked to two medium-term >projects: (a) no invasion of Afghanistan (for reasons of US >self-interest and the interest of the long-suffering people of >Afghanistan) and (b) US ultimatum to Israel to negotiate in good >faith >with the PLO, or else face the withdrawal of US military and >financial >support. This is the political occasion to pursue the medium-term >project of either prying open the US-Israel axis or making it >politically difficult to justify it to the American public. (An >invasion of Afghanistan will really be the terminal phase of US >hegemony). > >Third, this is also the occasion to establish the connection between >the violence of terrorism and the silent violence of >underdevelopment >in the modern world system. Each of these levels connects and >justifies the other. That is how I think world-system analysis >connects to the current events. It clarifies our perspective and >allows for certain kinds of solutions while disallowing others. > >Thank you for listening. >Krishnendu Ray From fmadre at wanadoo.fr Mon Sep 24 13:35:14 2001 From: fmadre at wanadoo.fr (Frederic Madre) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:05:14 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Perceptions on the street. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4.2.2.20010924094917.0205a778@pop.wanadoo.fr> At 11:17 24/09/2001 +0530, Jeebesh Bagchi wrote: >If people on reader-list could recount their conversations on the streets the day after the blow I went to the haidresser's. since the last time I went the shop owner had replaced playing the local student radio station with two tv sets and was showing the news. I don't know how many times I saw the planes crash into the towers over my hair being cut. anyway, when I went to the counter to pay the commentators voice said "the most powerful country in the world", the hairdresser put his hand over his smiling mouth and said "they got their ass properly kicked, the most powerful country in the world!". I smiled back. one of the state tv stations has a special show where people are able to complain about biased treatment of the news during the week. yesterday it was, again, about the blow. it opened right away with a bloke in his 40s who was saying that when he heard of the news (although he was sad about the victims) he was overtly glad that this had happened. Then he went on explaining that unfortunately he was unable to be present (with other people) during the minutes of silence, otherwise he would have interrupted. still he did not get out of his way to demonstrate and make a noise. he was complaining that the tv news never showed anybody like him and that lots of people he knew were much more agressive than he was towards america, it was a shame tv did not express their opinions. a friend who is a high school teacher of economics said that it was near impossible to get the 15 year olds to respect the silence order. f. From aiindex at mnet.fr Mon Sep 24 15:33:59 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:03:59 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] London (UK)- a first hand report of the 3,000 strong anti-war meeting on Friday. Message-ID: Dear Friends, here is report that might interest some of you best Harsh Kapoor ---------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: hilary wainwright Sent: September 22, 2001 1:44 PM Subject: They do occasionally organise good meetings in London - a first hand report of the 3,000 strong anti-war meeting on Friday. My friend Jane Shallice was so inspired by this first major peace and justice meeting that she woke up at five to write these notes. I thought i'd share the inspiration with some firends in the great cities of the North - and in the rest of the world! love Hilary Last night I attended the meeting called at the instigation of the Socialist Alliance to protest and organise against the war. There were in the end about 2500 - 3000 people stuffed into the large hall at Friend's Meeting House and swarming into other overflow meetings and crowded into the gardens outside. The speakers therefore were on a carousel of speeches. A truly brilliant turnout. Bruce Kent spoke first, as he said he is usually described as being a 'veteran peace campaigner'; and the words that he spoke were immensely sombre. "I have a sense of dread in my heart ..I have a horrible feeling that the momentum that is developing is aimed at ending all states who sponsor terrorism." He argued that there must not be retribution in our name. There has to be the recognition of the International Criminal Court, a need for institutions of global justice, not the international institutions of capital, like the World Bank and the IMF. There should be security improved but not at the expense of others security. His greatest fear in the present situation was that nuclear weapons are central to this conflict. Will Self, who was present had been asked to speak, and he said that he was no political activist, it is only the opposition to war that got him to meetings. He was concerned that we must be talking and arguing about the need for justice and not war, explaining that in talking to a woman he knew through his children, she had said that she was most terrified that her children would be killed in the horrifying way that she had witnessed on Sept 11th. She was thoughtful and when he replied that for him he was most frightened that such terrible deaths would be what huge numbers of children on the other side of the planet would experience. The movement for peace had to be non-partisan, and had to be clear in its campaign that there was a separation of responsibility between the American people and the American government. (Huge applause). The next speaker was Helen John, the vice chair of CND and a woman who since 1994 had been campaigning against Star Wars at Menwith Hill. For her this would not be war but indiscriminate murder. The whole operations taking place would be coordinated by the American Space Command which depended on Fylingdales and Menwith as well as other British locations of US military bases. The response to the Afghanistan situation ought to be flying in aid and relief. Admiral Carroll, an American peace campaigner had visited Britain last year and talking about the dangers, which we are facing with the developments around Star Wars, and he called for more Greenham Commons. Clearly she thinks that this is central to any activity. Liz Davies, the woman who had been a member of Labour's NEC, and who resigned from the party earlier this year and spoke for Socialist Alliance, made a really excellent speech. She laid out clearly the reasons why we had to build a huge opposition to the Bush / Blair war. One of the points that she made about the effects of terror was that when you looked at the effects of bombings and the destruction of popular regimes there was a case for indicting Kissinger. The hijackers purpose could be a desire to provoke a counter attack, wanting to polarise the world. The response of the Americans would accomplish this precisely. When talking about the way that the events of September 11th had affected cultural events, sports, financial operations and all activities, there was one event that was completely untouched by it, the International Arms Fair went ahead - the one group of people who would be making profits from the violence. It was these companies that when the whole of the stock market was on the slide their shares were rising, and it was such companies that when she had argued on the NEC that the party ought to not invest in them, and should be looking to ethical investment, was sharply informed that there would be no such policy. The voices of the grief stricken relations who were urging others not to create their anguish and loss in other people who were innocent of all crimes, had to be heard. She ended in saying that in the name of democracy we would be seeing the curtailing of democracy, and in the name of stopping terror, our states would become terrorist states. This opposition to the war was the greatest challenge for the left and the peace movement. (This is really truncated because she spoke so well I was quite transfixed but I will try to get a copy - one thing she argued was that there had to be acceptance by the Americans of the International Criminal Court, which they currently could not do as they were harbouring Kissinger! Let me know if you want a copy.) Jeremy Corbyn, an exemplary socialist and still one of the few MPs to speak for us, started by looking at the British press, one of the least informative with little intention to debate or to provide alternative views of governments and their actions. It was a press that whilst pretending to be repelled by it, had a style of reporting that was xenophobic and racist. Clearly 'deeply troubled' by Bush, who he thought to be 'deeply dangerous', and who would say that this is not the work of Islam, whilst using the word 'crusade', with all the connotations that it held. He then talked about the way that when America had supported and created the extremist groups and leaders and the record of this over the last thirty or forty years. He said Kristy Wark had bravely suggested on the evening of Sept 11th , that what goes around comes around. When you have created such people and funded them, they might just turn against you. In looking at the causes of this attack, without doubt one of the issues was the fifty years that Palestinians had been living in camps, waiting for their return. Whatever one thinks of Iraq, it has not been helped by 10 years of bombing. The Vietnamese had fought and eventually won - at great cost to their own people but aided by the worldwide opposition to the US. This we need to build today. He said that a quarter of the world population is living on less than a dollar a day (restated by a World Bank spokesman said last week), and he ended by saying that "the world could be different, it could be fairer, it could be more just". George Monbiot talked about the way that dissent is now becoming more difficult when dissent is more and more crucial. When the globalisation movements were beginning to form, dependent on civil liberties which we had gained, we were now seeing them being restricted. He called for an end to sanctions, for the end to the support for despotic regimes and for the end to the dirty wars such as those in Colombia. John Rees, an SWP member and the editor of one of their theoretical journals, talked about the horror that all felt when witnessing the events of the 11th September. But then argued that the cost of the Stealth Bomber is $2.3B, and these were being commissioned by a state that was unable to afford a decent health service for its people. The $40B being allocated for this enterprise would fund decent health, education and transport. Speaking of Blunkett here, on a day when they were tightening the laws on asylum seekers they were threatening to go to war in Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world and one which produced huge numbers of people seeking desperately a safer place to live. He made the point that when South Africa was the state, which formed and practices apartheid, a deeply racist and oppressive regime, there had never been any suggestion that the sate should be overthrown by mass bombing. Tariq Ali was the last speaker and he certainly rose to the importance of this situation. Clear, confident, drawing out the ironies, counter posing the apparently obvious with its shocking reality, he spoke brilliantly. He opened talking about the grotesque simplification of the slogan, "You are either with us or you are for terrorism". Having seen the withdrawal of the British in 1947, we are in a time when we see their return. With all this rhetoric of war to defend civilisation he recalled Gandhi1s reply when asked what he thought of Western civilisation, "It would be a good idea". This whole project is one of recolonising the world, with the globalised strategic forces. He then spent some time asking why Blair had joined the Labour Party at all, being a man who came to life only when there was a war, offering hope and sustenance. Why hadn1t he joined the army and could have become a chaplain and gone with the troops to all the wars and been able to offer sympathy and support and unctuous words all the time. However he believed that the US was now intent on revenge and blood lust, wanting to settle many accounts. "If they topple the Taliban, I for one shall not be crippled by remorse", but the way to remove them is by supporting the people of Afghanistan to do the thing themselves. It is worth recounting the ironies of history, who created the religious boarding schools which trained the Taliban? America, Saudi Arabia and the Pakistani military regimes. It was these forces that armed the mujahadeen and urged them into Afghanistan to fight the jihad to get rid of the Russians. Bin Laden himself was trained by the CIA and sent off to Afghanistan. The Pakistanis had asked Saudi Arabia to send a Saudi prince to lead the jihad, "clearly there were few volunteers", but they found Bin Laden. It was he who fought the war and wiped out all the secular forces within Afghanistan, the last leader being Najeeb Ullah, who was slaughtered and publicly disembowelled in a most horrific manner. The western leaders stood around and did not open their mouths. It is important to recall that they did not find any of these regimes offensive - until last week. But at times like these the important thing is to ensure that people are told the truth. The history that they are being given is at best partial and at worst false. If we take the west at their word - that they need to destroy regimes that give succour and support to these groups - then they should be looking to act against Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But they do not want to embarrass their friends who guard their oil. The world of Islam is not different; it has experienced all the heat and flames of the twentieth century. We have only to look at Iraq and Indonesia. Indonesia with the largest communist party outside the communist world which was completely wiped out in the sixties with American instigation and support. In Iraq, the US backed Baathist regime wiped out the CP and the hugely well organised oil workers. Who was installed to accomplish this? Sadam Hussein. Any movement against the war must also call for the end of the 11 years of bombing and sanctions against Iraq. A war which has now gone on longer that the Vietnam War. But also there has to be a political solution for the Palestinian people. He finished by reading a poem by Nizar Kabani, a Syrian poet who had died during the first intifada. It was a most powerful and brilliant speech. I therefore got up at about 5am having to write up the scraps of notes and get them out -- From menso at r4k.net Mon Sep 24 20:57:25 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:27:25 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Bertrand Russell on war in the future (1952) In-Reply-To: <20010924043215.38581.qmail@web14610.mail.yahoo.com>; from rana_dasgupta@yahoo.com on Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 09:32:15PM -0700 References: <200109240153.VAA01079@bbs.thing.net> <20010924043215.38581.qmail@web14610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20010924172725.B12357@r4k.net> On Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 09:32:15PM -0700, Rana Dasgupta wrote: > But if human life *is* to continue in spite of > science, mankind will have to learn a discipline of > the passions which, in the past, has not been > necessary. Men will have to submit to the law, even > when they think the law unjust and iniquitous. This, to me, seems to be a bit too simplistic. It states that humans, if they wish to live, must accept anything that is brought upon them by others, be it their neighbour or the government or whoever. It reminds me of the Tinkers that show up in the Wheel Of Time book series, they accept all violence done to them without responding in the same way. It is noble, it is also a great way to see those you care about decrease in numbers rapidly in case the proverbial cow dung hits the fan. It is easy to be said yet hard or impossible to do. People will fight against what they find unjust if it is near enough to them and they have the power to do so, especially if things are not changing or not likely to change. Let us not forget, that war is never fought over injustice done, it is fought because either money can be made or in the current situation money that could have been made, is lost. The Gulf War is quite a good example of this. ("They're messing with *our* oil!") Nobody did anything to help settle the war in former Yugoslavia because there was no money to be made there, even the Taleban could do whatever they wanted since they didn't have anything we wanted and can still get away with it as long as they deliver Bin Laden. > Nations which are persuaded that they are only > demanding the barest justice will have to acquiesce > when this demand is denied the by the neutral > authority. I do not say that this is easy; I do not > prophesy that it will happen; I say only that if it > does not happen the human race will perish , and will > perish as a result of science. > > A clear choice must be made within fifty years, the > choice between Reason and Death. And by 'Reason' I > mean willingness to submit to law as declared by an > international authority. I fear that mankind may > choose Death. I hope I am mistaken. The past has proven that, as I already stated, the world doesn't do anything unless there is a profit to be made. I think there are already organisations that should make sure that no human rights are being broken, yet it is happening, continuously, and nobody is doing anything about it because it doesn't get us any money. Thus this international organisation should suddenly change all this? Being led by countries that are being despised by others? Being led by countries that have already shown that they don't care about what's happening as long as it's not happening to them or the promise of a profit to be made is not in sight? The real problem is, always has been, always will be, the lust for power over others. Money has proved to be a great tool for gaining this power and by excercising it one can achieve even more money and thus more power! More! More! MOOOOREEEEEEE!!!!* Now you be a good little taxpayer Rana, and don't you worry too much son: `make no mistake about it, your armed forces are ready.' Unjustice, ha! Go hug a tree, hippie! Menso * Naturally, the cry for more is followed by the counter-question "And then what?" What follows is the answer to that question, it can be compiled in any BASIC compiler (most brains should be sufficient enough for this too :) 10 PRINT "EVEN MOOOOOREEEEEE !!!" 20 PRINT "And then what?" 30 GOTO 10 -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From Greg.Wise at asu.edu Mon Sep 24 23:42:28 2001 From: Greg.Wise at asu.edu (Greg Wise) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:12:28 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] Syllabi on culture and technology Message-ID: I'm trying to contact anyone in India currently teaching (or who has recently taught) courses on culture and technology, cultural studies of technology, or technoculture. The reason I ask is that I'm collecting international syllabi as a means to assess how issues of culture, technology, and power get configured in pedagogical settings in different cultural contexts. In particular I'm curious as to what works get assigned. Please respond off list, if you are interested in contacting me. J. Macgregor Wise Communication Studies Department College of Human Services Arizona State University West PO Box 37100 Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100 gregwise at asu.edu From aiindex at mnet.fr Tue Sep 25 05:55:32 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 01:25:32 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] More on Tahmineh Milani (2) Message-ID: (Middle East Report 219, Summer 2001) Iranian Cinema Art, Society and the State Ziba Mir-Hosseini (Ziba Mir-Hosseini, a freelance anthropologist, researcher and filmmaker, is a research associate at the Centre for Near and Middle Eastern Studies, SOAS, in London.) Still from Rakhshan Bani-EtemadiÕs Lady of May. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Following the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the inauguration of the Islamic Republic, many predicted that new restrictions would kill off Iran's cinema. But Iranian film has survived, undergoing remarkable transformations in parallel with the wider changes in Iranian culture and society. Today, Iranian cinema is recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting in the world, and films from Iranian directors are being screened to increasing acclaim at international festivals. The key to resolving the apparent contradiction between Iran's repressive image and the renaissance of Iranian cinema is to understand the relationship that developed between art, society and the state after the Islamic revolution. The popular nature of the revolution, and the factionalism within the Islamic Republic, gave the public and artists an opportunity to engage the state in extended processes of negotiation, protest, cooperation and defiance. Contrary to prevalent views, the principal contenders do not fall neatly into opposing camps, with the state on the one side and artistic community on the other.(1) Rather, most filmmakers, helped by liberal segments of the government, have exploited divisions in the regime to confront the cultural conservatives and the segment of the state apparatus under their control. Women and romantic love -- time-honored themes of Iranian film -- became the main focus of this confrontation. Soon after the revolution, women and love were forced into the strait jacket of strict interpretations of feqh (Islamic jurisprudence), which allowed little room for social realities like feelings between boys and girls. With the imposition of hejab (the Islamic dress code) and sexual segregation, the public presence of women and the expression of romantic love became highly restricted. For a decade, Iranian filmgoers could hardly see women and love depicted on screen. The subsequent story of Iranian cinema parallels other post-revolutionary developments in Iranian society: a constant stretching of the limits imposed by feqh-based ideology. Art of Ambiguity Before the 1979 revolution, the clerics in Iran rejected cinema, or at best ignored it. Films were among the forms of art considered forbidden (haram), and for many pious families going to the cinema was tantamount to committing a sin. The main reason for this was that cinematic representations of women and love upset the delicate dualism which had long attended these topics in Iranian culture. Love has always been the main theme in Persian poetry, but it is seldom clear whether the writer is talking about divine or earthly love, or (given the absence of grammatical gender in Persian) whether the "beloved" is male or female. Both the Persian language and the poetic form have allowed writers to maintain and even work with these ambiguities. The art of ambiguity (iham), perfected in the work of classical poets such as Hafez, has spoken to generations of Iranians, including the present one. But such ambiguity cannot be sustained in the performative and graphic arts, where both the language and the form demand greater transparency and directness in the depiction of women and love. Among the traditional solutions adopted for this problem were the complete elimination of women, as in ta'ziyeh, the religious passion plays, where women's roles have always been played by men,(2) or idealized and unrealistic representations, such as the "neuter" figures depicted in paintings of the early Qajar period, which were embodiments of how the "beloved" was described in classical poetry.(3) By the late nineteenth century, with the advent of photography, the representation of women had become more realistic. The drive for "modernization" under Reza Shah, and the corresponding takeoff of cinema as public entertainment in Iran, reinforced this tendency. Not only had Iranian women's public roles and status changed, but women and love stories were integral to the film industry from the start.(4) The nascent Islamic Republic was thus faced with a dilemma. Aware of cinema's power, the Islamic authorities could neither reject nor ignore the medium as the clerics had done before. On the other hand, feqh had nothing to say about film, apart from imposing its rules of halal and haram on cinematic images and themes. Khomeini's regime made a concerted attempt to bring cinema under the domination of state ideology and subject it to a process of Islamization. But the Islamization process has failed, as filmmakers, like other artists, have gradually managed to free their art from feqh injunctions and state ideology. Trying to Islamize Art ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Still from Rakhshan Bani-EtemadiÕs Nargess. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The three phases of the relationship between cinema and the state correspond to socio-political phases of the Islamic Republic. The first phase, now referred to as the First Republic, lasted for a decade, beginning with the creation of the Islamic state. "Liberals" and "moderates" confronted "radicals" and "militants"; the latter, supported by Ayatollah Khomeini, won the struggle to control the post-revolutionary state, and excluded the former from power. This first phase, dominated by the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), saw the ascendance and almost undisputed power of feqh-based Islam and the suppression of reformist and modernist visions of Islam. Attempting to bring culture and art under its control, the regime created the Committee for Cultural Revolution.(5) The Ministry of Culture and Art became the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG), with a mandate to Islamize all kinds of art and cultural activities. Through its various organizations, the regime promoted the creation of a distinctively Islamic cinema in the early 1980s. In those years no quality film was produced, (6)and women and love were almost totally absent from the screen, though women were present behind the camera, even working as directors.(7) In the absence of women, love and human emotions could be channeled through children, so stories based on children dominated the screen.(8) In the mid-1980s, the grip of feqh-based ideology gradually loosened, and a period of qualitative growth started. Iranian cinema started to attract international attention once again. Toward the end of the first phase, Islamic intellectuals and artists such as Abdolkarim Soroush and Mohsen Makhmalbaf -- disillusioned with the policies of the Islamic Republic -- began to voice objections to the regime's feqh-based Islam. There are parallels between the emergent "new religious thinking" of Soroush and the new cinema associated with Makhmalbaf. For Soroush, religion is "bigger than ideology." (9) For Makhmalbaf, the same is true of art: art can free an artist and it cannot be contained in a strait jacket of ideology.(10) New Round of Factionalism The end of the war with Iraq in 1988 and Ayatollah Khomeini's death in 1989 brought about a shift in the power structure. With Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i as Supreme Leader and Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani as president, a new phase started, referred to as "reconstruction" and marked by an increased tension between the different visions of Islam and between the two ruling factions within the Islamic Republic: the so-called "rightists" and "leftists." The strategic alliance of "radicals" and "militants" within each of these two factions now started to break down. The leftists, who had dominated under Khomeini, now gradually lost their ministers from government, their parliamentary representatives and their influence in the judiciary. This new round of factionalism focused on art and culture. The notion of "cultural revolution" gave way to that of "cultural invasion," which became the right's ideological tool for discrediting and eliminating the "enemy within" -- their leftist opponents. These included some of the early militants and radicals, who were gradually breaking away from absolutist ideologies, and were developing a more moderate and liberal outlook. This group was later joined by some of the "moderates" and "liberals" (now referred to as "religious nationalists," melli-mazhabi) and secularists (the "different thinkers," digar-andishan) whom the radicals had overcome in the early years of the revolution. Together they became the backbone of the reformist movement that emerged in 1997. The rightist faction concentrated its attacks on the MCIG. Mohammad Khatami, the minister since 1982, had laid the foundation for the growth of a domestic cinema and an independent press as part of his general contribution to the development of open cultural policies.(11) The Farabi Cinema Foundation, a semi-governmental organization, put a partial ban on the import of foreign films and provided financial support for filmmakers. At first Rafsanjani sided with Khatami, but since cultural development was not among his priorities, he abandoned him and Khatami had to resign in 1992. By then the rightist faction enjoyed the support of the Leader, and its hold on power was almost complete. This meant the end of the open cultural policies of the late 1980s, and a renewed attempt by the rightists -- dominated by conservative clerics -- to impose their vision of feqh-based Islam on cultural and artistic production. Cinema as Social Critique ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Iranian film director Tahmineh Milani in Tehran. (Mohammad Sayyad/AP Photo) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ But it was too late. The old taboo topics of women and love had already come out of the shadows. Mohsen Makhmalbaf's film A Time to Love (1991) marked the beginning of a new approach. It dealt with the forbidden subject of a love triangle (one woman, two men), and the relativity of human conditions and judgments. A Time to Love was shocking, not only because it revealed a change of position by a filmmaker committed to Islam, but also because he chose such a sensitive storyline -- a tale of romantic love -- to convey his message. Shot in Turkey, the film was shown in Iran only at the Fajr Festival, not in public cinemas, though it was passionately debated in the press for some time. During this phase, women film directors broke away from the male vision and started to produce films dealing clearly with female characters and love. Notable among them is Nargess by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (1992), another love triangle story (two women and one man), which won the main 1992 Fajr Festival award.(12) In the absence of a free press, cinema came to provide a kind of social critique. Its favorable critical reception meant that it also reached outside audiences, putting it in a unique position as the alternative face of Iran to the world. The conservative policies of the rightist faction, which now controlled the MCIG, politicized the filmmakers. During the 1997 presidential election, for the first time filmmakers made their implicit political tendencies explicit. Almost the entire cinematic community came out in support of Mohammad Khatami. His campaign commercial was produced by filmmaker Seifollah Dad, and a number of other filmmakers spoke in support of his candidacy. Medium for Reconciliation With Khatami's unexpected election, the MCIG was freed from the control of those (now called "conservatives") who still adhere to a feqh-based definition of social reality, and came under the control of "reformists" who advocate more tolerant cultural polices. This new phase -- a "Third Republic" -- has brought a breakthrough for Iranian film, with women and love publicly rehabilitated in releases like Tahmineh Milani's Two Women (1998) or Bani-Etemad's Lady of May (1998). One feature of this phase is the emergence of younger voices demanding personal freedom and questioning the whole notion of feqh-based gender relations. These voices are heard in films that deal openly and critically with gender roles and have love as their main theme. Meanwhile, international acclaim for Iranian cinema in the 1990s has helped the Iranian diaspora to renegotiate their relationships with the land they left. For many Iranians living abroad, film was the only thing coming from Iran of which they were not ashamed. This new phase is still unfolding, and it is too early to say anything definite about its direction.(13) What is certain is that the marriage between art and ideology has proved to be as problematic in Iran as that between religion and politics. Today Iran is in a transition from theocracy to democracy. The radical discourse dominant in the 1980s has been challenged by a more pluralistic one, which is forging a more tolerant political atmosphere. Cinema -- like other cultural and artistic products -- has come to play a central role in this transition. Not only does it continue to provide a new social critique, it has also become a medium for reconciliation between Iranians inside and outside the country. Endnotes 1 Sussan Siavoshi, "Cultural Policies and the Islamic Republic: Cinema and Book Publication," International Journal of Middle East Studies 29 (1997), p. 509. 2 Peter Chelkowski, ed., Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1979). 3 Afsaneh Najmabadi, "Reading for Gender through Qajar Paintings," in Layla Diba, ed., Royal Persian Paintings: The Qajar Epoch, 1785-1925 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999). 4 The first Iranian talkie, The Lur Girl (Ardeshir Irani, 1933), was a love story with a woman in the leading role. 5 The Committee's task was to Islamize universities, which basically meant purging teachers and students who did not conform to the state's ideology. In an interview, Abdolkarim Soroush has openly talked about the early activities of this committee, and the disputes and confusion in its ideology. The interview is posted at: http://www.seraj.org/far1.htm and http://www.seraj.org/cultural.htm. 6 Amir Naderi's The Runner was an isolated case. See Houshang Golmakani, "A History of the Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema," Chicago Film Center's 10th Annual Festival of Films from Iran (1999), http://www.webmemo.com/iran/articleview_2.cfm. 7 Hamid Naficy, "Veiled Vision/Powerful Presences: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema," in Mahnaz Afkhami and Erika Friedl, eds., In the Eye of Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994). 8 The best-known instances include Amir Naderi's The Runner (1984), Bahram Beyzai's Bashu: The Little Stranger (1985) and Abbas Kiarostami's Where Is the Friend's House (1987). 9 The title of one of his many books. See Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), ch. 7. 10 See Lloyd Ridgeon, Makhmalbaf's Broken Mirror: The Socio-Political Significance of Modern Iranian Cinema (Durham Middle East Paper No. 64, 2000); Hamid Dabashi, "Dead Certainties: The Early Makhmalbaf," in Richard Tapper, ed., The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity (London: I. B. Tauris, forthcoming). 11 For a discussion, see Siavoshi, pp. 516-19. 12 See Naficy, op cit., and Sheila Whitaker, "Rakhshan Bani-Etemad," in Rose Issa and Sheila Whitaker, eds., Life and Art: The New Iranian Cinema (London: National Film Theatre, 1999). 13 Hamid Naficy, "Islamicizing Film Culture in Iran -- A Post-Khatami Update," in Tapper, op cit. From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Tue Sep 25 10:12:43 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:42:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] "The law, however iniquitous": Pakistan & UNSC Message-ID: <20010925044243.48058.qmail@web14605.mail.yahoo.com> Menso was not particularly impressed by Bertrand Russell's recommendations of submitting to international law rather than using force. Article by a friend of mine in this week's Friday Times (Pakistan) (see http://www.thefridaytimes.com/ - Opinion section) gives some of the moral, political and pragmatic advantages for Pakistan in looking to international law rather than the US, Afghanistan or any internal factions in its decision-making. R Pakistan�s choices Nudrat B. Majeed says Pakistan should insist that it will only take action authorised by a UN Security Council resolution ------------------------------------------------------- The situation for Pakistan is becoming more alarming as the US faces domestic and international pressure to defend itself against last Tuesday�s attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. How Pakistan responds to the pressure from the US on the one hand, and prevents itself from being alienated from Afghanistan on the other, is crucial and could determine the country�s future in the short-term. This much is obvious: Pakistan has been forced into a corner. If it allows the US to deploy its troops on Pakistani soil and to use its airspace, it will suffer on three key grounds. Firstly, Afghanistan and its ruling Taliban government will treat Pakistan as an enemy not of Afghanistan but of Islam, for seeking to side with the US rather than its Islamic neighbour. Already the Taliban have made it clear that Pakistan will find itself in �extraordinary danger� if it gives in to the US demands. Secondly, the decision will fuel civil unrest within the country. The country is already battered by internal conflict and sectarianism. It cannot afford to be further torn apart by its own people, the majority of whom do not like the US and its policies. Such civil unrest combined with the existing precarious political situation could result in a crisis situation. Finally, and perhaps most crucially, Pakistan will lose its sovereignty in the long term if it accedes to Washington�s demands. On the pretext of �hunting down� Bin Laden, the US will deploy military troops in the country. A foreign military presence in a country effectively controls the defence of that country. Any military strategist could validate that. US military presence would mean not just temporary physical presence of US troops, but the possible use of Pakistan�s military infrastructure, access to sensitive military information and inside knowledge of the defence of Pakistan. Combined with the existing influence of the US on Pakistan�s economic policies, this could further serve to erode whatever is left of the country�s sovereignty. But the other side of the picture is equally dismal. If Pakistan does not go along with Washington�s operation against Afghanistan and decides to side with the Taliban, it will be branded internationally as a �rogue state� that harbours and hosts terrorists. It may even come under the direct fire of the US. Further, the existing US sanctions will tighten and more will be imposed. If the country is not debilitated by direct attacks or possible bombing it will suffer long-term damage by the withdrawal of economic aid and assistance. In this regard, Pakistan�s expectation that it can set conditions for the US in return for allowing Washington to proceed with its mission, by demanding international recognition of the Taliban and lifting of US sanctions, is unrealistic and na�. The US already has a stranglehold on Pakistan�s economic situation. It does not need Pakistan�s approval to launch its military operation. Nevertheless, there is an immediate solution for Pakistan: to buy time and legitimacy for any responsive international action. This can only be achieved under the umbrella of international law and the United Nations. Pakistan�s unequivocal position towards both the US and Afghanistan should be that it will take whatever action is authorised by a UN Security Council resolution. The Security Council is the proper forum to make such decisions in any event. It has the power to do so under the Charter of the UN, the provisions of which deal precisely with such acts of aggression which threaten or breach world peace. The US also needs to be reminded that it is one of the most vocal members of the UN, and will be violating the very charter that it normally accuses other states of, if it launches an operation without the UNSC�s approval. Article 51 of the UN Charter does not impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member State, but neither does it affect the authority or responsibility of the Security Council to take necessary action to maintain international peace and security. Further, any such action allowed in times of war or other public emergency threatening the life of a nation, taken by the US or its western allies, would have to be consistent with their other obligations under international law. This is also enshrined in Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The US and its allies by indiscriminately bombing Afghanistan would be violating the fundamental freedom of innocent people to life, which is enshrined under the United Nations Charter and the European Convention. The Pakistani government should focus its efforts in involving the UN Security Council. If the Security Council meets to consider the possibility of a resolution, it would have a number of advantageous implications for Pakistan. First of all, it would buy time. The US and its western allies will have to abide by the process of the UN and the passage of time to take stock of the situation can only calm the increasing US impulse to take military action. Secondly, a resolution will only be passed if there is enough substantive evidence to link the attacks to Bin Laden and Afghanistan. The fact that nobody, not even the US intelligence, has a shred of proof against Bin Laden would mean more time to gather such evidence. Bin Laden�s open hostility or statements welcoming �any attack on the US� is simply not enough to legitimise a mounted military attack on an innocent people. Thirdly, once the matter goes before the Security Council, it is most likely that China will veto any decision of the US to bomb Afghanistan. That deadlock itself may help Pakistan to manoeuvre itself out of the trap it is in. On Tuesday, 18 September, Xue Dongzheng, the Deputy Director of the Crime Investigation Department at the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing made clear that China �was opposed to the disregard of principles of international law in launching armed operations or violence under the pretext of anti-terrorism which infringes on the state sovereignty of others.� Finally, if a resolution is eventually passed, at least it will allow Pakistan to show the world and more importantly, its neighbour that it is only abiding by its obligations under international law in allowing the US to use Pakistan as a military base. Even if only cosmetically, violation of the Security Council resolution will be tantamount to a flagrant disregard of universally agreed rules of international law which is visibly different from being seen to succumb to US pressure. Also, even if such fine points of international law do not deter the US from their blind pursuit, it might pose some limits for the Bush administration�s �wild-west� style man-hunt for Bin Laden: �Dead or Alive�. Whether collectively or individually, one always has a choice. Let us hope Pakistan makes the right one. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com From aplohman at fondation-langlois.org Tue Sep 25 00:51:23 2001 From: aplohman at fondation-langlois.org (Angela Plohman) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 15:21:23 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] The Daniel Langlois Foundation Announces Major Changes Message-ID: September 24, 2001 Call for projects 2002: The Daniel Langlois Foundation Announces Major Changes -- [CALL FOR PROJECTS 2002 - NEW DEADLINES] -- [MAJOR CHANGES TO THE FOUNDATION'S PROGRAMS] -- [PROGRAM GUIDE AND APPLICATION FORM NOW AVAILABLE IN SPANISH] [CALL FOR PROJECTS 2002] The Daniel Langlois Foundation is pleased to launch its call for projects for the year 2002. The Foundation now has 2 calls for projects a year, one for individuals and one for organizations. Note that all copies of the program guide distributed before September 21, 2001 are invalid. Please take careful note of the following deadlines: For individual artists or scientists: JANUARY 31, 2002 For organizations: JUNE 30, 2002 [MAJOR CHANGES TO THE FOUNDATION'S PROGRAMS] Besides changing the deadlines for proposals, the Foundation has revised its funding programs. The following programs are now offered: For individual artists or scientists: The Research Grant Program for Individual Artists or Scientists There is now one specific program guide and application form for individual artists that can be found at http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/programmes/index.html. For organizations: The Exhibition, Distribution, and Performance Program for Organizations & The Program for Organizations from Emerging Regions The former Residency and Commissioning of Works of Art Program and the Exhibition, Distribution, and Performance Program have been fused together. There is now one specific program guide and application form for organizations that can be found at http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/programmes/index.html. [PROGRAM GUIDE AND APPLICATION FORM NOW AVAILABLE IN SPANISH] Application information is now available in French, English or Spanish. Applicants in the Program for Organizations from Emerging Regions may submit their proposals in Spanish provided it includes a one-page summary in French or English. Note that although the Foundation accepts proposals in Spanish, all correspondence will be in English or French. For more information, please contact the Foundation's program officer at aplohman at fondation-langlois.org or at (514) 987-7177. -30- Source: Angela Plohman Program Officer The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology 3530 Saint-Laurent Blvd., suite 402 Montréal, Québec H2X 2V1 Canada T: (514) 987-7177 / F: (514) 987-7492 e: aplohman at fondation-langlois.org url: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/nouvelles From aiindex at mnet.fr Tue Sep 25 03:26:09 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 22:56:09 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Schlesinger in La Times Message-ID: Los Angeles Times September 23, 2001 Sand Trap Indiscriminate bombing of Afghanistan would play directly into Osama bin Laden's hands. By ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR., Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s most recent book is "A Life in the 20th Century: Volume I, Innocent Beginnings." NEW YORK -- In his powerful address before Congress last Thursday, President Bush correctly defined the threat of terrorism. And he correctly characterized the motivation of Osama bin Laden, the presumed evil genius of terrorism. President Bush correctly called for American leadership in a global campaign against terrorism. But he laid down non-negotiable specifications for his "war" that friendly states will consider ill-judged and delivered in a tone they may regard as arrogant. Our allies have had more experience with terrorism than we have had. They know how difficult it is to eradicate terrorism, even when the terrorists operate in their own countries. The Basque terrorists live in a relatively confined space in northwestern Spain, but Spanish governments have tried and failed for 25 years to stop their outrages. The Corsican terrorists live on an island, but they continue to defy all efforts by the French authorities to stamp them out. The British could not stop Irish Republican Army bombings in England; nor, now that the IRA has abandoned terrorism, can they stop bombings by the thugs who style themselves the "Real IRA." There is no knock-out blow against terrorism. Does our president really understand what he is getting us into? President Bush believes he knows how to deal with terrorists in a part of the world in which we have had meager historical experience and small operational knowledge. He should have asked himself what Bin Laden would wish us to do next. What American response would best serve the villain's purposes? The answer surely is indiscriminate American air attacks on Afghanistan, killing large numbers of innocent people. Bombing is not likely to eliminate Bin Laden and his crowd, who have well-prepared hideouts. It would only demonstrate once again the impotence of the American superpower. Civilian casualties would confirm Bin Laden's thesis of an evil America, push even moderate Muslims toward hatred of the United States, produce a new generation of suicidal bombers for Al Qaeda, Bin Laden's terrorist network and incite radical Muslims to rise against moderate regimes. The only thing that would probably please Bin Laden more would be an invasion by American ground forces. Afghanistan is famous for its unconquerability. The British Empire and the Soviet Union failed in their efforts to dominate the country, and they at least knew the rocky terrain and had people who spoke the languages. American troops in Afghanistan would be even more baffled and beset than they were a third of a century ago in Vietnam. There is, in addition, the land-mine problem. According to Robert Fisk, Middle Eastern correspondent for The Independent in London, Afghanistan contains one-tenth--more than 10 million--of the world's unexploded land mines, laid by the Soviet Red Army in 27 of 29 provinces. Two dozen Afghans are blown up every day. Moreover, by November freezing weather will arrive, and the Pentagon has no hope of dispatching troops and winning the war in the six weeks remaining before winter comes to Afghanistan. Nor could an invading American army count on serious assistance from the internal anti-Taliban resistance, their most effective leader, Ahmed Shah Masoud, having been assassinated shortly before the assault on America. But President Bush is not confining his attentions to Afghanistan. He seems to be contemplating confronting much of the Arab world. "Either you are with us," he said, "or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." That sounds like the "ending states" and "regime change" talk of Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense and the most high-flying of hawks. Does this mean that, after Afghanistan, we will be taking on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya? And though the president correctly distinguishes between the moderate and the militant Muslim states, this hard line will make life considerably more difficult for the moderates in Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan. Little is more vital in the months ahead than retaining the support of moderate Muslim states. President Bush has set an admirable example by visiting a mosque and condemning attacks on American Muslims. Islam has historically been a tolerant faith. Mohammedans ruled Spain for five centuries, during which Spain was culturally more advanced than the rest of Europe. Muslims coexisted cheerfully with Christians and Jews. Most moderate Arab states have fragile regimes threatened by radicals within. It is essential that we take no drastic actions that would please our own fire-eaters but would drive Arab states into the arms of the terrorists. The Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington wrote a provocative article in Foreign Affairs some years ago forecasting a "clash of civilizations" that would determine the future. The Bush administration has no greater challenge than disproving Huntington. If we let the international police action against terrorism degenerate into a civilizational war of the West versus Islam, we are heading toward catastrophe. The last thing we need is a counter-jihad to respond to the jihad invoked against us by the pals of Bin Laden. Bin Laden has set a trap for the United States. Let us not walk into it. It is hard to think of a drastic action taken at once that would not rebound against us. The quest for a knock-out blow is an illusion. We must pray that the president's tough talk will work. But, as President John F. Kennedy said during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is "one hell of a gamble." If he wants to win the gamble, our president had better take more care with his language. As Calvin Coolidge put it, "One of the first things a president has to learn is that every word he says weighs a ton." When Bush spoke of wanting to capture Bin Laden "dead or alive," he no doubt pleased his domestic audience, but he sent a chill through the chancelleries of our allies already fearful of "cowboy diplomacy." When he spoke of organizing a "crusade," he angered Middle Easterners who still harbor ancient resentments of the Crusaders. His persistent use of the word "war" recalls Harry S. Truman's preference in the Korean War for a more appropriate term--"police action." The terrorists are criminals; we should not bestow on them the dignity of a sovereign state. "Police action," not "war," is what we should be talking about today. President Bush is everlastingly right in seeking an international coalition, as his father did so effectively in the Persian Gulf War a decade ago. If the campaign against terrorism is to succeed, he must continue along a resolutely multinational course and put together a united international front. We need collective action for several reasons--to confer legitimacy on our response, to divert blame from the United States and to gain counsel from countries that have had far more experience than we have had in dealing with the tortuous politics of the Middle East. In the short run, the international coalition must pool intelligence in order to avert new terrorist attacks. Using commercial airplanes as missiles is probably finished; biological and chemical terrorism is very likely the next step. The coalition working through the United Nations must also set up global financial controls to stop the covert funding of terrorist operations and global arms controls to stop the arming of terrorists. It is in the interest of governments everywhere to join in the campaign against terrorism. Persons from 80 nations died in the World Trade Center. At home, Congress must not abdicate its constitutional role and give the president a blank check. "In politics," as Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, "what begins in fear usually ends in folly." We live in an age of violence and, with all the pressures of globalization, the United States cannot hope to remain immune. I have no doubt that most Americans will confront terrorism with resolution as a horrible hazard of modern life--a hazard that will take a little time before we with our friends and allies can bring it to an end. From aiindex at mnet.fr Tue Sep 25 03:54:08 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 23:24:08 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] "Beyond Bin Laden" by Fred Halliday Message-ID: The Hindustan Times Tuesday, September 25, 2001 Beyond Bin Laden Fred Halliday Events of the past week have underlined both the importance and pitfalls that beset discussion of international affairs. All areas of political and social life involve controversy and commitment: this is as true of debates on the family, the role of the State in the economy, education and the causes of crime. But in no area of public discussion is there as high a dose of posturing, misinformation and irrationality as that of international issues. There are, in broad terms, two conventional stances that arise in regard to international issues - complacency disguised as realism and irresponsibility posing as conscience. These poles have been evident in regard to the major cases of humanitarian intervention in the Nineties (Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo) and are present in much of the debate on the causes of globalisation and world inequality. They are present in very specific form in the question of what can be the future political system in Afghanistan. For hard-headed realism, the international is a domain of power, mistrust and recurrence of conflict. This is the way the world, or god, or the market make it, and there is not much you can do. The most dangerous people are the do-gooders who make a mess of things by trying to make the world a better place: foreign aid, human rights, a lowering of the security guard, let alone education in global issues, are all doomed to failure. Last week, in a typical realist calumny, one that allows legitimate international action only to States, President Bush cast responsibility for the terror attacks on, among others, NGOs (he had to spell out that this meant 'non-governmental organisations'). More ominous are the voices, now pushing a realist agenda, that were already under starter's orders on the morning of September 11 and are now in full canter: identity cards, immigration controls, National Missile Defence. In the field of cultural speculation, the great winner has been the theory, first espoused by Samuel Huntington in 1993, that says we are entering an epoch that will be dominated by 'the Clash of Civilisations'. The alternative view to realism has its own, equally simplistic, answers. This assumes that there is a straightforward, benign way of resolving the world's problems and that there is one, identifiable and single, cause of what is wrong. Two centuries ago, the cause was monarchy and absolutism, then branded as the cause of poverty, ignorance and war; over the past two centuries, it has been capitalism and imperialism; now it is globalisation. More specifically, the US is held responsible for the ills of the world - global inequality, neglect of human rights, militarism, cultural decay. It is not always clear what the 'America' so responsible is - this Bush administration, all US administrations, the whole of 'corporate' America, Hollywood or, in the implication of September 11, the whole of the American people and, indeed, all who choose to work with, or visit, or in anyway find themselves in the proximity of such people. Both of these positions are, perhaps, caricatures, yet the themes they encompass are evident, and will be even more evident, in the crisis that has engulfed the world. There are, however, some core issues where, perhaps, an element of reason about international affairs may be sustainable. First, history: much is made of the antecedents. Some involve the Crusades, others jehad, but the image of the Crusades means little to those outside the Mediterranean Arab world; jehad is quite an inappropriate term for the proper, Koranic, reason that the armies of Islam sought to convert those who were conquered to Islam. As for the Cold War, it has contributed its mite to this crisis and, in particular, to the destruction of Afghanistan but in a way that should give comfort to few. One can here suggest a 'two dustbins' theory' of Cold War legacy: if the Soviet system has left a mass of uncontrolled nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and unresolved ethnic problems, the West has bequeathed a bevy of murderous gangs, from Unita in Angola to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. A second issue that is present is that of culture. It takes two to have a 'Clash of Civilisations' and there are those on both sides who are using the present conflict to promote it. Huntington's theory misses what is the most important cause of the events of recent days, and which will define the consequences in the Muslim world of what is to come, namely the enormous clash within the Muslim world between those who want to reform, and secularise, and those whose power is threatened, or who want to take power in the name of fundamentalism. This has been the basis of the conflicts going on these past decades in Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Turkey and, most violently of all, Afghanistan. Religious fundamentalists in all societies have one goal: it is not to convert other people to their beliefs, but to seize power - political, social and gendered - within their own societies. Their greatest foe is secularism. The third and, arguably, most important and difficult issue underlying the crisis is that of the most effective and just way to combine the two instruments of international politics - force and diplomacy. Under international law, States are entitled to use force in self-defence. An element of retribution is part of any legal system, domestic or international. The UN is not some pacifist, supranational last resort, but a body which, in its charter and in the Security Council resolution 1368 of September 12, has authorised military action by States in this case. At the same time, any use of force, in the immediate future or in the longer conflict promised by both sides, has to be matched by diplomatic and political initiative. This can cover each of the separate issues that make up the greater West Asian crisis underlying these events, from Kashmir to Palestine, and on to Kosovo, but it must, above all, address the future of Afghanistan itself. Here, the UN has, since 1993, been on record, and with the support of all the permanent members of the Security Council and all the neighbouring States, in calling for the setting up of a new government. The UN has insisted that this be broadly based, fully representative, multi-ethnic and opposed to terrorism. This is a goal which the current crisis requires and brings closer to view. It is also one which, it is generally agreed, the great majority of Afghans would support. Freud once argued that the aim of psychoanalysis was to reduce extreme hysteria to everyday common misery. The function of reasoned argument, and an engaged scepticism, in international affairs is to do just that. The writer is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and author of 'The World at 2000' Guardian News Service From geert at xs4all.nl Tue Sep 25 05:35:21 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:05:21 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Last Place to Start a Company Message-ID: <047301c14556$a9f9a9e0$c900000a@bigpond.com> The Last Place to Start a Company In: Business 2.0 Monique Maddy tried and failed to launch a telephone service in Africa. She's moving on. Africa isn't. October 2001 Issue http://two.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin2/flo?y=eCAs0CKl6P0U0eWS0As From geert at xs4all.nl Tue Sep 25 06:03:31 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:33:31 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] info about openflows.org Message-ID: <04fc01c14559$b45bb740$c900000a@bigpond.com> (openflows.org is an initiative, based in toronto/canada, from jesse hirsch (www.tao.ca) and the nettime moderator felix stalder. /geert) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:50:17 -0400 (EDT) From: info at openflows.org Subject: Openflows Newsletter #1 Newsletter #1 - End of Summer 2001 http://openflows.org info at openflows.org + Intro + What is Openflows + What is Open Source Intelligence + Current Projects + Jobs at Openflows + Contact & Un/Subscription to this Newsletter Intro: --++--------------------------------- Welcome to the Openflows' Newsletter. This is the first in what we plan to be a regular series of newsletters providing updates on what happens at Openflows.org We would like to invite you to participate in the projects that we are setting up and encourage you to give us any kind of feedback you might have. We also ask you pass this on to friends and colleagues, so that they may hear about Openflows. What is Openflows --++--------------------------------- Openflows is a cluster of initiatives to develop tools and social practices of Open Source Intelligence on the culture, politics and organization of networks. Openflows Networks Ltd., a privately held company founded late last year by Jesse Hirsh and Felix Stalder and based in Toronto Canada, provides the organizational core for the development of the technical platforms and social projects for Open Source Intelligence, focusing on the culture, politics and organization of networks. For this, we use a wide range of open source software packages. What is Open Source Intelligence --++--------------------------------- Open Source Intelligence is the practice of applying the principles of Open Source Software development to the field of information gathering, filtering and analysis. Open Source Intelligence emerges from a "Do-It-Yourself" ethic that combines the publishing culture of grassroots media with the transparency of the free software movement. The GNU/Linux operating system is the most famous example of the way Open Source Intelligence has influenced software development. The Internet's social movement, free and open source software, opens up the development process to the entire group and erodes distinctions between "author" and "user" by allowing everyone to contribute their specific knowledge to processes. The Open Source movement is quite heterogeneous, but a few principles characterize virtually all Open Source projects: - the distinction between user and producer is eliminated; - hierarchies within the project teams are flat; - learning is collaborative; - the highest possible degree of transparency is obtained; - many-to-many is the basic communication pattern; - there is a fluid organization of a large number of participants around a stable core of maintainers. As an example see http://slash.openflows.org Current Openflows Projects --++--------------------------------- Understanding the Network Society http://news.openflows.org The focus of this project is on social practices enabled through new technologies. News.openflows tracks and dissects events at the intersection of technology, politics, and new social and cultural practices. No Logo http://www.nologo.org Naomi Klein's book, No Logo, an international bestseller, articulates the currents and enthusiasm of the anti-globalization movement around the world. Nologo.org offers a platform to extend the research and analysis of the book by inviting readers to contribute with their knowledge to the ongoing monitoring corporate expansion and search for counter strategies. Openflows has created the site for Ms. Klein, and our staff continues to facilitate and organize its development with a team of volunteers from around the world. The Architecture of Intelligence http://architecture.openflows.org Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of the McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto, argues in his forthcoming book that new organizational principles are needed to integrate the three main spatial environments in which we live, in and with, today: mind, world and networks. This site "opensources" the central ideas and chapters of the book for discussion and further development. Counterspin http://www.counterspin.tv Counterspin, the political debate show on CBC Newsworld, was looking for a way to extend their discussion beyond the format of television broadcast, with its limitations in time and number of participants. We built them a platform, based on the slashcode, to do this. Other projects Openflows contributes expertise to: AWID http://www.awid.org The Association for Women's Rights in Development rabble.ca http://www.rabble.ca A new on-line Magazine Play Records http://www.playrecords.net An Independent Music Label Privacy Lecture Series http://privacy.openflows.org Public lecture series on privacy and new technology, held in Toronto. Jobs @ Openflows: --++--------------------------------- Programmer for Open source software needed. Are you interested in open source software? Or even yet, do you think software should be free? We're currently looking for database (MySQL and Postgresql) and web (Perl, PHP, Python) programmers to help us help our clients and associates. If your heart is with free software, and yet you're still interested in getting paid for your work, send your resume to info at openflows.org. Contact information --++--------------------------------- Openflows Networks Ltd. P.O. Box 108 Station P Toronto Ont. M5S 2S8 Canada phone: 416-531-4616 Email: info at openflows.org http://www.openflows,org Felix Stalder, Jesse Hirsh, To subsribe or unsubscribe from an openflows.org email list please visit the website http://lists.openflows.org From menso at r4k.net Tue Sep 25 12:18:48 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 08:48:48 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] SAS soldier talks about training Afghan soldiers Message-ID: <20010925084848.F12357@r4k.net> SAS soldier speaks up on training the Afghans: apparently these guys are just 1 step shot from wearing stillsuits... "Once identified, the Russian soldiers were sitting targets. We trained the Afghans in "shoot and scoot"; they would lay a little ambush, let rip and disappear. They picked it up quickly. Before long, they had learnt to let the Russian convoys get halfway up a pass and then blow a hole through their middle. The lucky ones died instantly. The unlucky ones were chopped to pieces in the aftermath. In the Hindu Kush, don't expect to appeal to the Geneva convention." See the following url for the entire article: http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/09/23/stiusausa02023.html -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From gchat at vsnl.net Tue Sep 25 17:45:01 2001 From: gchat at vsnl.net (Gayatri Chatterjee) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 17:45:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: [SASIALIT] Fwd: On Bombing - views by Noam Chomsky Message-ID: <002001c145bb$ede6a080$ad82c7cb@wmi.co.in> > >Subject: [SASIALIT] Fwd: On Bombing - views by Noam Chomsky > >To: SASIALIT at listserv.rice.edu > > > >FYI. > > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >---------------------- > >Organised religion is the prop of a man who has not yet found his Self/God > >within. > >- Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Indian freedom fighter > >Let there be no compulsion in religion. > >- The Quran > >Truth is One, the wise call It by many names. > >- The Rig veda > > > > > > > >>From: Sudhir Gandotra >>Reply-To: activist@ > >>Subject: [activist] On Bombing - views by Noam Chomsky > >>Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:17:32 +0530 > >> > >>Noam Chomsky is a Professor of Linguistics at MIT and is a known critic > >>of US policies. Here are his views on the Bombing : > >> > >>**************** > >> > >>The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach > >>the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan > >>with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies > >>and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US > >>blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to > >>speak of much worse cases, which easily come to mind. But that this was > >>a horrendous crime is not in doubt. The primary victims, as > >>usual, were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is > >>likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor and > >>oppressed people. It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls, > >>with many possible ramifications for undermining civil liberties and > >>internal freedom. > >> > >>The events reveal, dramatically, the foolishness of the project of > >>"missile defense." As has been obvious all along, and pointed out > >>repeatedly by strategic analysts, if anyone wants to cause immense > >>damage in the US, including weapons of mass destruction, they are highly > >>unlikely to launch a missile attack, thus guaranteeing their immediate > >>destruction. There are innumerable easier ways that are basically > >>unstoppable. But today's events will, very likely, be exploited to > >>increase the pressure to develop these systems and put them into place. > >>"Defense" is a thin cover for plans for militarization of space, and > >>with good PR, even the flimsiest arguments will carry some weight among > >>a frightened public. > >> > >>In short, the crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who hope > >>to use force to control their domains. That is even putting > >>aside the likely US actions, and what they will trigger -- possibly more > >>attacks like this one, or worse. The prospects ahead are even more > >>ominous than they appeared to be before the latest atrocities. > >> > >>As to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; > >>we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means > >>making an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators. If we > >>choose the latter course, we can do no better, I think, than to listen > >>to the words of Robert Fisk, whose direct knowledge and insight into > >>affairs of the region is unmatched after many years of distinguished > >>reporting. Describing "The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed > >>and humiliated people," he writes that "this is not the war of democracy > >>versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming > >>days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes > >>and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and > >>American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese > >>militia - > >>paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally - hacking and raping and > >>murdering their way through refugee camps." And much more. Again, we > >>have a choice: we may try to understand, or refuse to do so, > >>contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead. > >>-- > >>With best wishes of Peace, Force & Joy! > >>Sudhir Gandotra, Internet Consultants: http://openlx.com > >>Transform lives: http://humanistmovement.org > > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Tue Sep 25 18:25:51 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:55:51 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] SAS soldier talks about training Afghan soldiers In-Reply-To: <20010925084848.F12357@r4k.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Menso Heus wrote: > SAS soldier speaks up on training the Afghans: apparently these guys ... > The lucky ones died instantly. The unlucky ones were chopped to > pieces in the aftermath. In the Hindu Kush, don't expect to > appeal to the Geneva convention." Well, it could be true (I don't see why Afghans should be less competent at killing than people in other societies), but the conclusion is ambiguous, and risks leading to absurd implications! The SAS soldiers claims that "the Afghans", i.e. the Jihadi and the Talibans (?) are very good shots and that in his experience they violated the Geneva conventions. Fine. It happened that way in his experience. (1) Does "sometimes X" imply "always X"? The answer to (1) is the same, whether or not we put X= Afghans violate the Geneva conventions or X= USA armed forces violate the Geneva conventions. (2) Does the alleged violation of Geneva conventions by Afghans in the past imply that the USA forces should drop the Geneva conventions? The answer is "No". Killing prisoners of war does not help militarily (except in Hollywood/Bollywood movies), and of course is hardly going to be efficient to stop islamic fundamentalist terrorists - unless complete genocide ("infinite justice") of all Central Asian/West Asian countries is intended, more people will just keep popping up for revenge. The article sounds to me just like a macho piece which appeals to feelings of vengeance and racism in order to try to justify the unjustifiable. Is "infinite justice" going to become another term like "collateral damage"? Do the families of the "collaterally damaged" 6000 or so victims in NY/DC really want to "infinitely justify" Central Asia out of existence? How else can one interpret "infinite"? From menso at r4k.net Wed Sep 26 04:57:02 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 01:27:02 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] SAS soldier talks about training Afghan soldiers In-Reply-To: ; from boud_roukema@camk.edu.pl on Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 02:55:51PM +0200 References: <20010925084848.F12357@r4k.net> Message-ID: <20010926012702.G12357@r4k.net> On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 02:55:51PM +0200, Boud Roukema wrote: > On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Menso Heus wrote: > > > SAS soldier speaks up on training the Afghans: apparently these guys > ... > > The lucky ones died instantly. The unlucky ones were chopped to > > pieces in the aftermath. In the Hindu Kush, don't expect to > > appeal to the Geneva convention." > > Well, it could be true (I don't see why Afghans should be less > competent at killing than people in other societies), but the > conclusion is ambiguous, and risks leading to absurd implications! The way I take the line about the Geneva convention is the soldiers view (could be any soldier) saying "This is all nice, all these conventions, but when you're actually out there, don't think anybody actually cares about them." Last night I zapped across Turner Classics Movie Channel (tv) where I just happened to hear a quote that I think is appropriate. It was an old war movie and one soldier was explaining to, what seemed to be a prisoner, about the Geneva convention. Prisoner: "I don't understand this convention thing" Soldier: "It is sort of a gentleman agreement" Prisoner shrugs, then: "If we'd all be gentlemen there'd be no war." Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From fatimazehrarizvi at hotmail.com Tue Sep 25 22:17:55 2001 From: fatimazehrarizvi at hotmail.com (zehra rizvi) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:47:55 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] fighting america's enemies...r. fisk article Message-ID: Independent Robert Fisk: This is not a war on terror. It's a fight against America's enemies 25 September 2001 'We are being asked to support a war whose aims appear to be as misleading as they are secretive' While covering the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, I would, from time to time, drive down through Jalalabad and cross the Pakistan border to Peshawar to rest. In the cavernous, stained interior of the old Intercontinental Hotel, I would punch out my stories on a groaning telex machine beside an office bearing the legend "Chief Accountant" on the door. On the wall next to that office � I don't know if it was the Chief Accountant who put it there � was a framed piece of paper bearing four lines of Kipling that I still remember: A scrimmage at a border station A canter down a dark defile Five thousand pounds of education Felled by a five-rupee jezail Or, I suppose today, a Kalashnikov AK-47, home-produced in Quetta, or one of those slick little Blowpipe missiles that we handed over to the mujahedin with such abandon in the early Eighties so that they could kill their � and our � Russian enemies. But I've been thinking more about the defiles, the gorges and overhanging mountains, the sheer rock walls 4,000 feet in height, the caves and the massive tunnels which Osama bin Laden cut through the mountains. Here, presumably, are the "holes" from which the Wes is going to "smoke out" Mr bin Laden, always supposing that he's been obliging enough to run away and hide in them. For there is already a growing belief � founded on our own rhetoric � that Mr bin Laden and his men are on the run, seeking their hiding places. I'm not so certain. I'm very doubtful about what Mr bin Laden is doing right now. In fact, I'm not at all sure what we � the West � are doing. True, our destroyers and aircraft carriers and fighter aircraft and heavy bombers and troops are massing in the general region of the Gulf. Our SAS boys � so they say in the Middle East � are already climbing around northern Afghanistan, in the region still controlled by the late Shah Masoud's forces. But what exactly are we planning to do? Kidnap Mr bin Laden? Storm his camps and kill the lot of them, Mr bin Laden and all his Algerian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and Gulf Arabs? Or is Mr bin Laden merely chapter one of our new Middle Eastern adventure, to be broadened later to include Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the destruction of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the humbling of Syria, the humiliation of Iran, the reimposition of yet another fraudulent "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians? If this seems fanciful, you should listen to what's coming out of Washington and Tel Aviv. While The New York Times Pentagon sources are suggesting that Saddam may be chapter two, the Israelis are trying to set up Lebanon � the "centre of international terror" according to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon � for a bombing run or two, along with Yasser Arafat's little garbage tip down in Gaza where the Israelis have discovered, mirabile dictu, a "bin Laden cell". The Arabs, of course, would also like an end to world terror. But they would like to include a few other names on the list. Palestinians would like to see Mr Sharon picked up for the Sabra and Chatila massacre, a terrorist slaughter carried out by Israel's Lebanese allies � who were trained by the Israeli army � in 1982. At 1,800 dead, that's only a quarter of the number killed on 11 September. Syrians in Hama would like to put Rifaat Al-Assad, the brother of the late president, on their list of terrorists for the mass killings perpetrated by his Defence Brigades in the city of Hama in the same year. At 20,000, that's more than double the 11 September death toll. The Lebanese would like trials for the Israeli officers who planned the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which killed 17,500 people, most of them civilians � again, well over twice the 11 September statistic. Christian Sudanese would like President Omar al-Bashir arraigned for mass murder. But, as the Americans have made clear, it's their own terrorist enemies they are after, not their terrorist friends or those terrorists who have been slaughtering populations outside American "spheres of interest". Even those terrorists who live comfortably in the US but have not harmed America are safe: take, for example, the pro-Israeli militiaman who murdered two Irish UN soldiers in southern Lebanon in 1980 and who now live in Detroit after flying safely out of Tel Aviv. The Irish have the name and address, if the FBI are interested � but of course they're not. So we are not really being asked to fight "world terror". We are being asked to fight America's enemies. If that means bagging the murderers behind the atrocities in New York and Washington, few would object. But it does raise the question of why those thousands of innocents are more important � more worthy of our effort and perhaps blood � than all the other thousands of innocents. And it also raises a much more disturbing question: whether or not the crime against humanity committed in the US on 11 September is to be met with justice � or a brutal military assault intended to extend American political power in the Middle East. Either way, we are being asked to support a war whose aims appear to be as misleading as they are secretive. We are told by the Americans that this war will be different to all others. But one of the differences appears to be that we don't know who we are going to fight and how long we are going to fight for. Certainly, no new political initiative, no real political engagement in the Middle East, no neutral justice is likely to attend this open-ended conflict. The despair and humiliation and suffering of the Middle East peoples do not figure in our war aims � only American and European despair and humiliation and suffering. As for Mr bin Laden, no one believes the Taliban are genuinely ignorant of his whereabouts. He is in Afghanistan. But has he really gone to ground? During the Russian war, he would emerge, again and again, to fight Afghanistan's Russian occupiers, to attack the world's second superpower. Wounded six times, he was a master of the tactical ambush, as the Russians found out to their cost. Evil and wicked do not come close to describing the mass slaughter in the US. But � if it was Mr bin Laden's work � that does not mean he would not fight again. And he would be fighting on home ground. There are plenty of dark defiles into which we may advance. And plenty of cheap rifles to shoot at us. And that wouldn't be a "new kind of war" at all. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From npg1 at nyu.edu Wed Sep 26 05:18:49 2001 From: npg1 at nyu.edu (Nitin Govil) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:48:49 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] College life in the US of A References: <3.0.6.32.20010615144457.007a7bd0@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <003301c1461c$a026a3c0$d003a5d8@nyu.edu> Another version of the Six Degrees of Separation game manifests itself as we all either are or know people targeted for verbal and physical attacks as a result of the flaring anti-Muslim jingoism. Below article is from The Chronicle of Higher Education. nitin _________________________________ Community-College Instructor Is Suspended After Discussion on Terrorist Attacks By SCOTT SMALLWOOD A longtime political-science instructor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Calif., was placed on administrative leave last week after four Muslim students complained that he had called them "terrorists" and "murderers" during a classroom discussion. The instructor, Ken Hearlson, told the Los Angeles Times he was speaking about Muslim terrorists and those who support their actions, not the students. Mr. Hearlson, who has taught at the two-year-college since 1980, did not return messages left by The Chronicle. The heated classroom debate occurred on September 18, a week after attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killed thousands of people. Two days after the discussion, the four students took their complaints to the college's administrators. "They felt that the instructor had made disparaging remarks about Muslims in general and about the responsibility for the terrorist attacks," said Jim Carnett, a spokesman for the college. After several meetings on Thursday, administrators placed Mr. Hearlson on indefinite administrative leave with pay while they continue investigating. Officials will interview Mr. Hearlson again and talk with other students in the 200-student Introduction to Government class before making a decision. Substitute teachers will cover his classes in the meantime, Mr. Carnett said. Mr. Hearlson told the Los Angeles Times that he started Tuesday's lecture with an intentionally provocative question that he feels most people are afraid to ask: Why do Muslims condemn the terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon but never denounce terrorist attacks in Israel? The instructor said he told students that if American Muslims don't condemn terrorism in Israel, that means they must support terrorism. Mr. Hearlson acknowledged provoking some students but said he allowed them to respond. C.C. Abdelmuti, a 20-year-old sophomore and a Muslim, said that as the discussion grew heated, Mr. Hearlson pointed his finger at a Muslim student sitting next to her. "He said, 'You flew the planes into the World Trade Center. You killed 5,000 people,'" she said. Zayned Saidi, a Muslim student in the class, told the Los Angeles Times that Mr. Hearlson "was saying lots of horrible things: 'You're terrorists, murderers and rapists.'" Ms. Abdelmuti said: "He was telling class that Muslims shouldn't be trusted and shouldn't have any rights. If he wants to hate Muslims, fine. But don't teach people how to hate Muslims." Mr. Hearlson, who tells his classes that he is a born-again, conservative Christian, said he apologized twice to students when told his words had become too personal. But Ms. Abdelmuti said the teacher said only, "I acknowledge what I said." Last week, before administrators were aware of the complaints about Mr. Hearlson, the college distributed two memorandums about the terrorist attacks. One of them -- addressed to faculty members, staff members, and students -- urged people to be "sensitive to various customs, cultural heritages, and opinions of students of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds." A second memo urged faculty members to "avoid singling out or focusing upon any particular students or group of students regarding their views about the incident." It also asked them to "be especially concerned that Middle Eastern students are not made to feel scrutinized, blamed for the incident, or threatened in your classroom." Ms. Abdelmuti and the other students said they were pleased by the administration's quick action. "I just hope that it becomes permanent," she said. From aditya at sarai.net Wed Sep 26 16:48:14 2001 From: aditya at sarai.net (Aditya Nigam) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:48:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] A child's view Message-ID: I am sending a piece that a friend's daughter wrote for her school assignment. This is a 12-year old's comment. Aditya THE AMERICA TRAGEDY AND WHAT I THINK ABOUT IT WRITTEN BY SHANA BULHAN HAYDOCK CLASS 6-B I think that tragedy came after fights, fights came after wanting more and more - - - - It all started because nobody is happy with what they have. Everyone wants more. Some people are very rich and don't care if others are very poor. There is no balance. That is called Capitalism. Another thing: some people don't allow other people to live in their country because they believe in something else. Some people couldn't bear with different people, such as Hitler, who killed off most of the Jews. People cannot live with each other and bear with the differences of the other people. They buy guns and weapons from people who sell them. They kill the people they don't like. USA is one country which has a government that wishes to become more and more powerful. They wage war on other countries because they wish to have more, more, more! And then attacks come upon them. And they vow to strike back! Why can't they just sit down and realise that they killed so many people, they cause heartbroken families to strike back. Why can't everybody realise that violence, killings, murder - - - it's all very brutal and horrid. If nobody would kill nobody, that would mean peace. Peace - - - - - that's what hundreds, thousands of people really, actually want. Why can't everybody set aside their differences and love each other? Peace makes us happy. Hearing about capitalism, violence, innocent people dying, that makes us unhappy. If any person could live in any country they choose, then there would be no fighting for strips of land like in the case of Israel and Palestine. And anyway, what's the use of getting more and more? You just want even more! What's the use of becoming powerful? Others start to hate you. Therefore, if everybody had the same amount of everything, and could try to control their longing for more and more, then this never would have happened, I believe. Aditya Nigam Fellow, The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29 Rajpur Road Delhi-110054 From monica at sarai.net Wed Sep 26 16:57:08 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:57:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The Gene campaign Message-ID: Below is an article sent by Dr Suman Sahai on bio-diversity and patents. Members of the list have expressed interest in examining the issue of intellectual property rights. It would be good to widen the debate to include discussions on all forms of patenting etc. and have further contributions. best Monica ========================= PROTECTION OF NEW PLANT VARIETIES CoFaB: a developing country alternative to UPOV Suman Sahai (genecamp at vsnl.com) After the conclusion of the Uruguay Round, India as well as other developing countries have accepted the sui generis option for the protection of new plant varieties. India has already passed a Plant Variety Protection and Farmers Rights Act. In order to implement the law concerned with the protection of new varieties in each other's countries, nations need to work through an international platform. UPOV (Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties ) is such a platform through which the industrialised nations regulate the implementation of plant breeders rights. UPOV came into being in 1961 with its headquarters in Geneva and it is the only platform of its kind today. There are 48 members in UPOV , almost all are developed countries except for Trinidad & Tobago. No Asian country is a member yet neither should India become one. Gene Campaign has opposed India joining UPOV because UPOV does not address our needs. The Campaign has been promoting that India must rise to the challenge of crafting an alternative treaty to UPOV that will meet the needs of developing countries. We need to provide a forum that will grant apart from Breeders Rights, also Farmers Rights and be geared to work towards food and nutritional security . However, the Agriculture Ministry is of the view that India should become a member of UPOV, a forum whose working is totally alien to the conditions of agriculture prevailing here. There is no concept of Farmers Rights in the UPOV system, rights are granted only to the breeder. The UPOV system does not need to protect the rich farming community of Europe and America in the way that our seed laws will have to protect our farmers. It is clear that we have other goals than it is possible for UPOV to fulfill. UPOV conditions are good for the countries where it was developed but not for us. The UPOV system is not suited for us because it embodies the philosophy of the industrialised nations where it was developed and where the goal is to protect the interests of powerful seed companies who are the breeders. In India the position is very different. We do not have big seed companies in essential seed sectors and our major seed producers are farmers and farmers cooperatives. Logically, our law will have to concentrate on protecting the interests of the farmer in his role as producer as well as consumer of seed. Once we are in the UPOV system, we shall be forced to go in the direction that UPOV goes. It is a system headed towards seed patents. Starting with its first amendment in 1978 when limited restrictions were placed on protected seed, the 1991 amendment which is now ratified ,brought in very strong protection for the plant breeder. In this version, breeders are not exempt from royalty payments for breeding work and the exemption for farmers to save seed has become provisional. UPOV now also permits dual protection of varieties, that means in the UPOV system, the same variety can be protected by Plant Breeders Right (PBR) and patents. It would seem obvious that UPOV is ultimately headed towards patent protection for plant varieties. It would be wise for India to stay out of a system which has plant patents as its goal since that is neither our goal nor our interest. UPOV laws are formulated by countries which are industrial, not agricultural economies. In these countries the farming community is by and large rich and constitutes from 1 to 5% of the population ; their agriculture profile is completely different to ours. These countries do not have the large numbers of small and marginal farmers like we do yet subsidy to agriculture is of a very high order. Because they produce a massive food surplus, farmers in industrialised countries get paid for leaving their fields fallow. In Europe agriculture is a purely commercial activity. For the majority of Indian farmers however, it is a livelihood. These farmers are the very people who have nurtured and conserved genetic resources. The same genetic resources that breeders want to corner under Breeders Rights. We must protect the rights of our farmers and these rights must be stated unambiguously in our sui generis legislation. Almost all agricultural research and plant breeding in India is financed with the taxpayers money. It is conducted in public institutions like agricultural universities and institutions of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). This research belongs to the public. The laws of UPOV on the other hand are formulated by societies where seed research is conducted more in the private domain than in public institutions; where private capital finances plant breeding. Because they invest in expensive breeding methods and need to secure returns on their investments, seed companies in Europe and North America seek market control through strong IPRs. These conditions do not apply in India. Another feature that makes the UPOV system unsuitable for us is its sheer cost. At the seminar organised jointly by the ICAR and UPOV in Delhi last year, the figures that were presented for obtaining an UPOV authorised Breeders Right certificate could be several thousands, even lakhs. Such rates will effectively preclude the participation of all but the largest seed companies. There certainly will be no space in such a system for small companies, farmers co-operatives or farmer/breeders. In developing countries, farmers play a significant role as breeders of new varieties. They often release very successful varieties by crossing and selection from their fields. These varieties are released for use as such. In addition, in almost all cases, these varieties are taken up by agriculture universities as breeding material for producing other varieties. Such farmer/breeders would not be able to participate in an expensive system like UPOV. Their material along with their labour and innovation would be misappropriated by those with the money to translate such valuable germplasm into money-spinning varieties registered in UPOV. Poor farmers unable to pay the costs of getting an UPOV certificate, would tend to sell their varieties for small sums to larger seed companies. This will be the ultimate irony, creating an institution that will snatch away from the farmer his material and his opportunities. Gene Campaign and the Centre for Environment and Development are presenting here an alternative treaty to UPOV to provide a forum for developing countries to implement their Farmers and Breeders Rights. This treaty is called the Convention of Farmers and Breeders, CoFaB for short. CoFaB has an agenda that is appropriate for developing countries. It reflects their strengths and their vulnerabilities. It seeks to secure their interests in agriculture and fulfil the food and nutritional security goals of their people. This treaty between developing countries seeks to fulfil the following goals : * Provide reliable, good quality seeds to the small and large farmer * Maintain genetic diversity in the field * Provide for breeders of new varieties to have protection for their varieties in the market, without prejudice to public interest . * Acknowledge the enormous contribution of farmers to the identification, maintenance and refinement of germplasm * Acknowledge the role of farmers as creators of land races and traditional varieties which form the foundation of agriculture and modern plant breeding, * Emphasise that the countries of the tropics are germplasm owning countries and the primary source of agricultural varieties * Develop a system wherein farmers and breeders have recognition and rights accruing from their respective contribution to the creation of new varieties The salient features of COFAB are as follows 1. Farmers rights : Each contracting state will recognise the rights of farmers by arranging for the collection of a Farmers Rights fee from the breeders of new varieties. The Farmers Rights fee will be levied for the privilege of using land races or traditional varieties either directly or through the use of other varieties that have used land races and traditional varieties, in their breeding program. Farmers Rights will be granted to farming communities and where applicable, to individual farmers. Revenue collected from Farmers Rights fees will flow into a National Gene Fund (NGF) the use of which will be decided by a multi-stakeholder body set up for the purpose. . The Rights granted to the farming community under Farmers Rights entitles them to charge a fee from breeders every time a land race or traditional variety is used for the purpose of breeding or improving a new variety . Rights granted to the farmer and farming community under Farmers Rights are granted for an unlimited period. 2. Breeders rights : Each member state will recognise the right of the breeder of a new variety by the grant of a special title called the Plant Breeders Right . The Plant Breeders Right granted to the breeder of a new plant variety is that prior authorisation shall be required for the production, for purposes of commercial and branded marketing of the reproductive or vegetative propagating material, as such, of the new variety, and for the offering for sale or marketing of such material. Vegetative propagating material shall be deemed to include whole plants. The breeder's right shall extend to ornamental plants or parts of these normally marketed for purposes other than propagation when they are used commercially as propagating material in the production of ornamental plants or cut flowers. Authorisation by the breeder shall not be required either for the utilisation of the new variety as an initial source of variation for the purpose of creating other new varieties or for the marketing of such varieties. Such authorisation shall be required, however, when the repeated use of the new variety is necessary for the commercial production of another variety. At the time of application for a Plant Breeders Rights, the breeder of the new variety must declare the name and source of all varieties used in the breeding of the new variety. Where a land race or farmer variety has been used, this must be specially mentioned. In order to promote a more sustainable kind of agriculture and without any prejudice to the quality and reliability of the new variety, CoFaB enjoins breeders of new varieties to try to base the new variety on a broader rather than a narrower genetic base, in order to maintain greater genetic variability in the field. Further, a variety for which rights are claimed must have been entered in field trials for at least two cropping seasons and evaluated by an independent institutional arrangement. The breeder at the time of getting rights will have to provide the genealogy of the variety along with DNA finger printing and other molecular, morphological and physiological characteristics. The right conferred on the breeder of a new plant variety shall he granted for a limited period, depending on the variety. In the event of a variety becoming susceptible to pest attack, the normal period of protection may be curtailed to prevent the spread of disease. In order to monitor this, periodic evaluations will be undertaken. The breeder or his successor shall forfeit his right when he is no longer in a position to provide the competent authority with reproductive or propagating material capable of producing the new variety with its morphological and physiological characteristics as defined when the right was granted. The breeder will also forfeit his right if the "Productivity Potential" as claimed in the application is no longer valid. To give primacy to the goals of food security , it has been provided in CoFaB that the right of the breeder will be forfeited if he is not able to meet the demand of farmers, leading to scarcity of planting material, increased market price and monopolies. If the breeder fails to disclose information about the new variety or does not provide the competent authority with the reproductive or propagating material, his right will be declared null and void. -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Wed Sep 26 17:58:42 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 14:28:42 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] SAS soldier talks about training Afghan soldiers In-Reply-To: <20010926012702.G12357@r4k.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Menso Heus wrote: > On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 02:55:51PM +0200, Boud Roukema wrote: > > On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Menso Heus wrote: > > > > > SAS soldier speaks up on training the Afghans: apparently these guys > > ... > > > The lucky ones died instantly. The unlucky ones were chopped to > > > pieces in the aftermath. In the Hindu Kush, don't expect to > > > appeal to the Geneva convention." > > > > Well, it could be true (I don't see why Afghans should be less > > competent at killing than people in other societies), but the > > conclusion is ambiguous, and risks leading to absurd implications! > > The way I take the line about the Geneva convention is the soldiers > view (could be any soldier) saying "This is all nice, all these > conventions, but when you're actually out there, don't think anybody > actually cares about them." We're supposed to be polite and not flame here. I'll try. After all, the equivalent of the Geneva convention applies in mailing lists. ;-) All you do here is provide an "artistic" method of proof by assertion. Here's an example of the assertion that ** Pink elephants live in the clouds. ** The way I take the line about the pink elephants is the pilot's view (could be any pilot) saying "This is all nice, all these claims that clouds are just made of water vapour, but when you're actually out there facing the pink elephants, don't think anybody actually cares about these water vapour theories." Convinced? > Last night I zapped across Turner Classics Movie Channel (tv) where > I just happened to hear a quote that I think is appropriate. It was Well, I said in my previous post that I consider Hollywood/Bollywood to be a bad place to learn about real life or practical ethics. It's fiction! It's also full of necessary illusions for the manufacturing of consent: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni.html Are you trying to manufacture our consent for human rights violations? > an old war movie and one soldier was explaining to, what seemed to > be a prisoner, about the Geneva convention. > > Prisoner: "I don't understand this convention thing" > Soldier: "It is sort of a gentleman agreement" Prisoner (murder suspect): I don't understand this law-against-murder thing. Police officer: It is sort of a gentleman agreement. > Prisoner shrugs, then: "If we'd all be gentlemen there'd be no war." Prisoner shrugs, then: "If we'd all be gentlemen there'd be no murder." What can we conclude from this? That this law-against-murder thing is silly, and that lynch mob revenge (or "hero revenge") against suspected murderers is OK? Are lynch mobs really better than having policemen arrest suspects within some legal framework, with prisoners having the right to visits by a doctor and lawyer of their choosing, a right to visits by family, and the right to a fair trial according to international legal norms? OK, as I said, Hollywood/Bollywood says that revenge murder by "good guys" against "bad guys" is much better than the legal system. But are you seriously saying that you agree with this? Of course we should combat the root causes of war and murder, but in the short term, legal frameworks are a necessary way to limit the cycle of violence. Even anarchists agree that anarchism is "no rulers, not no rules". And the fact is that it's usually grass-roots groups that spend decades struggling for laws which limit cycles of violence, not just "gentlemen". It's often the "gentlemen" that start the wars. It's the people at the bottom - plus a tiny minority of "gentlemen" from the coordinator class - who insisted on the Geneva conventions. Are you aware how horrible war is? Do you really want to make the US media's desire for war into reality? Do you want this war to be as horrible as possible? Do you really want Hollywood/Bollywood to be the motivation for stepping up the cycle of violence in Central/West/South Asia and having it spread through the region? Do you really want an islamic fundamentalist revolution in Pakistan? Do you really want an islamic fundamentalist nuclear power? World-wide pressure *against* the USA war (whether the war is against Afghanistan, Florida, or Israel, all countries/states suspected of harbouring the WTC bombers' supporters) is strong and a very big anti-war movement is building up - in fact, the anti-global-capitalism movement is taking on the anti-terrorism/anti-war theme as a major theme: http://www.lbbs.org/peacepros.htm [Since some members want full text, not just web references, I'm posting this in the following message as "Albert: peace prospects".] And, of course: http://www.indymedia.org/peace/ Better join the movement, not oppose it! From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Wed Sep 26 18:01:19 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 14:31:19 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] Albert: peace prospects In-Reply-To: <20010926012702.G12357@r4k.net> Message-ID: Peace Movement Prospects By Michael Albert http://www.lbbs.org/peacepros.htm September 11 went well beyond tragic. Worse is possible. Much better is also possible. And to achieve better is why activists need to not only mourn, but also to educate and organize. But many people I encounter doubt peace movement prospects. I find this wrong for two reasons. One, doubting prospects wastes time. Even when prospects of change are dim, to work for better outcomes is always better then to bemoan difficulties. Two, contrary to despondency, current circumstances auger hope. 'Are you crazy?' some people will ask. It is one thing to urge action, but it is another thing to surrender reason to desire. However, it is not desire that gives me hope, but evidence. The answers to these questions are all important. In our world, the only alternative to vigilantism is that guilt should be determined by an amassing of evidence that is then assessed in accordance with international law by the United Nations Security Council or other appropriate international agencies. Last night there was a two hour marathon Hollywood extravaganza broadcast by all the major networks and watched by millions. There was nearly no anger and no celebration of power. It was a dignified event that respected the dead and appropriately celebrated the courage of those who worked to save lives. The evening's songs sought restraint and understanding. This event occurred while elites seek lock-step obedience. Johnny and Jill are supposed to be donning marching boots. Yet this was no pep rally for war. Instead, the songs urged love and understanding and explicitly rejected cycles of retribution and hate. Don't get me wrong. The evening wasn't ZNet set to music. But nor did it support piling terror on top of terror. If the right-wing rather than saner heads and hearts were actually ascendant, then we would have had the Bob Hope and Charlton Heston Hour, and we didn't. More, in the last few days there have been scores of small and also some quite large demonstrations and gatherings. Reports indicate there are 105 scheduled today, Saturday. There is no war yet. But there is resistance, and it is growing rapidly. Just two days ago I was asked to be on a national radio call-in show with a listenership of roughly two million from all over the country. The host, a Republican, thought there would be division emerging about any war plans and he wanted to offer diverse voices (which is itself a good sign). He told me I'd be on for fifteen minutes. The time came, they called, I was asked how I differed from Bush. I answered, and the discussion continued for two hours. The host eventually left hostility behind, becoming more and more curious. Many callers were hostile, sure, but they were also open to cogent commentary. The simple formulation that attacking civilians is terrorism, that terrorism is horrible, and that therefore we should not attack civilians, was irrefutable. More interesting, no one even tried to rebut contextual argument and evidence. They made clear they knew my claims about U.S. policies in Iraq and elsewhere were true and they would with a few exceptions even grudgingly assent to them, so the remaining issue was whether the U.S. should be bound by the same morals that we hope others will be bound by, a dispute that is easy to win with anyone but a fanatic. I won't proceed with details. The point is, even in a right-wing forum, many people will hear our views, understand them, and even change their minds. U.S. elites like war. War sends the message that laws do not bind U.S. elites, that morality does not bind U.S. elites, that nothing binds U.S. elites but their estimates of their own interests. It trumpets that everybody else better ratify our plans, or at least get out of the way. Likewise, for U.S. elites, war preparedness is good economics. Military spending primes the capitalist pump and spurs its engines, but crucially military spending doesn't give those in the middle and at the bottom better conditions or better housing or more education or better health care or anything else that will make people less afraid, more knowledgeable, more secure, and particularly more able to develop and pursue their own agendas regarding economic distribution. War empowers the rich and powerful, but its real virtue is that it disempowers working people and the disenfranchised poor. War annihilates deliberation. It elevates mainstream media to dominate communication even more than in peacetime. War abets repression by demanding obedience. It labels dissent treason, or in this case, incipient terrorism. Elites like all this, not surprisingly. So while elites gravitate toward a war on terrorism for these reasons, what, if anything, might obstruct their plans? When Bush says that attacking civilians for political purposes is wrong and urges that we must find ways to eliminate such terrorism - he is very compelling to almost everyone. But when in the very next breath Bush urges as the method of doing so diverse military attacks on civilians (or starving them), his hypocrisy begs critique. As a solution to the danger of terrorism, committing more terrorism that in turn breeds still more, will not sustain support. Likewise, to fight fundamentalism with assertions that God is on our side, will also prove uninspiring. Five-year-olds can and will dissent. And so will adults. So what obstructs war? People do. It's that simple. People who first doubt the efficacy and morality of piling terror on top of terror. People who slowly move from quiet dissent to active opposition. People who move from opposing the violence of war and barbarity of starvation to challenging the basic institutions that breed war and starvation. If elites choose war as a national program they will do so in hopes that it can defend and even enlarge their advantages. If we act so that war instead spurs public understanding, and opposition not only to war, but in time even to elite rule - then elites will reconsider their agenda. Indeed, I bet many are already having grave doubts. So how hard is our task? What do most people think about this situation, before activism has countered media madness? Well, it certainly isn't definitive, but Gallup polls give us more reason for hope. First question: 'Once the identity of the terrorists known, should the American government launch a military attack on the country or countries where the terrorists are based or should the American government seek to extradite the terrorists to stand trial'? In Austria 10% said we should attack. In Denmark 20%, Finland 14%, France 29%, Germany 17%, Greece 6%, Italy 21%, Bosnia 14%, Bulgaria 19%, Czechoslavakia 22%, Croatia 8%, Estonia 10%, Latvia 21%, Lithuania 15% Romania 18%, Argentina 8%, Colombia 11%, Ecuador 10%, Mexico 2%, Panama 16%, Peru 8%, Venezuela 11%, and even in the U.S. only 54% favor attacking. Gallup didn't get numbers for China, for the mideast countries, etc. Gallup next asks: 'If the United States decides to launch an attack, should the U.S. attack military targets only, or both military and civilian targets?' In Austria 82% said only military targets. In Denmark 84%, Finland 76%, France 84%, Germany 84%, Greece 82%, Italy 86%, Bosnia 72%, Bulgaria 71%, Czechoslavakia 75%, Estonia 88%, Latvia 82%, Lithuania 73% Romania 85%, Argentina 70%, Colombia 71%, Ecuador 74%, Mexico 73%, Panama 62%, Peru 66%, Venezuela 81%, and even in the U.S. 56% favor attacking only military targets, 28% attacking both military and civilian, and 16% gave no answer. It seems clear that we do not inhabit a world lined up for protracted war. We live, instead, in a world that is prepared for arguments against war, for opposition to war, and even, in time, for addressing the basic structural causes that produce war. Humanity does not lack scruples or logic, but only information and knowledge. If people have information and if they can escape media manipulation and conformity, they will draw worthy conclusions. Our task is to provide information and help break conformity. Finally, regarding the issues at hand?how hard is it to understand the obvious? The U.S. postal system is not run by exemplary humanitarians or geniuses, much less by radicals. Yet in response to workers killing others on the job--which is called ?going postal?--the postal service did not decide to determine where the offending parties lived and attack those neighborhoods for harboring terrorists. They also did not say that the stress of postal work justifies serial homicide in the workplace, of course. They instead legally prosecuted, on the one hand, and also realized that stress was a powerful contributing factor and so worked to reduce stress to in turn diminish the likelihood of people going postal. Anyone can extend this analogy. It isn't complicated. For that matter, the U.S. government, which is certainly not a repository of wisdom or moral leadership, doesn't generally decide about terrorism to hold whole populations accountable. When Timothy McVeigh bombed innocents, the Federal government called it horrific, accurately, but did not declare war on Idaho and Montana for harboring cells of the groups McVeigh was associated with -- much less on all people sharing McVeigh's race or religion. The government opted to prove McVeigh's culpability and to employ legal means to restrain him and try the case. What makes September 11 different regarding our government's agenda is not so much the larger scale of the horror, but instead its utility to the government's reactionary programs. In the case of McVeigh, bombing Montana wouldn't benefit elites. In the case of September 11, elites think bombing diverse targets will benefit their capitalist profit-making and geopolitical interests. That's harsh. That's about the harshest thing one could say, I guess, in some sense, in this situation. It is devilish opportunism. Yet, I honestly think that at some level everyone knows it's true. It has gotten to that point in this country. They play with our lives like we are their little toys - and we know it, and we have to put a stop to it, a step at a time. From geeta.patel at verizon.net Wed Sep 26 20:01:12 2001 From: geeta.patel at verizon.net (Geeta Patel) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 10:31:12 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: FWD (This might be of interest for documentary students) Message-ID: <01b701c14697$e566a540$6401a8c0@inteva> Please forward widely ----- Original Message ----- From: Salem Mekuria To: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Hi everyone, > Thought you'd like to know how news is really not news but creative > constructions. > ----------------------- > > Last week the German tv-channel "ARD" showed in its programm "Panorama" an > analysis of the whole film material on the "Dancing Palestinians" which > was far > more than what was shown on tv. On those complete sequences one could see > that > it wasn't a big crowd that was dancing and applauding, but only a very > small > group of mostly children. They were stirred up by one young man. On the few > scenes that weren't close-ups of this group, one could see, that the rest > of the > street was calm and people passing by were rather puzzled when they saw > the the > crowd cheering. When one woman who was part of this group was intervied by > other > journalists later, she told that those who made this film promised to give > her > some cake when she joined the crowd, but in fact she hadn't been happy but > shocked when she had heard of the attack. > So "Panorama" suspected that the "Dancing Palestinians " were a creation > of the > news-agencies who send these sequences to tv broadcasters all over the > world. > > A short (German) summary of the program: > http://www.ndrtv.de/panorama/sendung/medien.html > > > Barbara Fischer > Hamburg > > From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Wed Sep 26 21:22:09 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:52:09 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: FWD (This might be of interest for documentary students) In-Reply-To: <01b701c14697$e566a540$6401a8c0@inteva> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Geeta Patel wrote: > Subject: Fwd: FWD (This might be of interest for documentary students) > > Hi everyone, > > Thought you'd like to know how news is really not news but creative > > constructions. > > ----------------------- > > > > Last week the German tv-channel "ARD" showed in its programm "Panorama" an > > analysis of the whole film material on the "Dancing Palestinians" which > > was far > > more than what was shown on tv. On those complete sequences one could see Interesting. This is compatible with the report on Indymedia Israel: http://www.indymedia.org.il/imc/israel/webcast/display.php3?article_id=7650 > Israel Stages Anti-US Demonstration > by Geore F. 11:31am Thu Sep 20 '01 > address: Gaza, Palestine k_gii at yahoo.com > > This might prove interesting to analysts; it is drawn from the 14 > September issue of the Jerusalem Times which was delivered to my house > and scanned this morning. It is on the front page of Vol. VIII, > no. 397: > > Israel Stages Anti-US Demonstration > > A team sent by the Israel Defense Ministry to film Palestinian > children rejoicing in East Jerusalem staged the event that was later > circulated in the US and around the world. > > A member of the team approached the Juhaina > Sweets Shop and gave the owner 200 shekels and asked him to distr�te > the sweets to the children, according to the owner of the shop. > > Veteran Israeli political analyst Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy > mayor of Jerusalem, noted in Ha'aretz (Thursday Sept. 13): > > "A team from the Spokesman's Office of the Israel Defense Forces was > sent to film the scenes of joy and candy being handed out in East > Jerusalem `for public relations purposes" Benvenisti wrote. > > - TJT Staff > > Department of Anthropology > Eliot College > University of Kent > Canterbury CT2 7NS > tel. 01227 823180 > > Prof. dr. W.H.M. Jansen > Centre for Women's Studies > University of Nijmegen > P.O.Box 9104 > 6500 HE Nijmegen, Netherlands > tel: +31.24.3612339 / 3612067 > homepage: http://www.kun.nl/cvv > fax: +31.24.3611881 > e-mail: w.jansen at maw.kun.nl From menso at r4k.net Thu Sep 27 02:20:41 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 22:50:41 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] SAS soldier talks about training Afghan soldiers In-Reply-To: ; from boud_roukema@camk.edu.pl on Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 02:28:42PM +0200 References: <20010926012702.G12357@r4k.net> Message-ID: <20010926225041.L12357@r4k.net> On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 02:28:42PM +0200, Boud Roukema wrote: > On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Menso Heus wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 02:55:51PM +0200, Boud Roukema wrote: > > > On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Menso Heus wrote: > > > > > > > SAS soldier speaks up on training the Afghans: apparently these guys > > > ... > > > > The lucky ones died instantly. The unlucky ones were chopped to > > > > pieces in the aftermath. In the Hindu Kush, don't expect to > > > > appeal to the Geneva convention." > > > > > > Well, it could be true (I don't see why Afghans should be less > > > competent at killing than people in other societies), but the > > > conclusion is ambiguous, and risks leading to absurd implications! > > > > The way I take the line about the Geneva convention is the soldiers > > view (could be any soldier) saying "This is all nice, all these > > conventions, but when you're actually out there, don't think anybody > > actually cares about them." > > We're supposed to be polite and not flame here. I'll try. After > all, the equivalent of the Geneva convention applies in mailing lists. ;-) > > All you do here is provide an "artistic" method of proof by assertion. > Here's an example of the assertion that > > ** Pink elephants live in the clouds. ** > > The way I take the line about the pink elephants is the pilot's view > (could be any pilot) saying "This is all nice, all these claims that > clouds are just made of water vapour, but when you're actually out > there facing the pink elephants, don't think anybody actually cares > about these water vapour theories." > > Convinced? Boud, The way you compare doesn't seem to be correct to me. I doubt if you have read the entire article, most of the people who did and whom I've discussed this with took the line in the exact same way. If you think this line was meant differently, it is your right to do so and that's fine with me. The rest of you message was too ridiculous for words and had the taint of Pocockism on them: you assume strange things, then continue assuming on your previous assumptions and before you know it I'm suddenly pro-war, anti-humanrights and many more things which I am not. Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From gchat at vsnl.net Wed Sep 26 22:28:57 2001 From: gchat at vsnl.net (Gayatri Chatterjee) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 22:28:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: Wired News :Bin Laden: Steganography Master? Message-ID: <000301c146ed$cf316980$b855c5cb@wmi.co.in> > From Wired News, available online at: > http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,41658,00.html > > Bin Laden: Steganography Master? > by Declan McCullagh > > 2:00 a.m. Feb. 7, 2001 PST > > WASHINGTON -- If there's one thing the FBI hates more than Osama bin > Laden, it's when Osama bin Laden starts using the Internet. > > So it should be no surprise that the feds are getting unusually > jittery about what they claim is evidence that bin Laden and his terrorist allies are using message-scrambling techniques to evade law enforcement. > > > > See also: > Israel's Seminar on Cyberwar > 'Cyber-Terrorist' Jailed Again > The Feds'll Come A-Snoopin' > Keep an eye on Privacy Matters > Everybody's got issues in Politics > > > > > > > > USA Today reported on Tuesday that bin Laden and others "are hiding > maps and photographs of terrorist targets and posting instructions for terrorist activities on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other websites, U.S. and foreign officials say." > > The technique, known as steganography, is the practice of embedding > secret messages in other messages -- in a way that prevents an observer from learning that anything unusual is taking place. Encryption, by contrast, relies on ciphers or codes to scramble a message. > > The practice of steganography has a distinguished history: The Greek > historian Herodotus describes how one of his cunning countrymen sent a secret message warning of an invasion by scrawling it on the wood underneath a wax tablet. To casual observers, the tablet appeared blank. > > Both Axis and Allied spies during World War II used such measures as > invisible inks -- using milk, fruit juice or urine which darken when heated, or tiny punctures above key characters in a document that form a message when combined. > > Modern steganographers have far-more-powerful tools. Software like > White Noise Storm and S-Tools allow a paranoid sender to embed messages in digitized information, typically audio, video or still image files, that are sent to a recipient. > > The software usually works by storing information in the least > significant bits of a digitized file -- those bits can be changed without in ways that aren't dramatic enough for a human eye or ear to detect. One review, of a graphical image of Shakespeare before and after a message was inserted, showed JPEG files that appeared to have no substantial differences. > > Steghide embeds a message in .bmp, .wav and .au files, and MP3Stego > does it for MP3 files. One program, called snow, hides a message by adding extra whitespace at the end of each line of a text file or e-mail message. > > Perhaps the strangest example of steganography is a program called > Spam Mimic, based on a set of rules, called a mimic engine, by Disappearing Cryptography author Peter Wayner. It encodes your message into -- no kidding -- what looks just like your typical, quickly deleted spam message. > > So if steganography is so popular, is there anything the feds can do > about it? > > Some administration critics think the FBI and CIA are using potential > terrorist attacks as an attempt to justify expensive new proposals such as the National Homeland Security Agency -- or further restrictions on encryption and steganography programs. > > The Clinton administration substantially relaxed -- but did not remove > -- regulations controlling the overseas shipments of encryption hardware and software, such as Web browsers or Eudora PGP plug-ins. > One thing's for certain: All of a sudden, the debate in Washington > seems to be heading back to where it was in 1998, before the liberalization. > > "I think it's baloney," says Wayne Madsen, a former NSA analyst and > author. "They come out with this stuff. I think it's all contrived -- it's perception management." > > Three years ago, FBI Director Louis Freeh spent much of his time > telling anyone who would listen that terrorists were using encryption -- and Congress should approve restrictions on domestic use. > > "We are very concerned, as this committee is, about the encryption > situation, particularly as it relates to fighting crime and fighting terrorism," Freeh said to the Senate Judiciary committee in September 1998. "Not just bin Laden, but many other people who work against us in the area of terrorism, are becoming sophisticated enough to equip themselves with encryption devices." > > He added: "We believe that an unrestricted proliferation of products > without any kind of court access and law enforcement access, will harm us, and make the fight against terrorism much more difficult." > > But Freeh never complained about steganography -- at least when the > committee met in open session. > > Some of the more hawkish senators seemed to agree with the FBI > director, a former field agent. "I think the terrorist attacks against United States citizens really heighten your concern that commercial encryption products will be misused for terrorist purposes," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif). > > Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) added he was concerned about "the sophistication > of the terrorists, the amount of money they have available (and) their use of technology like encryption." > > In March 2000, Freeh said much the same thing to a Senate Judiciary > subcommittee headed by Kyl. He echoed CIA Director George Tenet's earlier remarks, saying: "Hizbollah, HAMAS, the Abu Nidal organization and Bin Laden's al Qa'ida organization are using computerized files, e-mail and encryption to support their operations." > > Related Wired Links: > > Ashcroft to Chew On Carnivore > Jan. 27, 2001 > > Ashcroft to Chew On Carnivore > Jan. 27, 2001 > > Crypto: Three Decades in Review > Jan. 9, 2001 > > Crypto: Three Decades in Review > Jan. 9, 2001 > > New Congress to Push Privacy > Jan. 7, 2001 > > Top Cop Arrives With Mixed Bag > Jan. 5, 2001 > > Privacy a Victim of the Drug War > Dec. 11, 2000 > > Privacy a Victim of the Drug War > Dec. 11, 2000 > > Why E-Security Is Hard to Tame > Sep. 19, 2000 > > Why E-Security Is Hard to Tame > Sep. 19, 2000 > > Regulating Privacy: At What Cost? > Sep. 19, 2000 > > Copyright (C) 1994-2001 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved. > > > From aiindex at mnet.fr Wed Sep 26 22:37:52 2001 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:07:52 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] Worldwide Sisterhood Against Terrorism and War Message-ID: [Fyi, with well known and famous folks on this one] o o o o o o o o o o o o NOT IN OUR NAME! >Worldwide Sisterhood Against Terrorism and War >We women who are Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains >and women of many beliefs from the countries that lost lives in the terror >of September 11th, unite on these principles: > >We will not support the bombing or U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, for >it would only >punish suffering people, and increase the hatred on which terrorists feed. No >military action has ever ended terrorism. > >We stand with our sisters in Afghanistan who are suffering and dying under >the gender apartheid and sexual terrorism of the Taliban. The world has >endangered itself by failing to heed their pleas. We must help them build a >democracy that includes women. > >We believe the mass murders of September 11 were crimes against humanity that >must be prosecuted. All terrorists must be brought to justice. > >We pledge to judge people by their acts, not the group into which they were >born. > >We will boycott financial institutions that refuse to disclose the flow of >funds to terrorists. We will target and expose political leaders who refuse >to require disclosure. > >To stop the spiral of terror and vengeance, we believe there must be an act >as positive as the terrorist act was negative. > >Therefore: > >WE CALL ON THE UNITED STATES, THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE WORLD >COMMUNITY, EACH ACCORDING TO ITS ECONOMIC MEANS, TO BEGIN A MASSIVE >AND IMMEDIATE AIRLIFT OF FOOD AND MEDICINE FOR THE PEOPLE OF >AFGHANISTAN. > > --------------------------------------------- > >Because the U.S. has mobilized and may be about to attack Afghanistan, one of >the most tragic and war-ravaged countries in the world, we send this urgently >and with only the instruction that, should you agree, you do with this >statement whatever you do best. >Send it to your U.S. Congressmember or other Parliamentarian > >Talk about it to the media > >Plaster copies over your local military base, send it to every person you >know on the planet, paint it on yourself and sit in silence in a public place > >Sing it, shout it, make buttons, circulate it as a petition, organize a rally >around it, do a teach in about it, translate it into your language, speak it >from street corners, use it to picket The White House > >Send it to George W. Bush's inner circle, send it to the mothers of his inner >circle, put it inside newspapers, leaflet military recruiting stations, make >it into a I-won't-pay-war-taxes pledge > >And most important, use your own head and heart to prevent a war that can >only lead to more terrorism. > >Gloria Steinem >Eve Ensler >Evelyn Rothstein >Diane de Vegh >Lisa Gilford >Sally Fisher >Vahida Nainar >Fahima Danishgar >Jessica Neuwirth >Zieba Shorish-Shamley >Mariana Katzarova >Robina Niaz >Sheila Dauer >Paula Allen >Sunita Mehta >Jane Fonda >Claude Servan-Schreiber >Suj Krishnamurthy >Zayba Rahman >Robin Morgan >Anne Firth Murray >Catherine Gund >Asma Sadiq >Dr. Margaret Abraham >Mallika Dutt >Anupama Rao >Ameena Meer >Alice Walker >Dr. Jaskiran Mathur >Pat Cane >Purvi Shah >Gloria Jacobs >Fahima Vorgetts >Marti Copleman >Willa Shalit >Sarah Jones >Hazelle Goodman >Kathy Najimy >Noeleen Heyzer -- From maximpouska at hotmail.com Wed Sep 26 23:27:54 2001 From: maximpouska at hotmail.com (Maxim Pouska) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 23:27:54 Subject: [Reader-list] HOW CAN YOU MAKE ART THIS WAY? Message-ID: HOW CAN YOU MAKE ART THIS WAY? Today, at the end of September 2001 I down loaded the �Call for projects 2002: The Daniel Langlois Foundation�. I know the work by Daniel and know that he is a very generous man. Back in 1990 I exhibited the work �Tony de Peltrie� - by Daniel and his team - at my gallery in Munich. Curators for the show were Herv�ischer and Ginette Mayor. I know also the style and the ways how you have to ask - begging- for grants in Canada. But I asked myself all the time as I worked together with Jacques Charbonneau, Herv�ischer and Ginette Major is this a real way for an artist to work? I looked today at the �PROGRAM GUIDE FOR INDIVIDUALS� and calculated from now to the day you can start to work at your �artwork� you have to wait seven to nine months. Herv�peaks some German and he likes the Word �Beamter� - all workers at his office are �Beamte� for him. A �Beamter� is employed by the state for his working lifetime - he can never be fired!!!!. In English you will say a �Beamter� is an officer or civil servant. If I look at this �Call for projects 2002� then I get a feeling that you will become a �Beamter� for art (Kunstbeamter - funny wordplay, too) - if you start to go in this trap. I respect artist which doing it, no question. But, can you make art this way? I just remember the book by W. Somerset Maugham �The Moon and Sixpence� - you can find it on the Internet for free. What a different story to be an artist which he wrote long time ago. (1918, first print) Yes, business is business and artist now rushing to do the first work of the WTC catastrophe - and be sure that artist will ask for grants to do this work, too. Maybe, nothing is wrong with this. Maxim >From: Angela Plohman >Reply-To: Angela Plohman >To: Electrik BG , fineArt Forum >, Nettime , New Media >Notes , NICE , Rhizome Raw >, Sarai Reader List , spectre >, Universes in Universe - Forum >, webartery , x-change > >Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: The Daniel Langlois Foundation Announces Major >Changes >Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 15:21:23 -0400 > >September 24, 2001 > >Call for projects 2002: The Daniel Langlois Foundation Announces Major >Changes > >-- [CALL FOR PROJECTS 2002 - NEW DEADLINES] >-- [MAJOR CHANGES TO THE FOUNDATION'S PROGRAMS] >-- [PROGRAM GUIDE AND APPLICATION FORM NOW AVAILABLE IN SPANISH] > > >[CALL FOR PROJECTS 2002] > >The Daniel Langlois Foundation is pleased to launch its call for projects >for the year 2002. The Foundation now has 2 calls for projects a year, one >for individuals and one for organizations. Note that all copies of the >program guide distributed before September 21, 2001 are invalid. Please >take >careful note of the following deadlines: > >For individual artists or scientists: JANUARY 31, 2002 >For organizations: JUNE 30, 2002 > > >[MAJOR CHANGES TO THE FOUNDATION'S PROGRAMS] > >Besides changing the deadlines for proposals, the Foundation has revised >its >funding programs. The following programs are now offered: > >For individual artists or scientists: >The Research Grant Program for Individual Artists or Scientists >There is now one specific program guide and application form for individual >artists that can be found at >http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/programmes/index.html. > >For organizations: >The Exhibition, Distribution, and Performance Program for Organizations >& >The Program for Organizations from Emerging Regions >The former Residency and Commissioning of Works of Art Program and the >Exhibition, Distribution, and Performance Program have been fused together. >There is now one specific program guide and application form for >organizations that can be found at >http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/programmes/index.html. > > >[PROGRAM GUIDE AND APPLICATION FORM NOW AVAILABLE IN SPANISH] > >Application information is now available in French, English or Spanish. >Applicants in the Program for Organizations from Emerging Regions may >submit >their proposals in Spanish provided it includes a one-page summary in >French >or English. Note that although the Foundation accepts proposals in Spanish, >all correspondence will be in English or French. > >For more information, please contact the Foundation's program officer at >aplohman at fondation-langlois.org or at (514) 987-7177. > > -30- >Source: > >Angela Plohman >Program Officer >The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology >3530 Saint-Laurent Blvd., suite 402 >Montr�, Qu�c H2X 2V1 Canada > >T: (514) 987-7177 / F: (514) 987-7492 >e: aplohman at fondation-langlois.org >url: http://www.fondation-langlois.org/e/nouvelles >+ well blow me away. wait, I was kidding. >-> Rhizome.org >-> post: list at rhizome.org >-> questions: info at rhizome.org >-> subscribe/unsubscribe: http://rhizome.org/subscribe.rhiz >-> give: http://rhizome.org/support >+ >Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the >Membership Agreement available online at http://rhizome.org/info/29.php3 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From voyd at voyd.com Thu Sep 27 09:55:30 2001 From: voyd at voyd.com (Patrick Lichty) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 21:25:30 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: RHIZOME_RAW: HOW CAN YOU MAKE ART THIS WAY? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4.1.20010926212108.01206398@pop3.voyd.com> There are pieces of work that I am currently working on that will incorporate reflections on the 9/11 events and imagery, but I am not applying for grants to complete it, nor will I be actively seeking exhibition venues for it. I am unsure that even though this body of work may be of a good size, and may take up a significant amount of time, I am unsure of the context under which it may be seen, if at all until time creates a more stable cultural context. From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Sep 27 14:46:12 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:46:12 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Ben Moretti on Reality TV ? Message-ID: <01092714461200.02017@sweety.sarai.kit> Dear Readers, a brief take on the real and televised nature of our times, by Ben Moretti, forwarded from Nettime. Apologies for cross posting Shuddha ---------- Forwarded Message---------------- Subject: reality tv Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 23:34:41 +0930 From: bmoretti at chariot.net.au To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net i was musing this afternoon on the topic of reality tv. do the tv watching consumers of the west still need to have a fabricated reality fed to them every night, since 11 september? or is the all too clear reality of war, death and hard choices that has been forced upon them too realistic. i recall a tv executive stating that reality tv would become the most important entertainment sector on tv, until a couple of weeks ago that is. so, does hollywood now churn out distracting romantic comedies as in the 40's, or grimly patriotic cold war paranoia films such as 'the thing'? who knows. one thing that is weird is that i am currently re-reading 'the lord of the rings'. it is so very obviously a product of its time, that of 30s and 40s britain, and its attendant wars and problems of empire. this year the film of the book will be released. i wonder how much the film going public will project onto the story, ie: orcs (islamic terrorists) sauron (osama bin laden) gandalf (cheney) aragorn (bush) west (west) mordor (afghanistan) cheers ben # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From shuddha at sarai.net Fri Sep 28 13:19:18 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:19:18 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Understand the Whispers by Rajeev Bhargava Message-ID: <01092813191802.01464@sweety.sarai.kit> Dear Readers, here is a text that has been sent in by Rajeev Bhargava, a political philosopher in New Delhi, on the moral dilemmas that are being obscured by the rhetoric of war and vendett in the aftermath of September 11. Shuddha ______________________________________________________________ Understand the Whispers Rajeev Bhargava In India, as elsewhere, every person understood the cry for help: the horror and fear writ large on terror stricken faces, the trauma in the choked voices of people who saw it happen, the hopeless struggle to control an imminent breakdown in public, the unspeakable grief. For one moment, the pain and suffering of others became our own. In a flash, everyone recognised what is plain but easily forgotten that inscribed in our personal selves is not just our separateness from others but also sameness with them,that despite all socially constructed differences of language, culture, religion, nationality, perhaps even race, caste and gender, we share something in common. Amidst terror, acute vulnerability and unbearable sorrow, it was not America alone that rediscovered its lost solidarity. In these cataclysmic events, all people across the globe reclaim their common humanity. As we empathised with those who escaped or witnessed death, and re-lived the traumatic experience of those who lost their lives, we knew a grave, irreparable wrong done to individuals, killed, wounded or traumatised by the sudden loss of family and friends. These individuals were not just subjected to physical hurt or mental trauma, they were recipients and carriers of a message embodied in that heinous act. From now on they must live with a dreadful sense of their own vulnerability. This message was transmitted first to other individuals in New York and Washington, then quickly to citizens throughout the democratic world. The catastrophe on the east coast has deepened the sense of insecurity of every individual on this planet. However, this was not the only message sent by the perpetrators. Others are revealed when we focus on our collective identities. These messages are disturbingly ambivalent, morally fuzzy. They are less likely to sift good from evil, more likely to divide than unite people across the world. One such message which the poor, the powerless and the culturally marginalised would like communicated to the rich, powerful and the culturally dominant is this: we have grasped that any injustice done to us is erased before it is seen or spoken about; that in the current international social order, we count for very little; our ways of life are hopelessly marginalised, our lives utterly valueless. Even middle-class Indians with cosmopolitan aspirations became painfully aware of this when a country-wide list of missing or dead persons was flashed on an international news channel: hundreds of Britons, scores of Japanese, some Germans, three Australians, two Italians, one Swede. A few buttons away, a South Asian channel lists names of several hundred missing or dead Indians, while another flashes the names of thousands with messages of their safety to relatives back home. Intangible wounds Hard as it is to talk of this right now, it must be acknowledged that the attacks on New York and Washington were also meant to lower the collective self-esteem of Americans, to rupture their pride. Not all intentional wrong-doing is physically injurious to the victim, but every intentionally generated physical suffering is invariably accompanied by intangible wounds. The attack on September 11 did not merely demolish concrete buildings and individual people. It tried to destroy the American measure of its own self-worth, to diminish the self-esteem of Americans. Quite separate from the immorality of physical suffering caused, isn’t this attempt itself morally condemnable? Yes, if the act further lowers the self-worth of people with little enough. But this is hardly true of America, where the ruling elite ensures that its collective self-worth borders supreme arrogance, always over the top. Does not the Pentagon symbolise this false collective pride? Amidst this carnage, then, is a sobering thought.It occurs more naturally to poor people of powerless countries. Occasionally, even the mighty can be humbled. In such societies, the genuine anguish of people at disasters faced by the rich is mixed up with an unspeakable emotion which, on such apocalyptic occasions, people experience only in private or talk about only in whispers. I have spoken of two dimensions to the message hidden in the mangled remains of the destruction of September 11. The moral horror of the individual dimension of the carnage is unambiguous and overwhelming. But as we pause to examine its collective dimension, a less clear, more confusing moral picture emerges. How, on balance, after putting together these two dimensions, do we evaluate this more complicated moral terrain? The answer has to be swift and unwavering. For now, the focus must remain on the individual and the humanitarian. To shift our ethical compass in the direction of the collective weakens the moral claims of the suffering and the dead. This is plainly wrong. Nor is it enough to make merely a passing reference to the tragedy of individuals, a grudging concession before the weightier political crimes of a neo-imperial state are considered. The moral claims of individuals are currently supreme. But we cannot permanently screen off the collective dimension. To do so would obstruct our understanding of how tragedies of individuals can be prevented in future; in any case, in the long run it extends another already existing moral wrong. Victim must not turn perpetrator From shuddha at sarai.net Fri Sep 28 14:53:49 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:53:49 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Groun Zero - Ghosts & Echoes by Robin Morgan Message-ID: <01092814534901.02003@sweety.sarai.kit> Here's an interesting and moving account from Ground Zero by Robin Morgan, in the form of a letter. Shuddha _____________________________ GHOSTS & ECHOES Robin Morgan Dear Friends, I'll focus on New York--my firsthand experience--but this doesn't mean any less anguish for the victims of the Washington or Pennsylvania calamities. Today was Day 8. Incredibly, a week has passed. Abnormal normalcy has settled in. Our usually contentious mayor  (previously bad news for New Yorkers of color and for artists) has risen to this moment with efficiency, compassion, real leadership. The city is alive and dynamic. Below 14th Street, traffic is flowing again, mail is being delivered, newspapers are back. But very early this morning I walked east, then south almost to the tip of Manhattan Island. The 16-acre site itself is closed off, of course, as is a perimeter surrounding it controlled by the National Guard, used as a command post and staging area for rescue workers. Still, one is able to approach nearer to the area than was possible last weekend, since the law-court district and parts of the financial district are now open and (shakily) working. The closer one gets the more one sees--and smells--what no TV report, and very few print reports, have communicated. I find myself giving way to tears again and again, even as I write this. If the first sights of last Tuesday seemed bizarrely like a George Lucas special-effects movie, now the directorial eye has changed: it's the grim lens of Agnes Varda, juxtaposed with images so surreal they could have been framed by Bunuel or Kurosawa. This was a bright, cloudless, early autumnal day. But as one draws near the site, the  area looms out of a dense haze: one enters an atmosphere of dust, concrete powder, and plumes of smoke from fires still raging deep beneath the rubble (an estimated 2 million cubic yards of debris). Along lower 2nd Avenue, 10 refrigerator tractor-trailer trucks are parked, waiting; if you stand there a while, an NYC Medical Examiner van arrives--with a sagging body bag. Thick white ash, shards of broken glass, pebbles, and chunks of concrete cover street after street of parked cars for blocks outside the perimeter. Handprints on car windows and doors- handprints sliding downward--have been left like frantic graffiti. Sometimes there are messages finger-written in the ash: "U R Alive." You can look into closed shops, many with cracked or broken windows, and peer into another dimension: a wall-clock stopped at 9:10, restaurant tables meticulously set but now covered with two inches of ash, grocery shelves stacked with cans and produce bins piled high with apples and melons--all now powdered chalk-white. A moonscape of plenty. People walk unsteadily along these streets, wearing nosemasks against the still particle-full air, the stench of burning wire and plastic, erupted sewage; the smell of death, of decomposing flesh. Probably your TV coverage shows the chain-link fences aflutter with yellow ribbons, the makeshift shrines of candles, flowers, scribbled notes of mourning or of praise for the rescue workers that have sprung up everywhere--especially in front of firehouses, police stations, hospitals. What TV doesn't show you is that near Ground Zero the streets for blocks around are still, a week later, adrift in bits of paper--singed, torn,sodden pages: stock reports, trading print-outs, shreds of appointment calendars, half of a "To-Do" list.  What TV doesn't show you are scores of tiny charred corpses now swept into the gutters. Sparrows. Finches. They fly higher than pigeons, so they would have exploded outward, caught midair in a rush of flame, wings on fire as they fell. Who could have imagined it: the birds were burning. From kshekhar at bol.net.in Fri Sep 28 12:18:46 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:18:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 13.10.2001: Globalisation and Urban Employment Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010928/e40647d1/attachment.html From menso at r4k.net Fri Sep 28 17:41:12 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:11:12 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Here we go! (or "Encryption? Bad boy!") Message-ID: <20010928141112.H43547@r4k.net> BBC Radio interviewed UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, see: For the original see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1568000/1568254.stm Here is the rough copy & paste: UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says "naive" campaigners against stronger internet surveillance laws have hurt the anti-terror fight. He suggested that with stronger powers, the security services might have detected some of the 11 suicide hijackers who are now known to have passed through the UK on their way to the US. Mr Straw also repeated warnings that prime terrorist suspect Osama Bin Laden and his followers - whom he compared to the Nazis - could be planning further outrages. Working on the basis Bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation was still intact "there continues to be a risk of them making further attacks", he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday. "We don't know exactly where. On the one hand, none of us wish to raise anxiety in the minds of the public, but we would be complacent and irresponsible not to warn of the risks." It was Mr Straw's successor as home secretary, David Blunkett, who disclosed that some of those responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington could have previously been in the UK. There is conflicting media speculation about the length of their stay and whether any associates are still on the loose in Britain. But Mr Straw reacted forcibly when challenged by Today over why the 11 had gone undetected. "Whenever I was arguing in favour of tougher anti-terrorist powers... I was told that this was a breach of civil liberties, almost that it was the end of civilisation as we knew it, that it was completely unnecessary and the beginning of the Big Brother society," he declared. It wasn't Big Brother government, it was government trying to put in place increased powers so that we could preserve our democracy against this new kind of threat Mr Straw said he tried to give powers to the security services to de-encrypt commercially encrypted e-mails in case terrorists tried to use them to communicate with each other. "What happened? Large parts of the industry, backed by some people who I think will now recognise they were very naive in retrospect, said: 'You mustn't do that'. "The pressure was so great that we and the United States... had to back down a bit. "Now, I hear people saying 'why were these terrorists here' - well, the answer is not because of any lapse by the intelligence or security services or the police, but because people have had a two-dimensional view of civil liberties. "The most fundamental civil liberty is the right to life and preserving that and sustaining that must come before others." The Confederation of British Industry was one of the groups originally opposed to Mr Straw's de-encryption proposals. A spokesman said: "Obviously that debate took place in very different circumstances from now so we would want to consult members to see if their views had changed. "In the end it's about finding a balance between the fight against terrorism and maintaining the right to privacy for businesses' commercially sensitive information." The spokesman stressed British business "completely backs" the government's fight against terrorism. The foreign secretary's warning of further attacks by al-Qaeda echoes Europe Minister Peter Hain, who said on Wednesday that "we are in a very dangerous situation". Mr Straw rejected suggestions it might better to open diplomatic contacts with such groups. "You can't negotiate with these people. "The best historical parallel, I'm afraid to say, is with those at the top of the Nazi regime - it wasn't possible to negotiate with Hitler, although some people understandably but naively thought that it was." -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From shuddha at sarai.net Fri Sep 28 20:14:06 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 20:14:06 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] on 11 September 2001 and surveillance cameras Message-ID: <01092820140600.03280@sweety.sarai.kit> Apologies for cross posting to those already on Nettime. Remember, how much we once talked about surveillance, and surveillance cameras on this list? Sometimes themes of discussion come back, in different guises. THis posting for instance, by the New York Surveillance Camera Platers that I am forwarding from Nettime. Here, two threads collide - the thread of discussion around September 11 and the thread about Surveillance. Shuddha "when Big Brother (TM) watches you, learn to be Inivisible" (Grant Morrison, The Invisibles) ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: on 11 September 2001 and surveillance cameras Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 00:12:49 -0500 From: SCP-New York To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net http://www.notbored.org/change.html Nothing Has Changed Therefore Everything Must Change by the New York Surveillance Camera Players It has been widely noted that both "the intelligence community" (approximately 15 different agencies) and the various military and civilian agencies in charge of fighting terrorism (at least 40 of them) utterly failed to prevent, anticipate or get advance warning of the devastating attacks on civilian and military targets in New York City and Washington, D.C., on 11 September 2001. This truly disastrous failure took place despite the facts that every year the United States spends approximately $15 billion on intelligence-gathering and analysis and approximately $9 billion on counter-terrorism. There really should be no surprise here. Can anyone remember the last time the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) anticipated a major historical event? No: it "missed" the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the invasion of Kuwait, the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, etc. etc. And what was the CIA doing while these and other things took place? Assassinating democratically elected leaders such as Patrice Lumumba and Salvadore Allende; dealing drugs to raise money for illicit campaigns against popular movements in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvadore; propping up corrupt regimes such as those run by Fujimori and Pinochet; etc. etc. And the Federal Bureau of Investigation? When was the last time the FBI caught a "most wanted" criminal? A long, long time ago. But when was the most recent FBI scandal: the murders at Ruby Ridge and Waco? the "misplacement" of guns, laptop computers and files? the failure to disclose the existence of 4,000 documents pertaining to Timothy McVeigh? the exposure of Robert Hanssen, Russia's spy in the FBI? You get the idea: American taxpayers are wasting their money by funding a great many if not all of these agencies. But the feds weren't the only ones taken by surprise on 11 September 2001. So were the New York Police Department (NYPD), which of course maintains at least one "Intelligence Division," and all of the security firms that had clients at the World Trade Center (WTC) complex. There's an important parallel to be drawn here: in the same way that the CIA and the National Security Administration (NSA) have devoted far too much of their money, time and personnel to intercepting electronic communications and using satellites to take increasingly sophisticated photographs, the NYPD and the city's numerous security firms have devoted far too much of their money, time and personnel to laptop computers, digital radios, microwave transmitters and surveillance cameras. It might be said of both the CIA and the NYPD that -- if the taxpayers agree to continue funding them -- they (the CIA and the NYPD) should assign more agents to "the field," to "walking a beat" -- and leave the hi-tech spy gadgetry alone. The New York Surveillance Camera Players (NY SCP) can report from first-hand experience that, prior to the attacks, there were so many surveillance cameras in operation in the WTC area that their locations couldn't possibly be counted or mapped out, at least, that is, using the simple tools available to the NY SCP. No doubt some of these cameras were installed and operated by the FBI (and the CIA too?) in the wake of the first terrorist attack on the WTC in 1993; most of them were probably installed and operated by either the NYPD or security firms hired by the WTC or the businesses that rented space in it. None of these surveillance cameras did what they were supposed to do: anticipate or prevent another attack; provide security; keep thousands of people safe from harm. Like the NSA's orbiting satellites, surveillance cameras are a colossal waste of money. And so, for the NY SCP, nothing has changed since 11 September 2001. As we announced on 13 September 2001, the position of the group remains the same as it was prior to the attacks. We are unconditionally opposed to the installation of any and all surveillance devices in public places. Surveillance cameras did not and will never prevent a major crime or terrorist attack. The problems -- of crime, of terrorism -- must be solved in other ways. 11 September 2001 wasn't the first time that surveillance cameras failed to do anything but violate basic human rights. In countries such as England, where the authorities keep accurate and complete records of the number of arrests and convictions that can reliably be ascribed to the use of surveillance cameras, the results are clear. Either the criminals simply move out of the sight of the cameras or the police arrive on the scene too late to make an arrest. Note well the following news report from Scotland, dated 27th August 2001. CCTV fails to cut crime rate Increases in fighting and abusive behaviour in an East Lothian town have cast doubt on the effectiveness of closed circuit television. Traders in Haddington said the CCTV [closed circuit television] system had done little to reduce incidents of drug dealing and abuse in the area. Police were called out last weekend after a report of a youth in a white car "driving like crazy" in the town centre. However, when police attended the scene, the trouble had stopped and no-one was willing to come forward. In a second incident, police were called to a fight outside the Gardener's Arms public house, but when they arrived the people involved had dispersed. The criticism comes as a review of CCTV systems in East Lothian is under way. Traders are disappointment the CCTV has not done more to prevent crime. One said it had produced "little result". It is only in American cities, where accurate and complete records of the number of CCTV-derived arrests and convictions are not kept, that there is "evidence" that surveillance cameras are effective crime-fighting tools. (This putative evidence almost always consists of a handful of spectacular anecdotes in which surveillance cameras led to the capture of the criminal.) In the words of the principal of an elementary school at which CCTV systems were installed in the wake of the Columbine shootings, the value of such systems is merely "cosmetic," something to reassure insurance companies and prospective clients that "everything" has been done to prevent a reoccurrence. Tragedies spawn safety, design changes (August 27, 2001) WASHINGTON (AP) -- At Columbine High School this fall, teachers can look forward to emergency response drills and crisis management guides. In a few weeks, a "threat assessment manual" prepared by the Secret Service arrives [...] Across the nation, schools have reacted to campus shootings with a mix of tightened security and old-fashioned nurturing. Metal detectors, video cameras and 24-hour hot lines are going into operation [...] Joe Pizza, principal of Silver Bay Elementary School in Toms River, New Jersey, said his school has a video camera trained on visitors as they pass through the front door. "Even though the security camera is more cosmetic than anything else, it does give parents peace of mind," he said. And yet, in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, the TV screens, newspapers and computer terminals of New York City and the rest of America are filled with irrational calls for the installation of more surveillance cameras and for the increased use of face recognition software to "enhance" the performance of these cameras. For example, in the 16 September 2001 issue of The New York Times, our old friend, ex-Chief of the NYPD Howard Safir, was described as being in favor of the "installation of 100 or so [more] surveillance cameras in Times Square." (It's unfortunate that the reporter from The Times didn't ask Safir how many cameras are already installed there, because the matter is the subject of some conjecture.) These new cameras, Safir was reported to have said, "should be integrated with biometric facial imaging software, allowing the images of all pedestrians to be compared with photographs of known terrorists." Quite obviously, such a system couldn't possibly work, that is, couldn't prevent a suicide bomber from attacking Times Square. Some terrorists live in areas of the world in which cameras are uncommon, rarely used or even condemned for the graven images they produce, and so find it that much easier to avoid being photographed in the first place. As a result, the only photographs of "known terrorists" that come into the possession of the CIA, FBI or NYPD are either photographs of the leaders and masterminds, who rarely (if ever) engage in suicide attacks, or photographs of the followers, who are of course killed during the attack(s). In either case, such photographs -- whether they are entered into a digital database or not -- are completely useless. Safir's proposal also fails to take account of the simple fact that any surveillance camera installed in Times Square would have to face downwards, towards the ground. (Certainly that is the direction in which the existing cameras face.) And, as we all know, the attacks on the WTC didn't come from ground level, but from the air. Now, it's quite possible that a future attack on Times Square could come from the ground, i.e., from a bomb hidden in and transported by a car, van or truck. According to The New York Times, Safir himself seems to realize this, and that the only way to prevent such an attack from taking place would be to ban all automobiles from the area. But Howard Safir, the former New York City police commissioner who is now consultant to the chairman of ChoicePoint, a security information company, warned of embracing a "bunker, bomb-camp mind-set." While acknowledging, for example, that turning Times Square into a pedestrian mall might be the most effective countermeasure to car bombs, he said that such a step would only signal defeat. "That's basically caving to terrorism," he said. How wrong he is! Filling Times Square with computer-enhanced surveillance cameras -- now that is "caving [in] to terrorism"! But turning the area into a pedestrian mall -- it would "signal" an honest awareness of the obvious fact that automobile traffic is literally killing New York City. Once confined to obscure minds, this awareness has apparently spread to New York City's traffic planners, who have recently expanded the pedestrian areas in Times Square, not reduced them. (Howard Safir doesn't seem to know this.) And so, turning Times Square into a pedestrian zone would not only make it a safer place, but a more pleasant one as well! So what's with up people like Howard Safir and those who would "fight terrorism" by giving more money to the very agencies that failed to see and warn us about the attacks on the Pentagon and the WTC? Why aren't these people learning from history? Why are they proposing more of the same -- more spies, more satellites, more surveillance cameras -- instead of admitting the obvious, which is that these schemes just don't work and that new ones have to be tried? Is it because they are incapable of logic or just plain stupid? Listen to people like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield and so-called "President" George W. Bush: like Mr. Safir, these are stupid men, in way over their heads. But this doesn't fully explain why they are consciously putting forth proposals that obviously won't work. The answer would appear to be that they are in fact not really concerned with fighting terrorism or crime, but instead with strengthening their hold on American society. The war criminals and convicted felons who now speak on TV without fear of being remembered for what they did in the 1970s and 1980s (the Henry Kissingers, Robert McFarlanes and Ed Meeses of the world); the pro-death penalty head of the newly founded Office of Homeland Security (a perfectly Orwellian name!); those dour Christian soldiers trying to ram through Congress the draconian Mobilization Against Terrorism Act of 2001 -- their enemies are not "international terrorists," but ordinary citizens of this putatively democratic society, people who already are or might soon become political opponents or domestic dissidents. The "new" war against terrorism is nothing more than an opportunistic justification for the same old war that's been going on in this country for decades, at least since the political assassinations of the 1960s: the military-industrial establishment's war for control of the hearts and minds of the American people. Note well "Administration Urges Passage of Trade Negotiating Bill as Blow to Terrorism," which was published on 24 September 2001 by the Associated Press. WASHINGTON (AP) - The administration began a new drive Monday to persuade Congress to grant President Bush the authority to negotiate trade agreements, telling lawmakers passage would help the fight against global terrorism. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said supporters of legislation to let the president negotiate a hemisphere-wide free trade agreement and a new round of global trade talks should know within two weeks whether the votes are there for passage in the House. Zoellick said the legislation would serve as a major signal that the United States does not plan to retreat from its global responsibilities, including defense of free trade against terrorist threats and opponents of globalization. "On Sept. 11, America, its open society and its ideas came under attack by a malevolence that craves our panic, retreat and abdication of global leadership," Zoellick said in a speech promoting benefits of free trade. "This president and this administration will fight for open markets. We will not be intimidated by those who have taken to the streets to blame trade - and America - for the world's ills," he said. "The global trading system has demonstrated, from Seoul to Santiago, that it is a pathway out of poverty and despair." Just two weeks after the disaster, we are no longer talking about terrorism, Osama Bin Laden and other militant Islamic fundamentalists, but instead about "opponents of globalization" and those who choose to exercise their constitutionally protected rights to assemble and speak freely at large and colorful street rallies, marches and demonstrations. But just because anti-American terrorists are (also) anti-globalization doesn't mean that anti-globalization activists are terrorists! Far from it. As the example of Genoa recently demonstrated, if there are any "terrorists" present at anti-globalization demonstrations, they have been brought there, encouraged and protected afterwards by fascists at the highest levels of government. It's obviously no coincidence that Zoellick made these ominous statements just one week before the World Bank and the International Money Fund were scheduled to meet in Washington, D.C. Though these meetings have been postponed due to the 11 September 2001 attacks -- they had originally been shortened from one week to two days because of the size and strength of the opposition to the meetings of the G-8 held in Genoa, Italy, on 20-23 July 2001 -- some of the groups that had planned to demonstrate in the streets against the meetings have decided to go to Washington anyway and demonstrate against the "war on terrorism." People like Zoellick obviously want to make sure that their meetings won't ever again be disrupted by tens even hundreds of thousands of protesters, and they (Zoellick and his ilk) aren't above employing paranoia, calumny and political crime to get what they want. And so we propose that, instead of being allowed to wage war against the people who allegedly attacked it, the government of the United States -- a rogue known for "going its own way" on such matters as the Kyoko climate accords, the "Star Wars" missile defense system and the embargo of Cuba -- should be constrained to join the rest of the world. The US government should ask the World Court to convene a special session at which all those who believe that they have legitimate grievances against the United States and/or its military forces can be heard. The judges at these trials should have the power to subpoena witnesses and documents, and conduct thorough and unimpeded investigations into the charges brought before it. And, if and when it turns out that prominent American political leaders have in fact committed crimes against humanity, they should be properly punished, no matter who they are. We have faith that, when justice is finally done, there will no longer be popular support for whatever terrorists continue to operate. If our proposal seems naive or "impossible to put into practice" -- if it seems at odds with "the way things are," or, rather, "the way things will have to be after 11 September 2001" -- then everything must be changed. 28 September 2001 NYC USA # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From ravikant at sarai.net Sat Sep 29 15:35:54 2001 From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 15:35:54 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] poem Message-ID: <01092915355400.01060@jadu.sarai.kit> I wish to share with the list a melancholic poem a friend of mine sent to me: ravikant Come September -------------- by Amitabh Trehan (a_trehan at hotmail.com) Darling, in your beautiful eyes, I now see fear- the same eyes that bounded joyfully across the highways, across the subways, that smelled the colours of the cosmopolitan and enjoyed each flavour as if a new flower in Spring, now dart across, suspiciously, at each stranger, at each corner of the subway that was bright before but now even its lights have long shadows and each shadow long knives, at each suitcase, as if it were about to explode, at each building, as if it were about to collapse and its dead heap conceal your body, as if they would then tire with their long vigil under the rubble awaiting hope of another sunrise, of a single torch light shining the road to survival, at each flower, as if it were a strange object. They dart across, your lovely lovely eyes, because they have no place, no place to rest, not one. Come September, my darling, the romance is over, your mascara is tinged, this autumn-winter season, the fashion is terror. From monica at sarai.net Sat Sep 29 15:40:08 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 15:40:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Any Questions? Message-ID: Following is a piece by Saul Albert, which i agree with most deeply! (I am always unable to ask questions in the panel-floor designed public fora). Maybe its time for us to demand alternative design to thinking and speaking publicly... best Monica ======================================== Any Questions? Saul Albert To my horror some people actually asked me questions during the inevitable question time that followed a 15 minutes talk I gave about Open Source and Art practice at the Arts Council of England's "Open" event (www.thisisnot.com). I didn't really understand them and either ignored them entirely or spluttered incomprehensible and dismissive responses. Although the substance of the talk I gave emphasised the value of Open Source strategies of distributed authorship, the physical set-up of the discussion (speaker behind mic facing chairs containing audience) was not , of course condusive to any kind of collaborative engagement. This was not a bad thing in my opinion. It was a 15 minute talk, not something you would think likely to be improved by everyone talking at once. However, the traditional opening for other voices comes at the end when the chair asks for questions from the "floor". This lowly status of "floor" often seems wholly applicable to those poor wretches that inhabit it because of the (often) poor quality of questions asked and the answers given. There are good reasons for this: 1). The questioner is usually nervous. I am always nervous about asking questions in lectures. My voice shakes and squeaks, my knees feel weak, I garble my words, or use the wrong ones, make non-grammatical sentences and am incomprehensible to everyone including myself. This is most probably because in order to ask a question in that environment you have to put up your hand (classroom traumas come to mind), a person with a mic rushes over to you and you hold it, Karaoke style, as the attention of the room swings round 180 degrees to face you. Then you have to try to control your voice while worrying about your sweaty palms and the fact that you can't remember what it was you wanted to say anyway. 2). The questioner usually doesn't actually have a question. After most lectures I have an opinion, and am occasionally roused to speak it because I think it will be useful or relevant to the speaker and the other audience members. Any direct questions that come to mind often seem too banal to raise in that context. A question is usually something technical or simple, relating to the minutiae of the speaker's topic or experience "How many of ..." or "Did .... work..." etc... What usually happens is that someone has an opinion that they want to make known, but because of the situation they feel forced into formulating it as a question. This leads to long, rambling, incomprehensible questions that often end with "What do you think about that..." or "Could you respond to that" when often the speaker's opinion is not really needed for the point to be made. 3). The speaker doesn't have time to think about it. In the unlikely event of a good question being asked (occasionally someone skilled enough in public speaking and with a quick tongue can do this) the speaker doesn't have time to think of a good answer. The public context and the shifting of attention (like a tennis ball) from speaker to audience to speaker adds a confrontational or competitive edge to most questions. It seems as if the speaker were to say "you've got me there" or "um..I don't know" then they would have "lost". This is an extension of a long tradition of academic debate and public/peer review that is, as Michelle Serres puts it "Based on a militaristic model of truth-finding, where the strongest competitor in an argument determines what is and is not true". The situation inevitably leads to the questioner and the speaker "defending" their arguments and really trying to cover up the weaknesses in their story rather than attempting to take on board anything that the other has said. What I would have liked to see at this event is a more productive way of carrying on discussions. "Any questions" would be better replaced with "Does anyone have anything to say", and any non-technical questions could be continued constructively in a bulletin board or a pre-arranged q&a e-mail session (where each party has time to think up a useful answer). Saul Albert 21/12/2000 ------------------------------------------------------ -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From menso at r4k.net Sat Sep 29 19:17:17 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 15:47:17 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Enterprise crew split over violating prime directive Message-ID: <20010929154717.K43547@r4k.net> From ravis at sarai.net Sun Sep 30 17:12:21 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 17:12:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] washington protest on war Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010930170907.00abd9c8@mail.sarai.net> This is from the Washington Post . For more detailed coverage see http://dc.indymedia.org/ -ravi Thousands Fill Streets Of D.C. to Protest War By Manny Fernandez and Petula Dvorak Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, September 30, 2001 Anarchists in black bandannas, peace activists with banners and signs, and police in riot gear took over the streets of downtown Washington yesterday during the first major national anti-war protest since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Young protesters, who beat drums and the bottoms of plastic tubs, shouted chants at stone-faced police in a tense standoff on one Pennsylvania Avenue block, while area activists and those who had come in caravans from California, New York, Ohio and Oregon called on thousands at Freedom Plaza to raise their voices for peace. Such scenes had been anticipated for months by police, organizers and District residents, but the terrorist attacks softened what had been expected to be a clash between unprecedented law enforcement might and as many as 100,000 anti-globalization protesters. Yesterday's rallies, instead, developed into a largely peaceful display against military retaliation, marred by a few scuffles and three arrests during one of the day's two downtown marches. Eight more were arrested at the now-closed D.C. General Hospital in a related protest. Police officials estimated the crowd in the two marches at about 7,000, while some organizers put the figure closer to 25,000, the same number that protested the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in the District in April 2000. That time, there were hundreds of arrests, skirmishes between police and protesters, and some property damage. War was on everyone's mind, it seemed yesterday. "I don't think the solution to violence is more violence," said Rachel Ettling, a 19-year-old sophomore at New York's Columbia University who held a red banner at a park in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol dome that read: "Amerika! Get a clue!" Ettling said she and the throngs of protesters were putting the country's best ideals to use. "It's a very patriotic thing to be an activist," she said. "This is democracy in the streets." The focus of the protests, initially planned against global financial policies of the World Bank and the IMF, had changed since Sept. 11. After the attacks, the world bodies canceled their meetings, and some protest groups altered their message. They pleaded that the country not engage in what they called a "rush to war" and to condemn violent acts of retaliation against those of Middle Eastern background. Another rally and march for peace, organized by local anti-war activists, are set for 11 a.m. today from Meridian Hill Park at 16th and Euclid streets NW. Yesterday, at a three-hour rally at Freedom Plaza before a march to the Capitol to stress those concerns, Leslie Sauer, 55, a landscape architect from rural New Jersey, held a sign that read, "8 million Afghan refugees need food now, not war and terror." Many protesters criticized U.S. foreign policy, which they say has exacerbated tensions in the Middle East. "We rain bombs on Iraq, then we're surprised we're hated," the Rev. Graylan Hagler, minister at the District's Plymouth Congregational Church, told thousands gathered there. More rallies were scheduled in other parts of the country. In an earlier march, some protesters seemed intent on fighting aggression with aggression. Many wore black bandannas to hide their faces or gas masks to protect themselves if the air turned chemical, and some carried sticks and black-painted trash can lids as shields. All the clashes between police and protesters -- including the arrests and scuffles in which police used pepper spray on several demonstrators -- broke out during the march, organized primarily by a D.C.-based anarchists and anti-capitalists group, the Anti-Capitalist Convergence. It had not sought a permit for the march, but police accommodated the group and escorted marchers from near Union Station to the Pennsylvania Avenue and 19th Street NW headquarters of the World Bank and the IMF. Trouble started at 11th and H streets near the Washington Convention Center about 10:45 a.m., when a shoving match erupted between police and demonstrators after two police vehicles leading the march slowed down but protesters would not. Activists swarmed the vehicles, and D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and other high-ranking officials were among police there, batons in hand. Someone leaned from a police vehicle and pepper sprayed the surging demonstrators. Police used their batons to push the crowd from the cars. Several protesters were knocked to the pavement. One officer also fell; fellow officers quickly formed a ring around her, and she was led away in tears. Lisa Fithian, a 40-year-old Los Angeles activist, was pepper sprayed, as was Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer. Ramsey lost his left shoe in a brief melee at 15th and H streets, where two arrests took place. When demonstrators ended their march an hour later at Edward R. Murrow Park across from the World Bank and IMF, lines of police prevented them from leaving. The park soon became the scene of a sometimes-tense 90-minute standoff. Hundreds of police stood shoulder-to-shoulder surrounding the park. Police officials said the tactic was used to cool off the crowd, but many who were detained said the action violated their rights. Protesters' nerves were on edge, and many sat down on the grass, while others started chants. Attorneys for protest groups who were also detained began making plans to seek a hearing in federal court, while some protesters talked about why they were there. "I wanted to send a signal to George Bush and Congress and the American people that everyone is not cowed into submission, not everyone is about unthinking vengeance," said Paul Sturtz, 37, of Columbia, Mo. Others took things with a sense of humor. "We're actually thinking of ordering a pizza," said David Graeber, 40, a member of the New York Direct Action Network, who had cell phone in hand. At one point, a Baltimore man wearing a devil's mask and a clown nose, who said his name was Vermin Love Supreme, read sections of international law -- including Article 33 of the Geneva Convention -- through a bullhorn inches from a stern-faced line of police. Police eventually negotiated with the group to march down H Street NW toward Freedom Plaza at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, where the second march was assembling at noon. At that march, organized by a new anti-war, anti-racist coalition called International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism), speakers addressed the crowd for three hours before thousands of protesters streamed down Pennsylvania Avenue NW. From jeebesh at sarai.net Sun Sep 30 18:46:48 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:46:48 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] San Francisco Anti-War Report Message-ID: <01093018464801.02219@sweety.sarai.kit> Following from Ravi's posting on anti-war protest in Washington, am posting a note on a similar protest in San Francisco. Cheers Jeebesh ----------------- Subject: [generation_online] San Francisco Anti-War Report Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 20:43:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Thomas Seay To: generation_online at yahoogroups.com I am happy to report that in a hastily organized protest, 15,000 people marched in San Francisco in an anti-war demonstration today. There is to be another demonstration - with more time to organize it- in two weeks and that should be much bigger. I know there were other protests scheduled around the US and the world today, and I would be happy to hear about those. Thomas ===== <> Hardt & Negri "Empire" __________________________________________________ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ------------------------------------------------------- From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Sun Sep 30 22:10:49 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:40:49 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] Any Questions? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Any Questions? Nope, this is just a comment. ;-) > Saul Albert > However, the traditional opening for other voices comes at the end > when the chair asks for questions from the "floor". This lowly status > of "floor" often seems wholly applicable to those poor wretches that > inhabit it because > of the (often) poor quality of questions asked and the answers given. Very astute - the hierarchical connotation of this usage never occurred to me before! > 1). The questioner is usually nervous. This depends on the audience - if it's a research level seminar among 30 or less people who more or less know each other, then in my experience questioners are not nervous. But I admit that even after about a dozen years of public speaking experience on astronomy research, and among people whom I mostly know, I am still nervous when the audience is in the 200-500 range... For popularisation of astronomy talks, the quality of the questions varies, partly as a function of the quality of the presentation! > 2). The questioner usually doesn't actually have a question. Maybe astronomy is better suited to questions, but in my experience there certainly are questions, whether in professional or popular audiences. But the tradition (in astronomy) is for the chair to invite both questions and comments. Often, "questioners" who have a comment will start off by saying "This is just a comment." The lecturer will sometimes respond, at other times will just say "OK. Fine." > 3). The speaker doesn't have time to think about it. In popular talks, a research astronomer generally has such a huge knowledge advantage over the audience that he/she usually already knows the answer to good questions. I certainly have had good questions from the general public. The challenge is then whether the speaker can explain the answer based on the way the questioner thinks, and based on what the audience has heard during the talk, rather than explaining in a way which requires extra material. The former leads to understanding by the audience member, the latter leads nowhere except to the illusion that the speaker is a very Learned Person. In professional talks among astronomers, many (but certainly not all) speakers are honest enough to answer a tough question by something like "We haven't yet taken that factor into account." He/she may be honest enough to try to think through the question "on his/her feet" and make a guess of how important the effect might be. > know" then they would have "lost". This is an extension of a long > tradition of academic debate and public/peer review that is, as > Michelle Serres puts it "Based on a militaristic model of > truth-finding, where the strongest > competitor in an argument determines what is and is not true". The > situation inevitably leads to the questioner and the speaker > "defending" their arguments and really trying to cover up the > weaknesses in their story rather than attempting to take on board > anything that the other has said. It is true that this does happen to varying degrees in professional astronomy. > What I would have liked to see at this event is a more productive way > of carrying on discussions. "Any questions" would be better replaced > with "Does anyone have anything to say", and any non-technical > questions could be Well, in astronomy, there is a clear tradition inviting both questions and comments. For the sake of time limits, the comments need to be short, but it's quite rare that a chair says, "OK, we have time for just one more question - but not a comment, please." > continued constructively in a bulletin board or a pre-arranged q&a > e-mail session (where each party has time to think up a useful > answer). This is definitely a good suggestion! My humble opinion is that every university lecture course should have an associated web+email threaded, archived discussion forum open (at a minimum) to all participants including the speaker, the only exceptions being universities where web access is too poor, in which case non-web mailing lists could be tolerated, or poorer yet universities where the internet is too weak for a mailing list to be useful. Opening the fora to *all* members of the university (students + staff + non-academic staff) also seems reasonable to me. A university is supposed to be a place for knowledge. For universities which have the electronic resources in place, anything less than the above strikes me as intellectual dishonesty and preference of hierarchical politics over knowledge. Here is another suggestion, which (again) I haven't had the opportunity to test yet, but which is based on experience. - Experience: - I gave a talk (introduction to big bang model etc), meant to be about a one hour presentation, to an audience of about 100 or so senior high school students participating in a summer science camp. Within 5 minutes of starting, someone asked a (good) question. I started answering it, but before I had completely answered it, someone else asked another (good) question. I said "OK, I'll get on to that in a moment", so I finished answering the first question, and went on to answering the second, which followed very naturally from the first. The questions continued flowing throughout the talk - I never got a chance to go "freely" back to my intended presentation. However, because the questions were so well chosen, in answering the questions I followed more or less the outline I had sketched beforehand anyway! It was a fantastic experience! - Suggested explanation: - Later on the students explained to me what I think lies behind what happened. During the week preceding my talk, the students had been put in groups of about 6, and each had to prepare a short talk and then present this "publicly" to the other students. Doesn't this sound familiar? Like the "affinity group" strategies of the global justice movement? - Suggested application: - Suppose there is a total of 1 hour for a talk + questions. At the beginning of a lecture, tell the audience that in order to "prime them" for asking questions, you would like them to break up into groups of 5-6 people each, just with whoever is nearby - whether or not the people know each other already. Each member of the group then has 1 minute to: - introduce him/herself briefly - say what his/her present level of background knowledge (relevant to the subject) is and what he/she would like to learn from the lecture It's a collective responsibility for the other 4-5 people to make sure everyone gets their "1 minute". The time to explain this and allowing for people to go over the official 1 minute, means that the whole process should be doable within 10 minutes. My hypothesis is that the result of this will be that people will be more ready (than otherwise) to ask questions *during* the presentation, which can then run as normal. It's just psychological. When you're surrounded by 5 people you have talked to in a positive, constructive way, it's easier to talk in front of a full audience than if you're sitting next to total strangers and you've walked in off the street without having had a friendly conversation for the previous hour or so! If you really want to be revolutionary, you could have a formula 10+40+2+8 minutes 10 - for the initial explanation, division into groups and group discussions 40 - for the presentation 2 - the groups reconvene and have to very rapidly (2 minutes max) choose a question or comment and choose the spokesperson to present it 8 - for the spokespeople to ask/state the questions/comments. I tried to find some on-line hints on how "teach-ins" work or "teach-in" theory (I haven't had the chance to participate, yet), with no success. Anyone know a good page on this? From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Thu Sep 27 20:46:53 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:16:53 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] SAS soldier talks about training Afghan soldiers In-Reply-To: <20010926225041.L12357@r4k.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Menso Heus wrote: > > > > > SAS soldier speaks up on training the Afghans: apparently these guys > > > > ... > > > > > The lucky ones died instantly. The unlucky ones were chopped to > > > > > pieces in the aftermath. In the Hindu Kush, don't expect to > > > > > appeal to the Geneva convention." ... Menso, > The way you compare doesn't seem to be correct to me. I doubt if you > have read the entire article, most of the people who did and whom I've > discussed this with took the line in the exact same way. It's true I didn't read the full article - my apologies. My comments were based on what you quoted. > you know it I'm suddenly pro-war, anti-humanrights and many more things > which I am not. Well, now I know you're not any of that, so let's see if we can understand each other. OK, the full article to me seems anti-war (showing how ineffective a war against Afghanistan would be), and the question of the Geneva conventions is a secondary point, not the main point of your original post. Am I following you better this time? Given that we got into a "secondary" point, it seems to me it is still worth trying to understand our different arguments. My guess is that there are two main viewpoints here: (1) A war, at least in this case (USA vs Afghan), is absurd. So, to put pressure on the USA to follow the Geneva conventions and other international human rights law is a diversion from trying to stop the war totally. (2) For tactical reasons, e.g. due to historical belief in the need for war and to the propaganda barrage in the USA, independently of trying to put pressure on the USA not to start a war, it is an efficient action to insist that the USA go through the Security Council, follow the Geneva conventions, etc. Hence, it is not a good idea to suggest that the Geneva conventions can be ignored. I think you were trying to argue for (1). Is this right? My point is (2). I certainly agree that we should do all we can to stop the war starting at all, but I also feel that (2) is important. No matter how big the anti-war movement gets, and how quickly it becomes big, chances are we might still get a real hot war. In which case we don't want the USA saying that "collateral damage" is OK. Working in the long term, even conservative organisations like Amnesty International can use stuff like the Geneva conventions to publicly state that NATO has carried out war crimes: http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/EUR700252000?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\YUGOSLAVIA http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/Index/EUR700302000?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES\YUGOSLAVIA Humbly hoping to be acquitted of pocockism, ;-) Boud