From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Tue Jul 2 23:31:12 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 19:01:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Congratulations ( Or, Pure Envy!!!) Message-ID: <20020702180112.78035.qmail@web8105.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, Let us get together, whether we know of it or not (especially if we don't know of it: a case of blind congratulation that matches curiosity), to congratulate the Raqs Media Collective on what they did in a recent "exhibition" in Germany. I post here (in the dominant spirit of this List, as approved by senior academics) a review. This review talks about Documenta 11. (What the hell is that, we might ask?). As a prologue, I'd like to re-present a particular section of the review (sincerely, but also strangely in the bureaucratic spirit of this List, a spirit that comes and goes, much like a ghost, ensuring all the while that it is there, this spirit of doxological control): "One great new media project that I did see at Documenta was OPUS (softwareand accompanying theoretical package) by Raqs Media Collective (New Delhi). Unveiled in Kassel, OPUS is definitely the most interesting new media project I have encountered in quite a while. It is a sophisticated, both theoretically and technically, system for multi-user cultural authorship in a digital network environment. Do take a look at the site and check their new concept of "Rescension" (in OPUS Manual) that offers avery interesting way to address the difficult issues of authorship in our"remix" culture. OPUS raises the bar for all future practical and theoretical work dealing with digital authorship." Now, the reviewer Lev Manovich, takes over (Is he an Under-secretary of culture? Let's think on it) Lev Manovich Welcome to the Multiplex: Documenta 11, New Generation Film Festival (Lyon), LA Film Festival¹s New Technology Forum ----------------------------------------------------------------- I was struggling how to fill 1000 words talking about Documenta 11, when I was hit with a solution: why not talk about all three festivals I attended this June: Documenta 11 in Kassel; New Generation, the first edition of a brand-new film festival in Lyon; and Los Angeles Film Festival¹s New Technology Forum. Since all three events focused on new (or not so new) directions in moving image production and distribution, this will be the focus of this review. Just as the last time when I went to se Documenta 10 (1997), attending the new Documenta left me with the same feeling: what¹s the big deal? On any given day in New York or London you can just go to whatever museum and gallery shows happen to be running and you will see as many first-rate works by as many brand-name and ³emerging² artists. Of course it is nice to go to Documenta parties (although it¹s not Venice) and to sit in a cafe outside the main exhibition hall trying to recognize the cultural celebrities going in: here is Stuart HallŠhere is Walid Ra¹ad whose Atlas Group presented one of the smartest and though-provoking projects of the whole Documenta. While the new Documenta makes a real effort to open itself up to global multi-culturalism, the results are quite contradictory. The show in Kassel is presented as the final ³Fifth Platform,² with the first four platforms having taken place during the preceding year in Vienna, Berlin, New Delhi, St. Lucia and Laso focused on topics such as ³Creolite and Creolization² and ³Under Siege: Four African Cities². Unfortunately one could not learn anything about these previous four ³platforms² without buying the thick catalog ­ there were no references to them in the art show itself. The long list of artists shown in Kassel included plenty of people outside of Europe and US, like the group Igloolik Isuma Productions, whose film Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) won a Prix D¹Or for best debut feature film at Cannes 2001. However, looking at the spatial layout of Documenta grounds it became clear that each of three key buildings gave the largest central spaces to the older European or US white artists such as Allan Sekula, Bernd and Hilla Becher, and Constant. I had the feeling that Documenta curators put on mini-retrospectives of these artists, added more big images of German photographers and conceptual 1970s artists, and then filled the remaining smaller and peripheral spaces with actual contemporary art. Going through the show I also had the feeling I was in a kind of artist¹s cinema multiplex. Although I have not counted, it felt that at least half of all the Documenta artists presented ³video installations² which almost all followed the same standard exhibition format: a projection presented in a small room. At least in a commercial movie theatre you get comfortable seats, Dolby surround sound, and you can bring in a coke, but since Documenta was about ³serious art² and not the pleasures of mass culture, a typical room had hard and uncomfortable benches. Somebody pointed out to me that all video and film installations presented at Documenta together added up to more than 600 hours of running time. Somebody else noted that the size of video and film installation rooms varied accordingly to the prestige of a an artist The films by Jonas Mekas and Ulrike Ottinger, the veterans of experimental filmmaking, which were between five and six hours each, were in larger rooms which had a few row of comfortable chairs, like in a real movie theaters. Other videos were stuck in small rooms with a single bench. Given my interest in new forms of cinema I was attracted to a number of multi-screen installations at Documenta, including works by such heavyweights as Isaac Julien, Chantal Akerman, and Eija-Liisa Ahtila. I thought that Ahtila¹s three screen installation worked the best: you feel that she is seriously researching a new grammar for a multi-screen cinema. (She is currently having a solo exhibition at the Tate in London). One great new media project that I did see at Documenta was OPUS (software and accompanying theoretical package) by Raqs Media Collective (New Delhi). Unveiled in Kassel, OPUS is definitely the most interesting new media project I have encountered in quite a while. It is a sophisticated, both theoretically and technically, system for multi-user cultural authorship in a digital network environment. Do take a look at the site and check their new concept of "Rescension" (in OPUS Manual) that offers a very interesting way to address the difficult issues of authorship in our "remix" culture. OPUS raises the bar for all future practical and theoretical work dealing with digital authorship. The paradox of a an art show which became a multiplex movie theatre became further apparent after I visited the brand new film festival in Lyon called New Generation. Approximately one third of a festival was given to artists¹ videos. However since this was a film festival rather than art show, the short videos were packaged together in ninety minute programs shown in a movie theatre ­ in contrast to Documenta which followed the art convention of giving each video its own room. For me, neither interface makes much sense ­ why not put all video on a computer server and set up comfortable personal stations where viewers can access and watch any video in any time, the way it was done already a few years ago in KIASMA museum in Helsinki. KIASMA digitized a whole collection of Finnish video art which was then put on museum servers accessible through PCs set up in a special media room. Next it was to a day of panels making up the New Technology Forum at the Los Angeles Film Festival. After a conservative Documenta and a sleepy Lyon DV marathon, here I finally some real cutting edge stuff - new advances in machinema, video creation software running on cell phones, Hollywood and military collaborating on new AI simulations, and the like. Once again, I was given proof that creative techno-avant-garde is not in Kassel, Lyon, and other traditional citadels of ³real culture² but in Los Angeles, literally next door to Hollywood studios. Katherine Anna Kang (Fountainhead Entertainment) talked about a feature-length film her company is working on using a custom machinema system. (For those who don't know, machinema is a subculture of amateur filmmakers who use computer games as movie making tools. She called this new kind of cinema ³machinemation.² Another paradigm that also uses game-like real-time 3D scene generation was demonstrated by Jeff Rickel from the University of Southern California¹s (USC) notorious Institute of Creative Technologies. The institute was established a few years ago with funding from the US Army to work on new types of military simulations using Hollywood talent. Rickel showed a particular ³peacekeeping scenario. ² Written by a veteran Hollywood writer, the scene had three virtual humans in a stressful situation. The goal of the simulation is to teach a soldier what to do in an ambiguous situation. The scenario used high-end AI that controls virtual humans¹ emotional expressions, speech, etc. If traditionally simulations focused on machine operations (airplane, tank, etc.) and battle action, USC work can be better thought of as interactive narrative, where the user (the trainee) is presented with a dramatic scenario with simulated humans. Bart Cheever from D.FILM festival (the digital film festival running since 1997) presented the gems from Digital Silverlake mini-festival he curated earlier this year. Created by artists, filmmakers and designers living in Silverlake and other areas of East LA, the works in Digital Silverlake represents the next stage in the evolution of moving image aesthetics. If 1995 article ³What is Digital Cinema² I defined digital cinema as compositing live action + image processing + 2-D animation + 3-D animation. Since then a new generation of designers who grew up with Flash and Shockwave have started to make short films and music videos which add typography and also privilege a 2-D flat look as key visual aesthetics. To put this differently, while we see more and more ³hybrid² films, which use plenty of compositing, 3D and 2D animation, but still have an overall ³film² look (i.e., they present us 3D photorealistic space) - such as ³Amelie² (2001) ­ there is also now a different type of ³hybrid² film which looks more like what we expect to find in illustration and graphic design. I call this new type of digital cinema aesthetics ³Post-Flash Cinema.² Another digital cinema pioneer Jason Wishnow (who two years ago organized the first festival of films for the Palm Pilot platform) suggested that a movie trailer could be the prototype of a new genre appropriate to micro-cinema running on cell phones, Palms, Pocket PCs, and similar devices. He also discussed aesthetic features that characterized micro-cinema during the one hundred years of its history (from Kinetoscope to Palm) such as close-ups and loops. On a distribution side, Ira Deutschman (Emerging Pictures) talked about his company¹s plan to have 200 digital movie theatres in three years by placing digital projectors in already existing but under-utilized screening spaces such as museums. In his system, digital film files will be downloaded to a local server installed in a theatre, since the files will be too big to download in real time. In June, I found the cutting edge of moving image culture in Los Angeles. However, I am spending the next three months in Berlin, and I am sure I will see enough for another report by the end of the summer. --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020702/f6879bce/attachment.html From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 3 06:17:49 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 09:47:49 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] The New Bush Doctrine In-Reply-To: <20020629213511.94829.qmail@web8106.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: The Nation FEATURE STORY | July 15, 2002 The New Bush Doctrine by RICHARD FALK President Bush's June graduation address to the cadets at West Point has attracted attention mainly because it is the fullest articulation, so far, of the new strategic doctrine of pre-emption. The radical idea being touted by the White House and Pentagon is that the United States has the right to use military force against any state that is seen as hostile or makes moves to acquire weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, biological or chemical. The obvious initial test case for pre-emption is Iraq, whose government the United States is continually threatening to overthrow, either on the model of the displacement of the Taliban in Afghanistan or by some other method. Washington's war plans have evidently not been finalized, and whether the intimations of war--despite the numerous objections voiced by neighboring governments and European allies--are to be taken literally is still unclear. What is certain, and scary, is the new approach to the use of international force beneath the banner of counterterrorism and in the domestic climate of fervent nationalism that has existed since September 11. This new approach repudiates the core idea of the United Nations Charter (reinforced by decisions of the World Court in The Hague), which prohibits any use of international force that is not undertaken in self-defense after the occurrence of an armed attack across an international boundary or pursuant to a decision by the UN Security Council. When Iraq conquered and annexed Kuwait in 1990, Kuwait was legally entitled to act in self-defense to recover its territorial sovereignty even without any UN authorization. And the United States and others were able to join Kuwait in bolstering its prospects, thereby acting in what international lawyers call collective self-defense. Back in 1956, when the American commitment to this Charter effort to limit the discretion of states to the extent possible was still strong, the US government surprised its allies and adversaries by opposing the Suez war of Britain, France and Israel because it was a nondefensive use of force against Egypt, despite the provocations associated at the time with Nasser's anti-Israeli, anti-Western militancy. This legal commitment had evolved by stages in the period after World War I, and when the surviving leaders of Germany and Japan were prosecuted for war crimes, "crimes against the peace" were declared to be even worse than atrocities committed in the course of the war. The task of the Charter was to give this concept as clear limits as possible. Pre-emption, in contrast, validates striking first--not in a crisis, as was done by Israel with plausible, if not entirely convincing, justification in the 1967 war, when enemy Arab troops were massing on its borders after dismissing the UN war-preventing presence, but on the basis of shadowy intentions, alleged potential links to terrorist groups, supposed plans and projects to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and anticipations of possible future dangers. It is a doctrine without limits, without accountability to the UN or international law, without any dependence on a collective judgment of responsible governments and, what is worse, without any convincing demonstration of practical necessity. It is true that the reality of the mega-terrorist challenge requires some rethinking of the relevance of rules and restraints based on conflict in a world of territorial states. The most radical aspects of the Al Qaeda challenge are a result of its nonterritorial, concealed organizational reality as a multistate network. Modern geopolitics was framed to cope with conflict, and relations among sovereign states; the capacity of a network with modest resources to attack and wage a devastating type of war against the most powerful state does require acknowledgment that postmodern geopolitics needs a different structure of security. Postmodernity refers here to preoccupations that can no longer be reduced to territorial dimensions. This contrasts with "modernity," born internationally in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia with the emergence of the secular sovereign state, and a world politics that could be understood by reference to territorial ambitions and defense. For Osama bin Laden, the focus has been on nonterritorial empowerment via mega-terrorism, with the vision of an Islamic umma replacing the modern, Western-inspired structure of distinct sovereign states. For George W. Bush, the emphasis has been on carrying the retaliatory war to the networked enemy concealed in some sixty countries, and on declaring war against all those nonstate forces around the world. To respond to the threat of mega-terrorism does require some stretching of international law to accommodate the reasonable security needs of sovereign states. Prior cross-border military reactions to transnational terrorism over the years by the United States, India, Israel and others were generally tolerated by the UN and international public opinion because they seemed proportionate and necessary in relation to the threats posed, and the use of force relied upon was in its essence reactive, not anticipatory. International law was bent to serve these practical imperatives of security, but not broken. But the Bush doctrine of pre-emption goes much further, encroaching on highly dangerous terrain. It claims a right to abandon rules of restraint and of law patiently developed over the course of centuries, rules governing the use of force in relation to territorial states, not networks. To propose abandoning the core legal restraint on international force in relations among states is to misread the challenge of September 11. It permits states to use force nondefensively against their enemies, thereby creating a terrible precedent. There is every reason to think that containment and deterrence remain effective ways to approach a state that threatens unwarranted expansion. There is no evidence to suggest that Iraq cannot be deterred, and its pattern of behavior in relation to its war against Iran in the 1980s, as well as its conquest and annexation of Kuwait in 1990, were based on a rational calculation of gains that, when proved incorrect, led to a reversal of policy. Brutal and oppressive as the regime in Iraq is, it was accepted until 1990 as a geopolitical ally of sorts. As a state, it acts and behaves normally, that is, by weighing benefits and costs. It is surrounded and threatened by superior force, and any attempt to lash out at neighbors or others would almost certainly result in its immediate and total destruction. There is no reason whatsoever to think that deterrence and containment would not succeed, even should Baghdad manage to acquire biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. Deterrence and containment succeeded in relation to the Soviet Union for more than four decades, under far more demanding circumstances. What is at stake with pre-emption, as tied to the "axis of evil" imagery, is more hidden and sinister. What is feared in Washington, I think, is not aggressive moves by these countries but their acquisition of weapons of mass destruction that might give them a deterrent capability with respect to the United States and other nations. Since the end of the cold war the United States has enjoyed the luxury of being undeterred in world politics. It is this circumstance that makes Bush's "unilateralism" particularly disturbing to other countries, and it must be understood in relation to the moves of the Pentagon, contained in a report leaked last December, to increase US reliance on nuclear weapons in a variety of strategic circumstances. At West Point, Bush declared with moral fervor that "our enemies...have been caught seeking these terrible weapons." It never occurs to our leaders that these weapons are no less terrible when in the hands of the United States, especially when their use is explicitly contemplated as a sensible policy option. There is every reason for others to fear that when the United States is undeterred it will again become subject to "the Hiroshima temptation," in which it might threaten and use such weapons in the absence of any prospect of retaliation. Bush goes further, combining empire with utopia, reminding his West Point audience that "the twentieth century ended with a single surviving model of human progress based on nonnegotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private property, and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance." The clear intention is to suggest that America is the embodiment of this model. And while Bush does concede that "America cannot impose this vision," he does propose that it "can support and reward governments that make the right choices for their own people," and presumably punish those that don't. Not only does the United States claim the right to global dominance but it also professes to have the final answers for societal well-being, seeming to forget its homeless, its crowded and expanding prisons, its urban blight and countless other domestic reminders that ours may not be the best of all possible worlds, and especially not for all possible peoples. This vision of postmodern geopolitics is underwritten by a now-familiar strong message of evangelical moralism. Bush notes that "some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the language of right and wrong. I disagree," and adds that "moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, and in every place." Such moral absolutism is then applied to the current global realities. Bush insists that "we are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name. By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it." Aside from occupying the moral high ground, which exempts America from self-criticism or from addressing the grievances others have with respect to our policies, such sentiments imply a repudiation of dialogue and negotiation. As there can be no acceptable compromise with the forces of evil, there can be no reasonable restraint on the forces of good. We may lament fundamentalism in the Islamic world and decry the fulminations of Osama bin Laden, but what about our own? In contemplating this geopolitical vision for the future, one wonders what happened to candidate Bush's rhetoric about the importance of "humility" in defining America's role in the world. Of course, he was then trying to downsize the humanitarian diplomacy attributed (mostly wrongly) to Clinton/Gore, but the contrast in tone and substance is still striking. One wonders whether the heady atmosphere of the Oval Office has fed these geopolitical dreams, or whether our President, well-known for his lack of foreign policy knowledge, has been manipulated into a crusading mode by bureaucratic hawks who seized the opportunity so tragically provided by September 11. Many influential Americans share this dream of a borderless global empire but adopt less forthright language. For instance, the respected military commentator Eliot Cohen, writing in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, suggests that "in the twenty-first century, characterized like the European Middle Ages by a universal (if problematic) high culture with a universal language, the U.S. military plays an extraordinary and inimitable role. It has become, whether Americans or others like it or not, the ultimate guarantor of international order." To make such an assertion without apology or justification is to say, in effect, that the imperial role of the United States is no longer in doubt, or even subject to useful debate. To acknowledge that it makes no difference whether Americans or others support this destiny is to reveal the fallen condition of democracy and the irrelevance of international public opinion. Along similar lines of presupposition, Stephen Biddle, in the same issue of Foreign Affairs, observes in relation to the problems of the Balkans, and specifically Kosovo, that "Americans do well in crusades," but then he cites Cohen and Andrew Bacevich to the effect that "they are not suited...to the dirty work of imperial policing to secure second- or third-tier interest." Such an outlook makes the fact of an American global empire a foregone conclusion. But pre-emption and double standards were not the only troubling features of this postmodern geopolitical outlook outlined in the West Point speech. There is first of all the issue of global dominance, a project to transform the world order from its current assemblage of sovereign states in the direction of a postmodern (that is, nonterritorial) global empire administered from Washington. Bush misleadingly assured the graduating cadets that "America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish," and then went on to describe precisely such undertakings. The President mentioned that past rivalries among states arose because of their efforts to compete with one another, but insisted that the future will be different because of American military superiority: "America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace." The ambition here is breathtaking and imperial--nothing less than to remind all states that the era of self-help security is essentially over, that America is the global gendarme, and that other states should devote their energies to economic and peaceful pursuits, leaving overall security in Washington's hands. One can only wonder at the reaction of foreign ministries around the world, say in Paris or Beijing, when confronted by this language, which dramatically diminishes traditional sovereign rights, as well as by the reinforcing moves to scrap the ABM treaty, to build a missile defense shield and to plan for the weaponization of space. Whether it is Bush at West Point, or the more sedate writings of the foreign policy elite writing for each other, or for that matter intelligent and progressive criticism, useful analysis must proceed from the postmodern realization that we are addressing a menacing nonstate adversary concealed in a network that is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. These new circumstances definitely call for new thinking that adapts international law and global security in an effective and constructive manner. But the adjustments called for by Bush do not meet the specific challenge of mega-terrorism, and they unleash a variety of dangerous forces. What is needed is new thinking that sees the United States as part of a global community that is seeking appropriate ways to restore security and confidence, but builds on existing frameworks of legal restraints and works toward a more robust UN, while not claiming for itself an imperial role to make up the rules of world politics as it goes along. Given the bipartisan gridlock that has gripped the country since September 11, positive forms of new thinking will almost certainly come, if they come, from pressures exerted by the citizenry outside the Beltway. We as citizens have never faced a more urgent duty. ==================================================================== Update your profile or unsubscribe here: http://topica.email-publisher.com/survey/?b1dkZN.b2Zcdw Delivered by Topica Email Publisher, http://topica.email-publisher.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020703/2861f003/attachment.html From info at nmartproject.net Wed Jul 3 14:36:07 2002 From: info at nmartproject.net (NewMediaArtProjectNetwork) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 11:06:07 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Mirror at the bottom - now online! Message-ID: <01b301c22270$e89733a0$0600a8c0@NMARTPROJECTNET> ************* PRESS RELEASE ************* "A Virtual Memorial" and "Le Musee di-visioniste" are happy to launch the online exhibition "Mirror at the Bottom - Artists portraiting themselves" curated by Agricola de de Cologne. "Artists' self-portraits belong to the most fascinating artistic formats since here the viewer gets a lot of more information about an artist than through his working in other type of formats. The view through the mirror at the bottom offers a critical reflection either connected to an ideal image or its contrary. 154 artists submitted about 300 works. Each artist represents in his individuality a different unique approach to self-reflection and to art as such. This online show encompasses a wide range of media and individual styles. It represents a composition from virtual, net based "new media" to traditional, physical "old media" (but digitalized) artworks, and, in this way, an art work of itsown." The exhibition will run during July and August on A Virtual Memorial www.a-virtual-memorial.org or alternatively www.nmartproject.net/cur/mirror/index.html in the framework of "Features of the Month" and in September/October on Le Musee di-visioniste www.le-musee-divisioniste.org in the framework of "Featured Projects", and will remain online for permanent, afterwards. *************************************************************** A Virtual Memorial - Memorial project against the Forgetting and for Humanity www.a-virtual-memorial.org is an ongoing, award winning New Media art project since 01.01.2000 created, edited and curated by Agricola de Cologne. Recently presented in Version02 at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago/USA. Le Musee di-visioniste www.le-musee-divisioniste.org is an online museum based on a philosophical idea. Both online projects are corporative members of NewMediaArtProjectNetwork, the experimental online platform for the arts. Agricola de Cologne, multi-disciplinary media artist from Germany is the creator, founder, editor, producer of NewMediaArtProjectNetwork and its seven corporate sites. **************************************************************** These are the 154 participating artists from 37 countries: Albrecht, Dorothee Armstrong, Steve Aubrymore, Yves Agricola de Cologne Bacelli, Vittorio Barros, Rita Bas, Bulent Bechrakis, Evgenia Beltran, J.D. Bensko, Tantra Bitterman und Duka Boone, John Boyer, Dan Caceres, Anahi Cahen, Xavier Campanella, Petra Casaluce-Geiger Ceolin, Maurizio Christion, Enrico Cianci, Lisa Clara, Gerry Clauss, Nicolas Comanescu, Nicolae congelo Consalvez, Tina Cook, Jo Cook Coremberg, Irene Cordova, Paula Della Beffa, Carla Delgado, Fernando G. Doman, Eileen Dohrmann, Robert Drouhin, Reynald ego el Safti, Moataz ERP Eyman, Andrew Fiks Yevgeniy Gaba, Letitia Gaida, Judith Garwood, Deborah Giannis, Greg Gintas K. Golumbia, David Gordon, Coco Gould, Melissa Grancher, Valerie Gray, Don Greenberg, Max Guedea, Alberto Hackemann, Rebecca Hai Dai Hankwitz, Molly Heier, Cornelia Hilpert, Ilse Holtzer, Oliver Holz, Joachim Hyvärinen, Aimo Ittersum, Barbara v. Jankovic, Milos jimpunk Johannson, Tiia Johnson, Jeheshua Jones, Barry R. Joseph, Rene Jameson-Pelizzari, H. Judy, Brian Kanarinka Karkowski, Michael v. Karlowitz, Bernhard Kase, Dagmar Kelomees, Raivo Kerf, Franziska Kirillov, Oleg Kjok, Solveig Klimek, Gabriele Konart, Tomasz Kouladjie, Shirin Kuslansky, Karen Kustre, Ante Lai, Tamara Lewarne, Eva Lee, Bovey Loseby, Jess Lubrich, Richard Lynch, Mary Manghi, Jorge Margolles, Jorge Mehrotra, Jaideep Meino Menenses, Ned Mikhailov, Andrej Montant, Laurent Montini, Robert Murphy, John Musri, Mirella Neufeld, Brigitte Newman, Kathleen Nicolic, Misa Norris, Sam Olejarz, Harold Olivero, Domenico Oliveto, James O'Malley, Feargal Panayotova, Elena Papp, Gabor Parado, Frim Pernecka, Sara Perro, Florentine Pico, Ima Pieke, Linda Pilipovic, Nicola Pope, Ivan Portrait of the Artist Rabinowitz, Arlene Radovic, Natasa Reill, Alexandra Ricciardi, Angelo Rizea, Luiza Roca, Anton Rollin, Timothée Sachse, Martin Salcher, Beatrix Sandkuehler, Abhika Santune, Frederique Sassu, Antonio Segal, Ken Smylie, Barry Soika, Karin Ulrike son:DA Spielman, Gavin Stuart, Fred Tchebunin, Oleg Thomas, Geoffrey Tudor, Floe Tulipana, Paul Turner, Jeremy Owen Ulanowsky, Igor Ulbrich, Thomas Ulto, Melissa Ungerer, Helen Urban, Alexander Urzyn, Anna Vatamanu, Mona Vauda, Marija Veszely, Beate Viale, Susanna Vieira, José Vornmoor, Kerstin M. Wengel, Roswitha Yepes, Andres Zalaznik, Janez Zanni, Carlo Zint, Annekatrin ****************************************** www.a-virtual-memorial.org www.le-musee-divisioniste.org PRESS NewMediaArtProjectNetwork contact: press at nmartproject.net ******************************* Minimum technical requirements: 1024x768 VGA resolution, soundCard Pentium III 800 Mhz or comparable MAC Flash 6, MS Internet Explorer 5.0+ or Netscape 6.0+ minimum 64K modem, recommended DSL highspeedmodem From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Thu Jul 4 00:08:01 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 19:38:01 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Interesting response to Lev's Documenta review Message-ID: <20020703183801.78622.qmail@web8105.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, Posted below is an interesting response to Lev's review of Documenta 11. It is, in itself, also a review of that "exhibition". At the bottom of this interesting response (a posting, unlike mine, unlike mine because I have merely come on to it, I have copied and am now going to paste it, and claim it as MY POSTING) were a series of URLs that indicated where the interesting posting can be originally sourced from, where you could get more info (if you wanted) on related postings, and info on postings of a similar fashion. But I have deleted these URLs. I want to claim this posting as mine. To do that, I must delete these URLs. Forgive me. I am following a pattern here. I am merely following the dominant pattern of postings/pastings on this List. I realise this is what I MUST do. Most of the postings that are copied-pasted on to this List NEVER mention the SOURCE they were LIFTED from. As such, the postings become a part of the productivity of the List poster. The one who posts such information becomes the provider of intelligent information. A provider who is both 1-up on other List members, because S/he provides "differant" information. And a provider who is DEMOCRATIC enough to share "critical" and "radical" and "intelligent" and "usable" and "functional" and "contingent" and "non-transparent" information to all who subscribe to this List. Such providers have gained respect on this List. I, too, want to gain respect on this List. Interesting response follows: Hi Lev Some thoughts to share on Documenta Documenta 11, Art and the figuration of History, the Social as Event Marc Lafia A few thoughts on Documenta below. Not a review but an attempt to read what is perhaps its aim, its intent. Entering the Museum Fridericianum, one of four exhibition halls of Documenta and encountering the work of Leon Golub and Hanne Darboven, the staging and terms of Documenta are set in place. Darboven¹s work is the permutations of the possible. It is an algorithm of possible events, indexing what might be a personal story about her father, a mathematician, and her grandfather who practiced or trafficked in the coffee trade or so this was relayed to me by the young guard in the room. As she said, after pondering it for hours and days and hearing various docents discourse on the work, Darboven¹s system is not easily readable, but in some sense it does not matter ­ it is a massive record, a voluminous indexing of an activity I myself could not decipher, was not certain of, yet there are three floors of hundreds upon hundreds of letter-sized framed documents, all words and numbers, permutations of a system. Are they records of something that has happened or a system to set forth possibilities or permutations of what might have happened or could happen? Not dissimilar to what has put forward by any number of conceptual artists, these documents are the record of some thing, these letters stand for something, they stand for the fact of something, they are material evidence of some claim, some presence elsewhere or transcription or transposition of an elsewhere ­ they are not in and of themselves events ­ the event itself is elsewhere ­ under the cipher of a new calculus. And perhaps this is the difficulty of history. It is an elsewhere that is too easily contested, too easily charged becoming a calculation for some end and we are never sure who is speaking and for whom and what is and isn¹t being said. As Godard said of cinema, we might say of history, that it is alone ­ away from us, too close to us, and we are its ghost, never certain of the facts, only the affect of a time past. The works of Leon Golub move away from specific fact to the affect of police torture, a generalized maelstrom of vileness, violence, brutishness. His quick painterly sketched depictions of what he is well known for, depictions of beatings, brutality, violence to persons, women, men, imprisonment ­ with writing on the works, Œthis is you¹, Œwe can disappear you¹ bring us inside the event of what history generally presents as a remove. His work is the event of affect, not a specific event but a seething, poison that is. In an adjacent gallery to these two artists is the work of Zarina Bhimji. The video ŒOut of the Blue¹ extends and folds these strategies, problemitizing fact, affect and memory. A camera slowly moves through empty houses, barracks and commercial properties abandoned in 1974 when Idi Amin banished Asians from Uganda and Bhimji¹s family fled to the U.K. As such the very notion of remembering and knowing, of what can be said to have been lived and what is lived, or what is said to have had happened is raised into question. What exactly happened there? Again there is elsewhere. It is in this space between the illustration of event and event itself, between - History which points to something ­ and Art which in itself is something ­ that Documenta traverses and stakes claim or rather makes problematic, that is the claims of each, history and art, turn their respective strategies, their methods and discourse onto each other. Documenta uses the procedures of art, the materiality of the art work, art as a display of works, of physical things, a display of objects, materials ­it mobilizes presentation and display, the well worn strategies of artists, museum and material culture for the purposes of opening up history, memory, being, time and conflict. Documenta is a theatre of history, of politic. of art; it is a collection of props, procedures and tactics, a splayed database of the lived real, an orchestration of many disparate voices, but primary voices, authors who are the agents and actors, the very beings in the cross fire of living culture. Documenta is a spatial visualization of what often has been figured in the form of historical critique in writing ­ taking the evidence or even the very meta idea of evidence, of voluminous, forensic, physical material evidence that creates an alternative reading of what may have happened ­ This is the predominate and outstanding strategic procedure of Documenta: ­situating the social and political ­ or recasting or refiguring these terms and opening them up in the space of art to be seen anew and to be re-considered. It is art taking on history as the performative, as an open index, history as always lived, always interpretative, history as a particular reclaiming of events, of memory, history as living. A number of the works in the exhibit retrace and traverse sites of political crime, war, atrocity, genocide, aggression. In the post 9-11 world ­ we may feel closer to what we may have felt were far away things, ­so it may be that these things touch us more then they once may have. The works implicate us in the social political ­ in a reality of a world of violence, territorialization and use a legalistic, a juridical strategy of amassing material fact to make a case. It is interesting how these same strategies of display of objects, repetitive objects, multiples of objects could easily be transposed into minimalist sculptures, the work all tends to be sculptural, objects in space, most pronouncedly the video work­ but here rather than objects that just are, these objects, these artifacts, this material evidence refers back to the world, not the materials themselves but to the world in which we live and the things that happened and have happened in this world. This reclaiming of history, of the social is at the forefront of Documenta¹s project and again another example of the space of art extending critique, mobilizing its formal strategies to examine and take as subject matter other domains as it has with the sciences, the network, biology, entertainment and so forth. Art has become a stratagem to examine and display material culture, and Documenta uses this well honed post minimalist, post conceptualist arsenal of the last 30 yrs to examine the problematic of the world as actuality. Fact in the realm or domain of history, is never such, as fact is the contestation or politicization of fact which causes all to disappear inside history ­ in Documenta they are brought out to be seen again, to be considered again in a new configuration, in the language of art, or in the medium of display that we¹ve come accustom in seeing in art. Here history, politic is inscribed through material artifact ­ art is used to problemitize and brings back and reclaims the everyday, the difficulty of the everyday. It is too easy to dismiss Documenta as political. ­It is too easy to dismissthis work on the level of content, of representation. It is more interesting to note the arsenal, the repertoire, the rhetorical strategies so well developed by contemporary art and museum practitioners, each of them understanding well the shape and shaping of knowledge that both museum and artist engage, in terms of indexing a work, displaying a work, isolating the work in a space, in the vitrine, the frame and so forth. Whereas artists have been concerned with the museum as a medium and moving away from the object to the very event in which art is made to be art by virtue of the institution, the context of the institution, and the object in the space of the institution ­ Documenta takes these strategies, these advances to move beyond the play of the archeology of objects, objects that irritate and tease the artwork with its obsession, its fetish of the object (and why not) that is the art context, the art apparatus, teasing the art world to know itself as that procedure which produces art by virtue of its sanctioning, ­taking in something under its confines into its apparatus. ­What ever its failings, Documenta uses the art apparatus to reflect back on the world and the very archaeology of material culture to reclaim the world. Documenta's aim is the reclamation of subjectivity, history, memory in the space of art. It uses art as a discourse to write a new figuration of the social. In the space of culture there is no safety, there is no bounded ness, there is no closing off the world in the place of what we may have thought of as culture. Documenta extends us and brings us back to our selves and the world we live in and our bearing on how it is we make the world, ourselves and art. Follow up: posting on Documenta¹s video work, the spatialization of the moving image, forth coming. POSTING/PASTING ENDS HERE Thanking you, yours in full and complete information expropriation/appropriation, pp --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020703/22f05c38/attachment.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Thu Jul 4 01:17:45 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 20:47:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Interesting response to Lev's Documenta review In-Reply-To: <20020703192320.58358.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20020703194745.37919.qmail@web8107.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear Sreejata, Your request is against the spirit of the List. On this List, postings that are pastings are never TRANSPARENT. But you have thanked me for the posting. My Global Aeducated Indian Ego is thrilled. So: you can get Lev's posting at nettime-1 at bbs.thing.net yours, pp sreejata roy wrote: Dear pratap Thanks for the posting. Can you tell me where can I get Lev's review of Documenta? Looking forward to hearing from you Regards Sreejata __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020703/2ccfba49/attachment.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Thu Jul 4 01:37:07 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 21:07:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] For L K Advani, with louve Message-ID: <20020703200707.57560.qmail@web8104.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, smashing info. Again, pasted/posted. As usual, prolegomena-ed (sufficiently academically respectable term, so you know what it means) by traumatised expressivity. I dedicate this pasting/posting to our Deputy PM. I am tempted to dedicate this pasting/posting to senior respectable academics. There exist "regularities" (this is the most unworked-upon and unthought-upon Foucaldian concept, first clarified in "The Archaelogy of Knowledge") between the two. Just for kicks, both claim to be "committed" and "radical" ! CATHEXIS ENDS HERE. SCROLL FOR INFO. FORGIVE FOR POSTING SOURCE URL. Army To Release Computer Game Tuesday July 2, 2002 7:40 PM http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-1851305,00.html WASHINGTON (AP) - Attempting to woo computer-savvy young people, the Army will release on July 4 the first installment of an ambitious new computer game that will let players be all they can digitally be. The game, which will be free on many gaming Web sites and www.americasarmy.com, lets a player assume the role of a new recruit on an Army team pitted in an online battle against terrorists. While it is meant to be fun, the two-game set also was designed as a recruitment tool. "With this game we hope to educate young Americans and present them with a realistic, engaging view of today's modern Army and its opportunities," said Lt. Col. Casey Wardynski, head of the Office of Economic & Manpower Analysis at West Point and the originator of the game. The full project, called "America's Army," will be available this fall. The July 4 release is a scaled-down version of the "Operations" half of the game, a tactical combat game that will be familiar to fans of popular titles like "Quake" and "Half-Life." Players will be able to undergo basic training and fight in 10 multiplayer missions, including one to defend an Alaskan pipeline. More missions will be released until the full release of the game. Officials said they want a slow rollout to make sure their server computers can handle the traffic. Army game developers visited 19 installations to interview soldiers and take photographs of everything from tanks to the texture of bricks on building walls. The other half of the game, called "Soldier," involves role playing similar to the popular game "The Sims." Players pick one of about 20 Army careers and learn new skills in order to try to earn the rank of sergeant. Players will learn military tactics, Army values and more about careers like military police, infantry, and even avionics repair - but don't expect to learn how to fix an Apache helicopter. "The perspective here isn't to get into the final level of detail, like wiring up an engine," said Army spokesman Paul Boyce. "It's to give you a feeling of the procedures of the Army." The game was developed over two years for about $6.3 million, Boyce said, similar to the cost of other professional games. It will be available for download as well as on CDs packaged with popular game magazines and in Army recruitment centers. The developers struggled with several portions of the combat half of the game, particularly with how to depict game violence. "We were very careful on the blood thing," Boyce said. "The team even debated about whether or not to make a noise" when bullets strike an enemy. They ultimately decided to keep it silent and show a red blotch, similar to a paintball hit. The game is rated for teens. Operations punishes the player by kicking them out of the game if they shoot a teammate or break the rules of engagement. If the player returns, they are confined to a tiny cell at Fort Leavenworth, complete with a harmonica playing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." "Part of this is that we want to teach people that for any action there is a consequence," Boyce said. "Violence in the military is a very carefully sanctioned and organized approach in at time of threat. You must use it as the last resort." Another hurdle for the game designers is how to organize the two teams, which can have up to 32 players per side. Since the game is a recruitment tool, the designers didn't want anyone to play as a terrorist. The enemy is always a team of terrorists, who are depicted as sinister figures in fatigues, according to Boyce. A player on Team A will always fight as a U.S. Army soldier and fight players on Team B depicted as terrorists. But that opposing Team B "terrorist" will see themselves as Army and Team A as terrorists. While it sounds confusing, Boyce said, it will be seamless to players. "As far as you're concerned, when you see the enemy approaching you, they are the enemy," Boyce said. "It's all a matter of perspective." "No one can opt to be the bad guy in America's Army," Boyce said. On the Net: America's Army: www.americasarmy.com Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 END POSTING/PASTING. --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020703/73034037/attachment.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Thu Jul 4 02:17:25 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 21:47:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Just check this out! Message-ID: <20020703204725.85725.qmail@web8105.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, Just check this out! All intellectual energy for this pasting/posting is heretifore claimed by me. pp dMM. dMM. ,mmm_.dMM. .o._m.m,. ,..mm.m. _,m.m.op_ ,MMP''`YMMM. ,MMP''`'MM_ ,MMM"''"MMM. dMMP''`YMML ,MMP YMM. YMMb._ ""' ,MMP YMM ,MMP YP" ;MMP 7MM. 'PMMMM8mm_ (!MMMMMMMMMMM'dMM' `MMb ]MM. _._ `'"YMMM.`MMb _.i YMMb ,mm. YMML ,?MM. ___ YMML dMM' YMML dMMP !MM. ,MMM' `YMMMMMYMM' ]MMM `MMMMMMMP' `YMMMMMMp' '8MMMMM!F ''' '' ''' `'''' '''' `'''' [database systems to enforce control] www.dsec.info | www.noborder.org [update june 12th, 2002] /\ noborder-camp July 19-28, 2002 /\ / \ strasbourg / \/____\ www.noborder.org /____\ P E O P L E M O V E --- P E O P L E C O M M U N I C A T E People move across physical and virtual borders. People push the electronic frontiers through digital and physical communication. States and multinationals are enforcing control of both flows. Information technology is part of the freefloating culture of resistance and a tool to develop a society of seemless control. The border camp in Strasbourg is the perfect location to explore these connections and link the struggles for free movement and free communication. L O C A T I O N d.sec (first call published on http://dsec.info, january 2002) is part of the international noborder action camp (http://noborder.org/strasbourg) in Strasbourg, July 19-28, 2002. The intention is to create a thread around the issues of freedom of movement and freedom of communication. The link between both is becoming more important with the virtualisation of borders - which certainly does not make them softer. Situated in Alsace, with a French/German border which has shifted 5 times in the last 5 centuries, Strasbourg is now the location of the Schengen Information System (SIS), a detention center and many EUropean institutions. d..sec will use this thick symbolic space as an experimental field to better understand how the virtualisation of borders works, and what to do about it. Between 1000 and 3000 people are expected for the bordercamp. d.sec will take place on the campsite and in town, with workshops, presentations, active discussions or chilling out with a notebook and a cup of coffee. C O N C E P T d.sec is about reflecting the mechanisms of repression/control in the fields of free movement and free communication, the experiences of electronic and physical bordercrossing. An attempt to integrate cyber-activism and taking the streets, and find the relations between social and technical skills. The wider objective is to give momentum to an ongoing exploration of technical potentials in the resistance against the border regime. d.sec relies on the diversity of people who will be present at the Strasbourg border camp. Some of the activists will be web designers and editors, sys-ads, videomakers, code-writers, translators. Some earn a living with this "immaterial labour", some just use it in their political work. Others focus on the streets. Others have experience with borders and migration. /*hack the streets. be pink and silver on the net*/ d.sec is meant to become an open structure where activists, anti-racists, migrants, hackers, teccies, artists and many more put their knowledges and practices into self-organised interaction. A space to discuss and network,for skill sharing and and collaborative knowledge production. A laboratory to try out ways to hack the streets and reclaim cyberspace with crowds in pink and silver; experiment with virtual identities, linux and open-source products; explore the embodyment of technology, learn about the meanings of physical and virtual bordercrossing. F O R U M --------------------------------------------------------------- check out the discussion forum on http://dsec.info/talk (under construction) This is a space to collect and discuss articles, images and texts before, during and after the camp, a pool for information. --------------------------------------------------------------- M O D E S We propose three modes of gettogethers - they are flexible, can take place anywhere, each mode can turn into another one if people feel like it. [presentations] anything from formal presentations to chilled-out exchange, inspired by an impulse contribution (film, talk, website, sound). Might turn into active discussions. Could be open to the public [workshops] skill sharing about things like how to secure my PC, Linux installation, video editing, webradio, websites, diagramme making, streamingâ [active discussion] Brainstorms, dreams, theory with a perspective to develop into ongoing projects and actions. Can last anything between a few minutes and several days and nights. A C T I O N d.sec/ is where the multitudes infect each other with subversive desires and constructive acts. Let's turn projects, questions and practices into interventions. Bring the tools to cross the digital borders. Let's be the humans behind the machines. /*if you know of anyone who might be interested, please forward this invitation.*/ /*if you want to put your project on the preliminary programme or need equipment, mail to contact at dsec.info*/ W H O This is a choice of projects and groups. Some have already confirmed that they are coming, others are projects worth looking at for inspiration. Anyone working on projects related to "freedom of movement and freedom of information" pls get in touch! the voice (www.humanrights.de/voice. migrant's self organisation, Germany) --- Chaos Computer Club, germany (www.ccc.de, had their first real space demonstration in the streets a few months ago) --- hacknet milano (ecn.org, italy) --- ascii (squat.net/ascii - amsterdam) --- puscii (squat.net/puscii - utrecht) --- netbase.t0.or.at --- genderchangers (genderchangers.org amsterdam/london) --- print (squat.net/print - dijon) --- undercurrents.org, UK --- PublixTheatreCaravan, (zone.noborder.org, vienna) --- ak-kraak.squat.net --- trojan tv (organicchaos.org) --- electrohippies (fraw.org.uk/ehippies - floodnet, UK) --- www.hacktivism.com --- indymedia centers (indymedia.org) --- www.haecksen.org --- debian gnu-linux (debian.org) --- freebsd.org --- no-racism.net ---- syndicatpotentiel.fr.st, strasbourg --- bureau d’etudes (bureaudetudes at free.fr) --- Kanak Attack (www.kanak-attak.de) --- sans titre (www.under.ch/SansTitre) --- campware|campfire, Prague (media lab, campware.org) --- databyte --- rtmark.com --- deportation-class.com --- electronic disturbance theatre (archive: nyu.edu/projects/wray/ecd.html) --- noborder.org --- communication guerilla (www.contrast.org/KG)--- theyesmen.org --- fiambrera obrera (www.sindominio.net/fiambrera) --- old boyz network (obn.org) --- nadir.org --- sindominio.net --- virtual people smuggler --- deportation-alliance.com --- www.wewearbuildings.cc ------------------------------------------------------------------------- d.sec /di:'sIk/, abbr of (a) Database System to Enforce Control. A database used to restrict the civil liberties of a specific group. Emerged in late 20th century during transition from democracy to empire. (b) opp deformed security. A dysfunctional understanding of security. (c) spec tag of 1st Intern. bordercamp, 2002. EG desecuricise SIS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS d.sec/themes/basic { The struggles for freedom of movement and freedom of communication are beginning to interact. To take the solidarity further, we need an understanding of how both freedoms are being controlled. Demystifying the SIS and visualising virtual borders could be a practical starting point. We need to know how IT tools are supporting virtual borders, and how we can use them for our own purposes. Let‘s talk about how the machinery of control affects all of us - as migrants, activists, webbies and crossovers of all sorts.} [presentations/chillout] #++ Migration and the Digital Frontier: Crossover and Difference (part of camp opening event, Sunday 21.7.) # Learning from the Zapatistas: getting the most out of the web # Maps of control: an exhibition (Syndicat potentiel/bureau d'etudes) [active discussions] # Theatre/performances in public space (noborderZONE) # IS SIS THE WORLD WE WANT? Info and brainstorm # „You need a mobile and email to work with us“ (expls: Kanak Attack, Indymedia ) # cardreader (ascii) [workshops] # mapping the border. active research for a sbourg diagram. (syndicate potentiel, bureau d’etudes) Invisible theatre/ surveillance camera play/ checkpoint play/ radio-supported psychogeographic explorations/ d.sec/themes/opensource and free things {The world of open source is thriving: everything is available for free, from the Linux operating system to sophisticated cryptography. What’s the politix of this world? Why should grassroots groops participate and use it? How to secure your computer? And the idea of free things is not limited to software } [workshops] # Public key cryptography for secure communication: Create your own keypair! (ascii, amsterdam) # Installing gnu/linux - why and how (ascii and ) # A smart artist makes the machine do the work: opensource content management // campware // databyte #++ getting free food from the market (sans titre network, daily) let's talk about debian/ freeBSD/ Gnu/linux/ TCP/IP/ firewalling # Free parties the subvertivity of fun The needs of the "mobile activist" [chillout] # Key signing party (ascii, amsterdam) (Friday nite?) # Yomango: want it? You got it! From civil disobedience to social disobedience. Shoplifting as fine art (Yomango, Barcelona, with mobile media unit) d.sec/themes/electronic.campaigning.disobedience {Crowds of activists are taking the streets of cyberspace. They practice the art of internet campaigning, use the tactics of communication guerilla and have a laugh at the rich and powerful. How do electronic disobedience and traditional actions/campaigns relate to each other? Cyberspace is Public Space!} [active discussions] #++ Image pollution and tactical embarrassment: let's talk with and about floodnet/electrohippies, lufthansa online-demonstration, rtmark, fiambrera obrera, electronic disturbance theatre, yesman, deportation-class.com, toywar, root at sis# shutdown -h now [presentations/chillout] # video screenings about past and present actions (noborderZONE) d.sec/themes/body {Some say our identities are liberated through communication technology. Others feel the need to reclaim their bodies from the machines. Let’s talk about cyborgs, gender, human interfaces, sexuality in the world of cyberspace. Let’s talk about the humans behind the machines.} [workshops] #++ d.sex: finding questions to answer: chat rooms. sexism. gender(bending). power. desire ... # "The teccie" - a gendered identity? (all present teccies, non-teccies and the majority of crossovers) # let’s talk with and/or about projects like the old boyznetwork, haecksen, ascii, indymedia, nadir, sindominio [presentations] # every-body who is there and willing to do one [chillout] d.sec/themes/hacktivism {Tools like SIS specifically aim at the restriction of free movement and free communication. These database systems to enforce control are bugs, problems that need to be fixed. Is the hacker community still ahead of the apparatus of control? Any hacker kid has hacked the pentagon, some net pirates seized the WEF database at Davos have they tried to crack the SIS? And if so, what would it mean? Direct action, free de-bugging or a risky game? Let’s try} [active discussion and permanent flowing workshop] Hacking and ethics - explorations of a concept "root at sis# shutdown -h now" #++ how a hacker would see the SIS d.sec/themes/media activism {hundreds of media activists will be present at the strasbourg bordercamp, equipped with webcams, digital cameras, minidisc players and laptops. What happens to all this footage? What is the function of videos, webradio etc for „THE MOVEMENT“? For some, media activim is about counter-information, for others its about interventions in the public sphere, or both. Time to think about the fascination and objectives of digital media production} [workshops] # the radio stream from everywhere (radio crews at the camp) Producing and reflecting on webstreams, pirate radios/television ... # webmagazine for sbourg bordercamp - intro to the editing system [active discussion] # Freespeech at all cost open or edited? Hate the media be the media? Debating with and about projects like indymedia, liberinfo.net, nadir, sindominio, public netbase, a-infos # noborderZONE: The PublixTheatreCaravan will bring a bus complete with mini-cinema, workspace/media lab with computers, internet acces, bar and stage. [presentations] # Liberinfo.net: a news agency for social movements. Working with the corporate media? (Liberinfo network, Barcelona) # everyone is an expert mobile bus [chillout] # video screenings - viewing (activist) videos: what’s the message? We are the experts! (videos present at camp) # performance sounds and borders (name?) # possibility for gettogether of indymedia activists (if indys present at camp want to) /* IS S I S T H E W O R L D W E W A N T ? */ root at sis # shutdown -h now pgp-key: gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.cz.pgp.net --recv-keys AE06103A END POSTING/PASTING Intellectual energy claimed by: pp --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020703/cc6eac8a/attachment.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Thu Jul 4 02:38:21 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 22:08:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] A different take on Documenta 11 Message-ID: <20020703210821.32203.qmail@web8101.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, Posting/pasting below on a different take on Documenta 11. All intellectual credit is mine (YAAAAH!). pp Interview mit tsunamii.net / By Tilman Baumgärtel As part of their project for this year's documenta the artists group tsunamii.net is currently walking from Kassel, where the documenta takes place, to Kiel, where the server of the documenta is located. Alpha 3.4 (http://www.tsunamii.net/alpha3.4/) is one of the few internet projects at this year's documenta, and the only interesting one. I gave Tien Woon and Charles Lim of tsunamii.net a call on their cell phone on monday morning, when they were checking out of their hotel. ?: Good morning. Where are you right now? Tien Woon: Somewhere behind Hamburg. I forgot the name, I believe it is Elmenhorst. ?: That means that have complete two thirds of your trip from Kassel to Kiel for your project. What is this project about? Tien Woon: We surf the internet by physically moving from Kassel, where the documenta takes place, to Kiel, where the sever of the documenta is. A server is a computer that holds the data of a website, that you can access over the internet. We have written a program in collaboration with a group of programmers. The program is called "Webwalker", that surfs the internet while we are walking. We are carrying a mobile server, palmtops and a GPS system in order to be online all the time. While we are walking, the GPS system sends the data about where we are to the internet. These movements will control the fours Monitors in the Binding Brauerei in Kassel, where you can see our current location. ?: Why walk this distance at all? The whole point of the internet is that you do not have to move physically in order to access data that is not where you are. Tien Woon: We want to think of the internet as a physical place. It is not about making the virtual physical, but rather to argue that the virtual also exists physically. There is this argument about the internet, that you have the freedom to move where you want because it has no limits, that it is bondless and that there is a citizenship of cyberspace, the "netizen". You supposedly have the freedom to move from place to place and collect data. But in reality, all this depends on hardware, on cables and on backbones. Some countries have them and some don't. For example, a lot of servers are in the US right now, because it is much cheaper to have them there. While it may cost 100 dollars per month to host a website in Germany, it might be only 30 dollars to host it in the US. ?: To me this sounds like a bit of a re-nationalization of the internet. In my thinking it is an advantage that you can host your data somewhere else, far away from your own government, that might erase critical content or take you to court for it. Tien Woon: One of my friends has his website hosted in the Netherlands, because it is cheaper and because he feels that the Netherlands are more liberal. But what does he do, when the government changes and become right-wing, like it has happened now? It is not about re-nationalizing the internet but rather about being conscious that the internet is a politicised space. It is not as open and free as in the time, when the internet first began. Hold on a minute, my colleague wants to say something (Mumbling in the background) Charles is saying that the documenta platforms are a good example for that. Hold on, I pass the telephone over to him. Charles. Hello, my Name is Charles. ?: Hi, I'm Tilman. How are you doing? Charles: How are you? I think the documenta platforms show what the problem is. These conferences that preceded the documenta all took place far away from Kassel, but now all the material is hosted on a server in Frankfurt. ?: Yes, and everybody can access it there, because the internet is a decentralized network. Even the people in Santa Lucia. Charles: But if you place a server in the Frankfurt, it means that it is slower in other parts of the world and the people in Santa Lucia might not be able to download the video streams. They could at least have put a mirror site there or in other parts of the world to make the material from the server more accessible outside Europe. By the way, the location of the server also affects us. When we planned this project, the server of the documenta was still in Frankfurt, because it was sponsored by a company there. Now they have moved their server to a server farm in Kiel because of Telekom being the sponsor. When we heard that, we were like, damned, now we have to walk a much longer! (laughs) ?: Walking to the documenta server almost seems like an act of reconciliation for the ease with which we can access data on the net. Charles Lim: Well, usually the idea with computers is that you do a little bit of work, and then the computer does a lot of work for you. In our case it is exactly the other way round: we do most of the work and then the computer has to do only a little bit. One idea is to slow technology down. Technology, and computers in particular, get faster and faster all the time, and they also accelerate our life style. We try to reverse that process, and get slower and slower. There is an aspect of contemplation in walking from Kassel to Kiel. ?: So do you enjoy walking outdoors? Are you nature lovers, that are happy to explore the German countryside? Charles: Well, actually we don't see too much nature. We mostly see a lot of traffic. We have to use the roads, so they can track us back at the gallery as our movements control the computers in the gallery. I expected to meet a lot of people on the road, but in reality we hardly see any people on the streets where we are walking, only cars. It almost seems like there have been only small areas left where people are supposed to walk, and the rest is for trains, trucks and cars. ?: I noticed that a lot of the pictures from your previous walks have been taken on train stations and train tracks. Why is that? Because a lot of the telecommunication cables have been laid underneath these tracks? Charles: Yes, and because we are interested in different telecommunication technologies. First there were roads and telegraphs, then train tracks and the telephone, and now there is the net. No, cables are not laid under these tracks but train tracks, roads, pavements are prepared tracks, structures build to aid and transport human traffic from one place to another place. And train stations are like nodes in these trajectories. Being a walker on these tracks one can feel the 'textures' of speed. Walk, drive, cycle, commuting on trains are all varying degrees of speed. In this case, walking becomes the speed that allow us to see more of what is in between the start and the end of the journey. We are exploring what is in between in the internet. ?: So what will you do once you are in Kiel at the company that hosts the documenta website? Charles Lim: It took us a lot of negotiations to actually get us into the server farm, but eventually we got the permission to do so. We will set up a web cam in front of the server computer, and that image will be transmitted to the installation in Kassel. Also, on the website of the documenta you will see a real time image until the end of the exhibition, maybe even longer. It is an attempt to think about our relationship to the computer. I said that our trip from Kiel to Kassel is an act of contemplation. But maybe that makes us sound too much like Robert Long. The most important part of this happening is not the walk as such, but rather to clarify our relationship with the computer. (Noises in the background) ?: Say, are you already on the road again? I think I hear cars in the background. Charles Lim: No, but we are getting ready to go soon. If you want to though, you can take a look on the internet to see where we are right now. And then you can drive there to meet us. (laughs) --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020703/9d8d51ad/attachment.html From prosaha at hotmail.com Thu Jul 4 10:02:57 2002 From: prosaha at hotmail.com (Pradip Saha) Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 04:32:57 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Right Stuff Message-ID: Just a bit of comic relief I found the following item in "JetMall", the in-flight mail order shopping catalogue distributed to Jet Air travellers. GANESHA: WORLDWIDE LIMITED EDITION Item code: 6112 Price: Rs 28575/- Be the proud owner of one of 500 limited editions of Ganeshas. Crafted in 92.5% sterling silver, studded with Swarovski, electro-lacquered for lasting protection and exclusively designed for d'mart exclusif by Linea Argenti of Italy. Each figure comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. I shall post the image in picturepost, later today. Pradip _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From bauke at freiburg.nl Thu Jul 4 13:38:14 2002 From: bauke at freiburg.nl (Bauke Freiburg) Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 10:08:14 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] open source cola Message-ID: <7828.213.84.10.40.1025770094.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> 'OPUS' source cola... Read the article on: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13494. The Great Open Source Giveaway Graham Lawton, New Scientist July 1, 2002 If you've been to a computer show in recent months you might have seen it: a shiny silver drink can with a ring-pull logo and the words "opencola" on the side. Inside is a fizzy drink that tastes very much like Coca-Cola. Or is it Pepsi? There's something else written on the can, though, which sets the drink apart. It says "check out the source at opencola.com." Go to that Web address and you'll see something that's not available on Coca-Cola's website, or Pepsi's -- the recipe for cola. For the first time ever, you can make the real thing in your own home. OpenCola is the world's first "open source" consumer product. By calling it open source, its manufacturer is saying that instructions for making it are freely available. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, release their recipe into the public domain. As a way of doing business it's rather unusual -- the Coca-Cola Company doesn't make a habit of giving away precious commercial secrets. But that's the point. OpenCola is the most prominent sign yet that a long-running battle between rival philosophies in software development has spilt over into the rest of the world. What started as a technical debate over the best way to debug computer programs is developing into a political battle over the ownership of knowledge and how it is used, between those who put their faith in the free circulation of ideas and those who prefer to designate them "intellectual property." No one knows what the outcome will be. But in a world of growing opposition to corporate power, restrictive intellectual property rights and globalisation, open source is emerging as a possible alternative, a potentially potent means of fighting back. And you're helping to test its value right now. The open source movement originated in 1984 when computer scientist Richard Stallman quit his job at MIT and set up the Free Software Foundation. His aim was to create high-quality software that was freely available to everybody. Stallman's beef was with commercial companies that smother their software with patents and copyrights and keep the source code -- the original program, written in a computer language such as C++ -- a closely guarded secret. Stallman saw this as damaging. It generated poor-quality, bug-ridden software. And worse, it choked off the free flow of ideas. Stallman fretted that if computer scientists could no longer learn from one another's code, the art of programming would stagnate (New Scientist, 12 December 1998, p 42). Stallman's move resonated round the computer science community and now there are thousands of similar projects. The star of the movement is Linux, an operating system created by Finnish student Linus Torvalds in the early 1990s and installed on around 18 million computers worldwide. What sets open source software apart from commercial software is the fact that it's free, in both the political and the economic sense. If you want to use a commercial product such as Windows XP or Mac OS X you have to pay a fee and agree to abide by a licence that stops you from modifying or sharing the software. But if you want to run Linux or another open source package, you can do so without paying a penny -- although several companies will sell you the software bundled with support services. You can also modify the software in any way you choose, copy it and share it without restrictions. This freedom acts as an open invitation -- some say challenge -- to its users to make improvements. As a result, thousands of volunteers are constantly working on Linux, adding new features and winkling out bugs. Their contributions are reviewed by a panel and the best ones are added to Linux. For programmers, the kudos of a successful contribution is its own reward. The result is a stable, powerful system that adapts rapidly to technological change. Linux is so successful that even IBM installs it on the computers it sells. To maintain this benign state of affairs, open source software is covered by a special legal instrument called the General Public License. Instead of restricting how the software can be used, as a standard software license does, the GPL -- often known as a "copyleft" -- grants as much freedom as possible (see www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html). Software released under the GPL (or a similar copyleft licence) can be copied, modified and distributed by anyone, as long as they, too, release it under a copyleft. That restriction is crucial, because it prevents the material from being co-opted into later proprietary products. It also makes open source software different from programs that are merely distributed free of charge. In FSF's words, the GPL "makes it free and guarantees it remains free." Open source has proved a very successful way of writing software. But it has also come to embody a political stand -- one that values freedom of expression, mistrusts corporate power, and is uncomfortable with private ownership of knowledge. It's "a broadly libertarian view of the proper relationship between individuals and institutions", according to open source guru Eric Raymond. But it's not just software companies that lock knowledge away and release it only to those prepared to pay. Every time you buy a CD, a book, a magazine, even a can of Coca-Cola, you're forking out for access to someone else's intellectual property. Your money buys you the right to listen to, read or consume the contents, but not to rework them, or make copies and redistribute them. No surprise, then, that people within the open source movement have asked whether their methods would work on other products. As yet no one's sure -- but plenty of people are trying it. Take OpenCola. Although originally intended as a promotional tool to explain open source software, the drink has taken on a life of its own. The Toronto-based OpenCola company has become better known for the drink than the software it was supposed to promote. Laird Brown, the company's senior strategist, attributes its success to a widespread mistrust of big corporations and the "proprietary nature of almost everything." A website selling the stuff has shifted 150,000 cans. Politically minded students in the US have started mixing up the recipe for parties. OpenCola is a happy accident and poses no real threat to Coke or Pepsi, but elsewhere people are deliberately using the open source model to challenge entrenched interests. One popular target is the music industry. At the forefront of the attack is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco group set up to defend civil liberties in the digital society. In April of last year, the EFF published a model copyleft called the Open Audio License (OAL). The idea is to let musicians take advantage of digital music's properties -- ease of copying and distribution -- rather than fighting against them. Musicians who release music under an OAL consent to their work being freely copied, performed, reworked and reissued, as long as these new products are released under the same licence. They can then rely on "viral distribution" to get heard. "If the people like the music, they will support the artist to ensure the artist can continue to make music," says Robin Gross of the EFF. It's a little early to judge whether the OAL will capture imaginations in the same way as OpenCola. But it's already clear that some of the strengths of open source software simply don't apply to music. In computing, the open source method lets users improve software by eliminating errors and inefficient bits of code, but it's not obvious how that might happen with music. In fact, the music is not really "open source" at all. The files posted on the OAL music website http://www.openmusicregistry.org so far are all MP3s and Ogg Vorbises -- formats which allow you to listen but not to modify. It's also not clear why any mainstream artists would ever choose to release music under an OAL. Many bands objected to the way Napster members circulated their music behind their backs, so why would they now allow unrestricted distribution, or consent to strangers fiddling round with their music? Sure enough, you're unlikely to have heard of any of the 20 bands that have posted music on the registry. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Open Audio amounts to little more than an opportunity for obscure artists to put themselves in the shop window. The problems with open music, however, haven't put people off trying open source methods elsewhere. Encyclopedias, for example, look like fertile ground. Like software, they're collaborative and modular, need regular upgrading, and improve with peer review. But the first attempt, a free online reference called Nupedia, hasn't exactly taken off. Two years on, only 25 of its target 60,000 articles have been completed. "At the current rate it will never be a large encyclopedia," says editor-in-chief Larry Sanger. The main problem is that the experts Sanger wants to recruit to write articles have little incentive to participate. They don't score academic brownie points in the same way software engineers do for upgrading Linux, and Nupedia can't pay them. It's a problem that's inherent to most open source products: how do you get people to chip in? Sanger says he's exploring ways to make money out of Nupedia while preserving the freedom of its content. Banner adverts are a possibility. But his best hope is that academics start citing Nupedia articles so authors can earn academic credit. There's another possibility: trust the collective goodwill of the open source community. A year ago, frustrated by the treacle-like progress of Nupedia, Sanger started another encyclopedia named Wikipedia (the name is taken from open source Web software called WikiWiki that allows pages to be edited by anyone on the Web). It's a lot less formal than Nupedia: anyone can write or edit an article on any topic, which probably explains the entries on beer and Star Trek. But it also explains its success. Wikipedia already contains 19,000 articles and is acquiring several thousand more each month. "People like the idea that knowledge can and should be freely distributed and developed," says Sanger. Over time, he reckons, thousands of dabblers should gradually fix any errors and fill in any gaps in the articles until Wikipedia evolves into an authoritative encyclopedia with hundreds of thousands of entries. Another experiment that's proved its worth is the OpenLaw project at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Berkman lawyers specialise in cyberlaw -- hacking, copyright, encryption and so on -- and the centre has strong ties with the EFF and the open source software community. In 1998 faculty member Lawrence Lessig, now at Stanford Law School, was asked by online publisher Eldritch Press to mount a legal challenge to US copyright law. Eldritch takes books whose copyright has expired and publishes them on the Web, but new legislation to extend copyright from 50 to 70 years after the author's death was cutting off its supply of new material. Lessig invited law students at Harvard and elsewhere to help craft legal arguments challenging the new law on an online forum, which evolved into OpenLaw. Normal law firms write arguments the way commercial software companies write code. Lawyers discuss a case behind closed doors, and although their final product is released in court, the discussions or "source code" that produced it remain secret. In contrast, OpenLaw crafts its arguments in public and releases them under a copyleft. "We deliberately used free software as a model," says Wendy Selzer, who took over OpenLaw when Lessig moved to Stanford. Around 50 legal scholars now work on Eldritch's case, and OpenLaw has taken other cases, too. "The gains are much the same as for software," Selzer says. "Hundreds of people scrutinise the 'code' for bugs, and make suggestions how to fix it. And people will take underdeveloped parts of the argument, work on them, then patch them in." Armed with arguments crafted in this way, OpenLaw has taken Eldritch's case -- deemed unwinnable at the outset -- right through the system and is now seeking a hearing in the Supreme Court. There are drawbacks, though. The arguments are in the public domain right from the start, so OpenLaw can't spring a surprise in court. For the same reason, it can't take on cases where confidentiality is important. But where there's a strong public interest element, open sourcing has big advantages. Citizens' rights groups, for example, have taken parts of OpenLaw's legal arguments and used them elsewhere. "People use them on letters to Congress, or put them on flyers," Selzer says. The open content movement is still at an early stage and it's hard to predict how far it will spread. "I'm not sure there are other areas where open source would work," says Sanger. "If there were, we might have started it ourselves." Eric Raymond has also expressed doubts. In his much-quoted 1997 essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, he warned against applying open source methods to other products. "Music and most books are not like software, because they don't generally need to be debugged or maintained," he wrote. Without that need, the products gain little from others' scrutiny and reworking, so there's little benefit in open sourcing. "I do not want to weaken the winning argument for open sourcing software by tying it to a potential loser," he wrote. But Raymond's views have now shifted subtly. "I'm more willing to admit that I might talk about areas other than software someday," he told New Scientist. "But not now." The right time will be once open source software has won the battle of ideas, he says. He expects that to happen around 2005. And so the experiment goes on. As a contribution to it, New Scientist and AlterNet have agreed to issue this article under a copyleft. That means you can copy it, redistribute it, reprint it in whole or in part, and generally play around with it as long as you, too, release your version under a copyleft and abide by the other terms and conditions in the licence. We also ask that you inform us of any use you make of the article, by e-mailing copyleft at newscientist.com. One reason for doing so is that by releasing it under a copyleft, we can print the recipe for OpenCola without violating its copyleft. If nothing else, that demonstrates the power of the copyleft to spread itself. But there's another reason, too: to see what happens. To my knowledge this is the first magazine article published under a copyleft. Who knows what the outcome will be? Perhaps the article will disappear without a trace. Perhaps it will be photocopied, redistributed, re-edited, rewritten, cut and pasted onto websites, handbills and articles all over the world. I don't know -- but that's the point. It's not up to me any more. The decision belongs to all of us. THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt. From monica at sarai.net Thu Jul 4 19:25:26 2002 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 19:25:26 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] OPUS Message-ID: Dear List members and Friends, (please feel free to copy and redistribute) We are happy to announce the launch of OPUS, (Open Platform for Unlimited Signification) as an online adjunct to the documentary installation - Co-Ordinates: 28.28N/77.15E : : 2001/2002 - presented by us (Raqs Media Collective) at Documenta11, Kassel. Opus (Release Candidate) went public on the 8th of June, 2002, co-inciding with the opening of Documenta11. The URL for Opus is www.opuscommons.net What does Opus stand for? Opus is an acronym for "Open Platform for Unlimited Signification!". Most importantly, it is an online space for people, machines and codes to play and work together - to share, create and transform images, sounds, videos and texts. Opus is an attempt to create a digital commons in culture, based on the principle of sharing of work, while at the same time, retaining the possibility (if and when desired) of maintaining traces of individual authorship and identity. To read more about the principles and background of Opus, go to - http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/record.html How Opus works (what can you do in Opus) Opus enables you to view, create and exhibit media objects (video, audio, still images, html and text) and make modifications on work done by others, in the spirit of collaboration and the sharing of creativity. Opus is an environment in which every viewer/user is also invited to be a producer, and a means for producers to work together to shape new content. You can view and download material, transform it and then upload the material worked on by you back to the Opus domain. Each media object archived, exhibited and made available for transformation within Opus carries with it data that can identify all those who have worked on it. This means that while Opus enables collaboration, it also preserves the identity of Authors/Creators (no matter how big or small their contribution may be) at each stage of a works evolution. In this way, we hope that Opus can be come a model for a practical realization of the idea of a Digital Commons of creative work on the Internet. To read a manual of OPUS - go to - http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/manual.html The Idea The basic ideas of the Opus project is to create a community of creative people from all over the world, who want to share and gift to each other the images, sounds and texts made by them for general public usage. Opus will give people the chance to collaborate and to present their work to an online community of practitioners and artists willing to work outside the increasing global domination of intellectual property regimes in cultural production. Once you have published your y in Opus, each act of uploading by you becomes an opportunity for others to take your work as a starting point for transformation, for a new rendition, for a rescension. Opus users will also be able to give their comments and reflections on your work through the discussion forums that will grow around each project within Opus. Opus is inspired by the free software movement and is an attempt to transpose the principles that govern the creation of free software on to general cultural production. Opus follows the same rules as those that operate in all free software communities - i.e. the freedom to view, to download, to modify and to redistribute. The source(code), in this case the video, image, sound or text - the contents of media objects uploaded on to Opus, is free to use, to edit and to redistribute. Needless to say the 'source-code' of the Opus software is also free to use, edit and redistribute. Opus users are governed by a license that protects them from their work being taken out of the commons and into the regimen of proprietary protocols. To read the license that frames Opus - go to - http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/license.html OPUS : A brief history Work on Opus began in September 2001 and the Beta version was uploaded in April 2002. Opus is launched into the public domain with the opening of Documenta11. When we (Raqs Collective) began to think through the ideas that gradually crystallized to form Opus, we were searching for a platform that would enable inter-media and hybrid media practices to find fruition within a frame of open ended collaboration. We were interested in trying to evolve a way to combine our interests with video, our background in documentary film, photography and sound, and our growing engagement with hypertextuality and free software culture as a result of our work within the Sarai Initiative at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi. At an immediate level, the ideas that were at the core of the Opus project developed out of our need to create an online context for a set of offline installations. (like , for instance, Co-ordinates : 28.28N /77.15E : : 2001/2002, which is showing at Documenta11) which we wanted to open out to a wider community of creators, so as to enable instances of further collaboration; and out of our thoughts on the notion of the 'Digital Commons', from which arose a text A Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons which contains many of the founding ideas of Opus. In the realization of the process of creating Opus we were joined by several others who made the Sarai Media Lab their home for many long days and nights along with us, sharing in the delight of discovering fragments of archiecture that worked, or a metaphor that made sense, and above all with the energy that they brought to every detail of the coding and design of Opus. Opus would not be a reality without the active collaboration of all the people who worked on it, their skills and their imaginations. Many metaphors, images and ideas have made their way into the making of OPUS, from a biological laboratory, to a polyamourous matrix, to an understanding of the way in which parents relate to children, from kinship and lineage to the growth and evolution of epic narratives and ancient texts. The traces of all these remain in varying degrees. Sarai (www.sarai.net) provided the background of being an intellectually and creatively stimulating space while all of us worked on Opus. CREDITS Conception - Raqs Media Collective Architecture - Monica Narula, Bauke Freiburg, Silvan Zurbruegg Coding - Silvan Zurbruegg, Pankaj Kaushal Interface Design - Joy Chatterjee Design Co-ordination - Monica Narula Design Acknowledgement - Rana Dasgupta Documentation - Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Monica Narula, Bauke Freiburg License - Lawrence Liang, Jeebesh Bagchi Produced by - Raqs Media Collective at the Sarai Media Lab, Sarai/CSDS, Delhi, 2002 Acknowledgements Knowbotic Research, Zurich Hochschule f¸r Gestaltung und Kunst, Zurich Dept. of New Media Studies, University of Amsterdam Society for Old & New Media, Amsterdam Documenta11, Kassel Everyone @ Sarai, Delhi We invite you to contribute, create and share in the further development of Opus. We believe that your participation in Opus will strengthen and revitalize the digital commons. If you have more enquiries about Opus - write to info at opuscommons.net raqs at sarai.net -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From slumbug at rediffmail.com Fri Jul 5 16:04:12 2002 From: slumbug at rediffmail.com (slumbug) Date: 5 Jul 2002 10:34:12 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Comments on OPUS licence Message-ID: <20020705103412.6718.qmail@webmail25.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020705/1a044179/attachment.pl From mir_taqi_mir at hotmail.com Fri Jul 5 17:55:03 2002 From: mir_taqi_mir at hotmail.com (Mir Taqi Mir) Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 12:25:03 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Kashmir Fatigue - an article on www.chowk.com Message-ID: Kashmir Fatigue by Ajay Raina -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rejoinder to a poet who died before me.. At the top end corner of the famous Lal Chowk of Srinagar (named after the Moscow�s famous Red Square), stands Hotel Neelam, a well-identifiable landmark, strategically placed in the heart of Srinagar at the tri-junction of it�s most active thoroughfare. Looking straight ahead through the shattered glass panes of the hotel you will see the clock tower that never ever showed the correct time right from the day it came to be installed there after a fanfare inauguration by the Sher-I-Kashmir himself. Beyond the clock tower is the Residency road of the British Imperial times. This road was later named Shahid Sherwani Road after the Martyr who single-handedly stopped the Pakistani Tribal raiders from reaching Srinagar in 1948 for which he paid by his life � a tortuous and agonizing death; he was nailed to a cross. The road was later, re-named its original name. After 1990, every other known and unknown landmark of Srinagar that even remotely suggested of Kashmir�s association with Independent India was re-named or not re-re-named at all. To the left of Hotel Neelam are the now completely gutted Palladium Cinema and Hotel Lalla Rukh and beyond to Maisuma, Gow Kadal to Haba Kadal to Fateh Kadal and the infamous Downtown. To its right is the road that leads to the Amira Kadal, the first of the seven bridges of the ancient Srinagar city. Inside Hotel Neelam, one sad evening on a cold December day, an old man in his mid seventies was warming himself beside a bukhari along with another young man. We were the only three guests in the restaurant of the hotel that late evening. The streets had already emptied out. There was no electricity, which is usual in Srinagar�s winters, because the waters freeze and there is not enough of it left to run the power plants. The locals, however, believe that most of the electricity generated in Kashmir is sold off to the neighbouring States in the plains of India, as part payment of unresolved debts of past. I was in Srinagar for the first time ever after the events of 1990. I was scared because, it was the first night of my stay in Srinagar and I was alone. The old man asked me for a cigarette which I helpfully proferred. Before long, the old man started getting interested in me, he asked me where I was from, why I was in Srinagar and last of all he asked me my name�I told him my name was Ajay Kumar and than I added Raina to it as a afterthought. I was not really sure than, if I could announce my identity to any unknown person in Srinagar so soon; an identity that did not matter to me elsewhere, but in Srinagar, could have been a matter of life and death to me at anytime in the past 12 years. He asked me my fathers name and I told him� I do not know if it was just the smoke of the Bukhari, but I saw a film of cloud come over his eyes, a mist of certain sadness, a tinge of remorse perhaps? He said he used to know my father well; they had been professional colleagues till the time he had to leave... we got talking and he told me of an incident more than 40 years old. �It was the Autumn of 1958�I was with a group of friends, having tea in this same restaurant, about the same hour as now, the hour of the evening news bulletins from Radio Kashmir. (As All India Radio is known in Kashmir) The news announced the release of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah from one of his numerous incarcerations. There was an instantaneous jubilation all around. The shopkeepers downed their shutters and come out on the road and the people walking back home from office, old and young, all made up an impromptu procession that started from Lal Chowk and wended its euphoric way down the residency road, past hotel Lalla Rukh, past Biscoe school, past Partap Park towards Regal Chowk. It was a huge procession of people carrying lit candles, with thanksgiving songs on their lips. It was a huge mass of euphoria that turned into a mass frenzy in no time. At the Regal Chowk, someone from among the crowd, pointing to a house, started uttering the choicest Kashmiri abuses�in no time; a man (one of the cabinet minister or the party official -I don�t clearly remember which it was - of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad�s then government) was dragged down from his apartment and roundly abused and beaten up by the mob. With the light of the lit candles in their hands, the mob set that badly mauled and almost lifeless man to a blaze. Over his burning body, writhing in death throes, they danced�and they sang songs of thanksgiving to the God for Sher-I-Kashmir�s release.� �I was watching this gory celebration from the side pavement on Residency road near Regal Chowk,� he went on, �An old frightened man, a Kashmiri Pandit with his typical headdress and �tilak� on his forehead, nudged me and asked me if I had a pen and some paper. I fished the same from my pocket and gave it to him�He wrote something on the paper and returned it to me with an urging, that I must preserve the paper and remember this mad moment�on the paper was written, �I may not be there when the same sight will repeat before your eyes, sometime in the near future. These very people who are singing the praises of their Sher-e-Kashmir today, will one day burn his effigy on these very streets of Srinagar. The person they revile now will in turn be visited at his grave with flowers by the same men.� �In 1990, I saw the prediction of that Pandit come true. In the euphoria of �azadi� and mass frenzy, the people of Kashmir, who so revered their Sher-I-Kashmir, actually wanted to dig up the very bones of their very dear leader from his mausoleum. The grave of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, to this day remains guarded 24 hours of day and night by a posse of heavily armed security man. His son rules Kashmir now. He will in his own time anoint his own son as heir-apparent of Kashmir, in the same imperial fashion of Indian Maharajas, the way Sheikh Abdullah did more than 20 years ago when there was wide spread jubilation on the streets of Srinagar. On the other hand, the memory of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Chief Minister replacement of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 remains unsullied�� �At that time, in 1990,� he went on, �in the spirit of the Old Pandits prediction, I had made my very own prediction about the future of Kashmir; �These very people who have brought our land and the Pandits of Kashmir to their present misery will one day turn upon each other and tear each other apart.� �This, my friend,� he concluded, �is the entire story of what has happened to Kashmir in the last 12 years since Kashmiri Pandits left because of a forced exodus.� I never met him again after that�but subsequently, I have come to know, and read and hear that during those initial moments of Euphoria in 1990, the same kinds of forebodings and apprehensions had occurred to many older generation Kashmiris about the future of Kashmir. The waters of the many sacred springs and revered religious shrines of Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims had turned dark or had begun to overflow. The forebodings of imminent catastrophe in Kashmir are too numerous to recall, but magnitude of death and destruction that has visited upon Kashmir in the past decade, has permanently scarred the landscape of the valley and the psyche of its people within Kashmir and of those in exile in the plains of India. In 1990, the Militants of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizbul Mujahideen dealt my sense of self and my identity as an Indian a humiliatingly serious blow. 12 years since, it is still hard for any of the people who belong to my community to consider going back home. When we cried for our people then � some shot in the head with a single bullet, some tortured to death, some hanged, some sawed off into a hundred body parts and some gang-raped to death, and when we cried for our homes, farms, orchards and a heritage of traditions and beliefs left behind - we were graciously enough provided �tents� and a �migrant� status within our own country, so we could be left on our own to wipe our tears and pick up the threads of life in exile. Nobody spoke up for us then, and not enough. The wounds of �forced exile� of an entire community of Kashmiri Pandits have begun to fester and bleed again after the events of Godhra and Gujarat. My heart cries out for them but the tears have long dried up. How can I even defend what I have become? But Yes, Gujarat affects me too. It affects me enough to remind me of my own secondary status as an �exile� in my own country. When I see the images of death and destruction and read about the horror tales from Gujarat, I only see �Annihilation of my race in Kashmir� re-re-revisited upon another hapless community of people who belong to a religion, in whose name, the hapless and non-violent minorities of Kashmir valley were forced into exile. Some wise man has said, �Rebellions are normally started by the hopeful not the abject poor.� I am not sure if, when the people of Kashmir rose up in revolt against India, they were really hopeful of winning, or even if they were really sure about the real contours of �azadi� they were seeking. The success of the �popular� revolt that lasted only a few years � till the slaying of Professor. Mushir-ul-Haq, I was told - was due partly because of the frightening power of the gun over the local populace, and mostly because of the collapse of every organ of local governance and the abject surrender of will by the then inept Chief Minister of J&K, who ironically continues to rule even now. If Only if, they had refused to release the JKLF militants in exchange of Rubia Sayeed, if only if They had not started the sudden night time searches on January 19-20, reportedly on nobody�s orders because that day Farooq Abdullah had already resigned, if Only if the massacre at Gow Kadal had not taken place, if only if the procession carrying Moulvi Farooq�s Dead body had not been fired upon by panicked CRPF soldiers, perhaps the contours of the �militant-azadi� movement that picked up as a consequence of these errors of judgment may have been different today and may have led us to the real reforms people of Kashmir genuinely sought. But these are the big If�s of �our� folly and Faroukh Abdullah�s �manipulative� hold over reigns of power. The failure of the �azadi� movement is much more stark in the 12 years of continuing violence, destruction and robbing of every charm of Kashmir. The fact is, the vale of Kashmir is a deafening Vail now, desperately looking for the bottom of the abyss into which it has sunk, into which all its blood flow pours. In Kashmir of 1989-90, all the dissenting voices against the violent movement were silenced by death or by forced silent acquisition, so it had appeared that the entire population was with the revolt. Only now, when the local militancy has almost dissipated and been replaced by a dangerous variety of pan-Islamic militancy, are more and more Kashmiri people coming out to speak against the Militants who started it all. A well-known senior journalist in Srinagar said to me. �Before 1989, were we ever prevented from offering prayers in our mosques?� This is a sentiment almost echoed by a successful doctor in Srinagar, my classmate at school, who I met again after 12 years, �Who did ever stop us from practicing our religion here?� Another young journalist, sounding bitter in retrospect about those �euphoric days of revolt� said to me, �The people who used to lead the �azadi� processions, wearing shrouds in defiance of death, are still alive today, while the people they led are long dead now.� The Srinagar of today is a contrasting picture of destroyed old landmarks and burnt out structures and of new constructions in the downtown and newly sprung up suburbs. Comparing Srinagar and a metropolitan city like Delhi in terms of Population density ratios, I was surprised to know that there are more Maruti�s on Srinagar�s roads than in Delhi. Looking through my nostalgic eyes, I was certainly struck to note that Srinagar today is positively more affluent than it was in the days when Militancy started. How has this phenomenon come about in a land devastated by violent instability? �Those who only had a grass mat to cover their mud floors are today living in palatial houses.� This is a common bitter refrain by the affluent class of old, when they speak about Kashmir�s neo-rich, who started off as foot soldiers of the �militant� movement. Of the many people I asked, �Why is militancy still continuing, when people are so fed up?� I was told again and again, �it is the people with the vested interests � the militants/politicians/surrendered militants/and neo-businessmen, the "the 5% of people" - who do not want the uncertainty to end, so that they can thrive.� I recall a modern Kashmiri story, which to my knowledge best describes the �the present mind� of the Kashmiri collective mass in these times. The story, AN INFERNAL CREATURE by Amin Kamil, is about a village that used to be, but is no more. The village called Zeegyapathir had six mohallas and five graveyards on the borders between each mohalla. One day, the only son of an old woman, borne by her after several miscarriages, dies. The Dead son is buried after the performance of all the sacred Muslim rituals, but the Old woman, unable to bear the sudden loss of her only son, loses her mind. In the middle of the night at the graveyard of her son, she espies some dark mysterious figure up to some mischief� The next day morning, her dead son�s grave is found dug up and the body is left without its shroud. The body is promptly covered in a fresh shroud and re-buried. The next night, the same deed is repeated and some other fresh graves are similarly found despoiled off their shroud. There is much hue and cry and commotion in the village. Every suspect is questioned. Every villager is suspected, but the shroud stealer is never found. The deed becomes a regular practice in the village. The villagers, at first curious and angry and perturbed, had slowly reconciled with the mystery of the shroud stealer. �In this way, when all the dead bodies of the Zeegyapathir, men and women alike without exception, got robbed of the shrouds, it by and by became a custom with them. Nobody got agitated on this, nor did anybody show any kind of fear. They got used to speaking and hearing of this for two decades. �We were at the graveyard. Has he robbed it? It looks like that. Let the hell take him.� These four sentences were at the tip of the tongue of everyone at Zeegyapathir. You would be greeted by these words correct to a syllable for it had assumed the form of a ritual like giving the last bath to the dead, and burying the body.� Twenty years had passed so. One day a villager by the name of Ghani Mokul dies. In his last statement before death he confesses to being the self same mysterious shroud stealer. He is roundly cursed, but the piety of the villagers ultimately rescues him from any idea of an after death revenge. �The truth, however was that the soft-hearted people of Zeegyapathir did not like to go so far.� He is therefore properly buried. The villagers as a matter of habit continued to curse him but also felt relieved at having been rid at long last of a big calamity. However, the next day morning they find his grave not only despoiled of its shroud, but also �left exposed to the elements at the edge of the grave.� Which the first man � Ghani Mokul had never infact dared to do ever to any dead body. Ghani Mokul is however, re buried as had been the practice in the village. And the morning after the next, they find him, and a few other fresh dead bodies too, again exposed at the edge of the grave in stark nudity. �It now dawned on the people that it was not simply a case of wreaking vengeance on Ghani Mokul � the original shroud stealer, but a new monster was on the rampage�Everybody at Zeegyapathir got scared and said to one another, �We can not find another man like Ghani Mokul. He no doubt divested the dead bodies of their shroud, but naked by no means did he leave them, this hellish creature is far worse than a brute.� Then onwards, the people showered blessings on the original shroud stealer and cursed the new monster with all the abominations of the hell.� The collective mind of the mass of Kashmir is today resigned to the death and destruction they see happening around them in a similar way as the people of the fictional Zeegyapathir were resigned to the ritualistic robbing of their graveyards. The people of Kashmir are not only hopelessly resigned but also totally powerless before the Frankenstein�s, they themselves helped create and breed among them. In TV discussions over our Satellite News & Entertainment Channels, the experts opine that, �what�s going on in Kashmir is a war of �attrition�, which nobody seems like winning or losing.� They say, "our sibling neighbour is �bleeding India by a thousand cuts�, but on the ground, there are people of flesh and blood � fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and friends, the people of Kashmir and the soldiers of India - actually being killed and robbed of their human dignity. As you will be reading this � the rioting and the killings will be continuing in Gujarat�at the same time, in some remote hill village of Kashmir, a family of Hindus or Muslims will be yet again be massacred by a band of people fighting �jihad� for the liberation of Muslim majority kashmir�On average about 10 -15 deaths are reported everyday. In the past 12 years of �militancy� in Kashmir about 62,000 people have already died. When is this killing ever going to stop? When is this killing ever going to stop? I asked of some in Kashmir: A friend said, �In Kashmir, the right to natural death does not exist.� My Driver said, �The only solution to Kashmir is an Atom Bomb.� A young writer, who wants to work in Bombay films said, �Our �problem� can only be settled by a war between India and Pakistan now. Whosoever wins, gets Kashmir.� A human rights activist (he used to be a Launching Commander of Hizbul Mujahideen in the young days of revolt) said, �The killings will never stop, there will be a civil war here, as in Afghanistan.� The waiter in my hotel said, �The gun is a source of money and power to those who wield it, how will they give it up easily.� Over there in Kashmir, they call it �Gun Culture�. Over here in India, we prefer to cover our head in the sand, we say, �It is cross-border Terrorism.� � But, When are the killings ever going to stop? In Srinagar, the job of a journalist these days is writing �obituaries�: The independent Press of India (the one that lay prostrate before the forces of Emergency when it was only required to bend) championed the cause of the homegrown militants of Kashmir, because it felt the �revolt� was an answer to the decay within Kashmir�s polity. True! Can�t be denied. But the 12 years of militancy have not at all affected any change in the decay that was; the decay infact has decayed further. The political order remains the same. The ruling party is more hated now than it was before 1990, corruption has infact become a way of life and unemployment has increased many folds. The rich have become richer by addition to their ranks of another class of the neo-rich. There are more beggar women on the streets of Srinagar when there were none earlier. There is still no electricity. The villages are still without roads and safe drinking water. The only thing that has shown any remarkably real progress in Kashmir is �the proliferation � of local newspapers advocating Human rights. I counted about 10 English and about 20 Urdu newspapers but still none in Kashmiri language. The Indian press has by now lost all interest in the happenings of Kashmir unless there is something really horrendous to report, but what is the Independent Press in Kashmir championing now? Developmental issues? Azadi? Almost 11 years to the day, when the Revolt erupted in Srinagar, there was a suicide bomber attack near the main entrance to Badami Bagh Army cantonment of Srinagar. I was visiting an acquaintance, from my college days in his newspaper office. He was busy trying to get the details of the attack. First he called up his sources in the Army and the Police for their official �Death Figure�. They said one Army person and five �locals� including the suicide bomber had died. He than called his local journalist friends one after the other, and about 10 of them - who must have similarly arrived at a consensual figure amongst ten others at their own end � collectively arrived at a figure, decidedly and purposely much higher than the official death toll. Their ostensible objective: to project � that the suicide mission was a �success�. A few days later, at the airport, I met a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Madras regiment from the Indian Army. He was accompanying the coffin of a dead comrade to Chennai. It was the coffin of �The� Jawan who had stopped the suicide bomber at the Badami Bagh cantonment gate. The Subedar told me �only one soldier died, the newspapers always exaggerate. The terrorists always attack us when we are having our lunch, change of guard or when we are about to wake up in the morning.� He did not know, I may one day write about it, because I never thought I would. He also told me, �We burnt down the shopping complex opposite the gate. We thought there were terrorists there, but there were not any actually.� The next day, based on the pictures of the bombed site taken by a stringer, and after making a few phone calls, my journalist friend wrote an �eye-witness� report, which was published in some of the National English language papers at Delhi. In Kashmir, Along with the dead, they also bury the Truth everyday: They bury the Truth in tomes of newsprint, poetry and propaganda. They announce its death at Human Rights Meets in Geneva and New York, where rival Human Rights activists, representing rival points of view, speak of deaths as �points� -for and against- on a score sheet of victory and defeat. Javed Ahmed Mir, the leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, the freedom fighter of Kashmir who pioneered the �selective killings� of �pro-Indians� (mostly Kashmiri Pandits and National Conference workers � The leaders were spared) said, � We started the killings only to draw the attention of the Western Press to our cause. CNN has come to visit us. BBC has come to visit us. Rabin Raphael also came and visited us here. Now we have announced unilateral ceasefire. We want to have a political dialogue. We want peace, but the martyrdom of our Freedom fighters cannot be forgotten. They call us terrorists, but they reward Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat with Nobel Peace Prize.� The JKLF now limits itself to street fights and bandhs and to exhibiting the photographs of their dead. I remember Javed Mir pointing out to me a particular photograph � of a few months old dead child � and making me feel guilty as if it was my own daughter I had allowed to be killed. As I write this, I hear on TV of a yet another suicide attack on an Army camp at Jammu. 12 children have been killed, among them a 3 month old child. Javed Ahmed Mir is silent in Srinagar yet. They have mastered to speak eloquently about �their� pain and �their sacrifices� to seek rewards in return. About the pain of others they speak with forked tongues, they say �it was a mistake�. They condemn India of its �Human Rights Violations� and they overlook the rapes and vengeance killings by the freedom fighters within their own ranks. They speak of their own dead and forget to mourn the deaths they themselves caused, Innocents all: Shakeela w/o Ali Mohammad Dar � abducted, gang raped and tortured to death. Mir Mustafa � A political leader, kidnapped, tortured and strangulated to death. Dolly Mohi-ud-Din � kidnapped, tortured, gang raped and shot dead. Sarla Bhatt, Staff Nurse at SKIMS - kidnapped, raped and shot dead. Prof.Mushir-ul-Haq � Kidnapped and shot dead. H.L. Khera � Kidnapped and shot dead. Sohan Lal Braro � Shot dead. Archana Braro � gang raped, tortured and shot dead. Bimla Braro � gang raped and shot dead. Mohammad Amin Cheentagar � beheaded. Tika Lal Taploo, Political leader � shot dead. M. K. Ganjoo, retired Judge � shot dead. Lassa Kaul, Station Director Doordarshan Srinagar � shot dead. Satish Bhan, social worker � shot dead. Ghulam Nabi Kullar, Communist � shot dead. Abdul Sattar Ranjoor, poet � shot dead.Maulana Masoodi, an intellectual &Freedom fighter � shot dead. Syed Ghulam Nabi, Government Official � shot dead. Moulvi Farooq, a religious leader � shot dead. The list is a long one and there are many more who still continue to die �not any of these died by police firing. �and hundreds of pairs of shoes the mourners left behind, as they ran from the funeral, victims of the firing. From windows we hear grieving mothers, and snow begins to fall on us, like ash. Black on edges of flames, it cannot extinguish the neighborhoods, the homes set ablaze by midnight soldiers. Kashmir is burning: (Agha Shahid Ali) Who killed Mir Mustafa? Who killed Dr. Gooru? Who killed Moulvi Farouk? Who killed Qazi Nisar? Who killed Abdul Ghani Lone? Kashmir is burning still, who lit the fire? Who burnt the Chrar-e-Sharif? Whose midnight soldiers? In the Month of February in 1990, Kashmiris used to go in trucks and buses in processions to Chrar-e-Sharif shrine, to pray for �azadi�. They used to tie threads as promise in return for fulfillment of their dreams. In 1995, they stood silent as �Foreign Militants� - representing a brand of Islam alien to the very ethos of Kashmir � lay siege to our prime shrine and let it be burnt down by a Must Gul, who escaped to a hero�s welcome in Pakistan. ��All threads must be untied before springtime. Ask all � Muslim and Brahmin - if their wish came true? He appears beside me, cloaked in black: �Alas! Death has bent my back. It is too late for threads at Chrar-e-Sharif.� � (Agha Shahid Ali) The threads are there no more now. Along with the Shrine, the hopes for that �azadi� also lie in ruins. Today they go to the burnt down shrine at Chrar and to their Sufi �Pirs� not to pray for �azadi� but for the return of sanity to Kashmir. �Rehman Sahib is one faith healer in whom thousands of locals, especially women, believe. He lives in a mud house at Aalistang in the outskirts of Srinagar, where his sitting room is always full of mureeds (devotees). One after another, they come close and whisper their problems in his ear. �Please pray and stop my son. He wants to be a militant,� a mother from nearby Waheedpora village in Ganderbal requested the peer sahib (saint) one recent morning. Another woman sought help for an end to nocturnal raids by the security forces on her house. �I have two grown-up unmarried daughters. It is dangerous. Please help,� she begged, and started crying.� Muzamil Jaleel But why does the fire that lit Chrar-e-Sharif consume us still? Because they betrayed Nund Rishi by their silence and they allowed their temples to be desecrated and they lied about their betrayal of our Gods to the entire world. Kashmir is burning: By that dazzling light we see men removing statues from temples. We beg them, �Who will protect us if you leave?� They don�t answer; they just disappear on the road to the plains, clutching the gods. (Agha Shahid Ali). An obvious reference to the Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir, the above lines of a poem, by its implication and compounded and by its extraordinary formal brilliance suggests; that the Kashmiri Pandits left despite being stopped by their neighbours and that they came away carrying their temple gods along with them. In reality, nothing could be farther from the actual truth. In his poetic lament about the pain of Kashmir � often searing imagery�his voice unerringly eloquent in response to Kashmir�s agony�, as Edward Said writes in his praise on the back cover - Agha Shahid Ali can barely remember the agony faced by his Pandit friends in those euphoric days of near freedom, when it appeared as if the whole Muslim population of Srinagar had come out on the streets shouting �allah-o-akbar�, �hum kya chahite � azadi� and �death to Indian dogs�. He can barely remember, �the call to all Muslims of Kashmir to revolt� which was announced - � from pre-recorded audiocassettes - through the loudspeakers of mosques all over Srinagar city. He can barely bring himself to imagine the panic of a miniscule community, faced with the impotence of an administration in Kashmir that had suddenly vanished�He can barely remember, that this miniscule community was looking in the face of a yet another forced migration, the fourth in the span of a few hundred years� Your memory gets in the way of my memory� Twelve years later, when I came to Kashmir, I chanced upon a temple at Rainawari. I opened the door, but Shahid, there was no god inside, it�s true. It was all filth and ashes there, walls smeared with human refuse of many years: How could you not have seen them, stopped them � the kalashnikov people- from stealing my gods and burning your temples? The fire consumes us still because we lit the fire ourself and do not know how to put it off. Because we have started to believe in our own propaganda as truth. Because we have not allowed the truth be told. Because we have lost faith in the leaders who took us to the fight and wouldn�t know how to bring us back. I asked a Kashmiri Pandit friend, who is now settled in a far way land, to explain to me why Kashmiri Pandits chose to come away rather than stay back and fight. He wrote back to me, a long letter: �You have seen the sober faces of the population there (12 years after) but what I have experienced cannot be put into words. It was a feeling of uncertainty and isolation with doubts about the sincerity of your closest associates. It was almost being enslaved with the tyrannical smile of the victor haunting you. It was the time to decide whether you would be able to accept the NIZAM-E-MUSTAFA (rule of the faithful), either willingly or after seeing your family dishonoured and massacred. Do remember that it was a well thought of plan to drive all kafirs away. The area commander of any area never was native of the same area and thus would not relate to you. His only aim was subjugation in the name of Allah. Killing in his name was justified as was revealed by Javed Mir in your documentary. Previously (Before 1990), our differences could be settled by a word for word or at the most a fistfight. Now it was the kalishnikov. Fathers would not dare to discuss the futility or viability of the actions. Brothers would not trust Brothers lest they would be killed. THE FEAR WAS TOTAL. The sane had no say and the insane were driven into frenzy by their masters. Chaos was total and administration had collapsed completely. It is too simplistic when I put it into words but just close your eyes and imagine the plight. There can be no proper description of the events in words. Finally it was our worldly wisdom, which made all of us to flee the place. When I migrated, I had to fend for family and myself. The options were either to organize a resistance OR to start afresh. I chose the latter.� �If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldn�t have happened in this world? I�m everything you lost. You won�t forgive me. My memory keeps getting in the way of your history. There is nothing to forgive. You won�t forgive me�. (Agha Shahid Ali) But there is lot to Forgive and ask Forgiveness for. The first thing that has to be answered about Kashmir is about Kashmiri Pandits forced abandonment of their motherland, the land that belongs much more to them than to any Indian or Pakistani or Kashmiri. Who orchestrated their deaths, their feeling of persecution, and their fear? Who sent them the anonymous letters asking them to leave forthwith? Who sponsored those ads, those notices in leading local Dailies of Kashmir, threatening the Pandits of dire consequences, if they did not leave? It surely was not because Jagmohan, the then administrative head of J&K, facilitated the exodus, as so many people in Kashmir would like to say to others, but do not actually believe. To Kashmiri pandits, Jagmohan in his person represents the abject failure of the �state� in not protecting, nor ensuring the safety of its �non-violent� citizens, who remained true in their loyalty to India. Its true, and I am ashamed to admit, as most Pandits now are, that when they came as refugees to Jammu and Delhi, they went straight into the arms of �the Hindu Parties�. But tell me, what are a �traumatised� people supposed to do, but hope for refuge in the camp of a party �supposedly their own�, when threatened by �Islamic forces� and when betrayed by the secular forces of India? Which secular institution of India has spoken up for the trauma of Kashmiri Pandits yet? And after Forgiveness, There is a dispute to settle. The fact of the matter is, between Us and Them, Between India and Kashmir, between India and Pakistan there are many disputes to settle. Central to the resolution of all these disputes, is the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The Genesis of these disputes has forever been prone to myriad interpretations and conflicting points of view - of the experts as well as the layperson - which no amount of logic, good sense and wars seem to unravel or resolve. In the words of a Pakistani Writer: �When India's Home Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel sent feelers about a possible give-and-take on Hyderabad and Kashmir, Ghulam Mohammed is said to have spurned this opportunity and carried on his lucrative dealings with Hyderabad Nizam. Pakistan also welcomed the accession of Junagadh and Manavadar, whereas an overwhelming majority in both states (as well as Hyderabad) was Hindu. In effect, Pakistan held three divergent positions on the question of accession�in favour of the Hyderabad Nizam's right to independence, Junagadh right to accede to Pakistan against the wish of the populace, and, in Kashmir, for the right to self determination. Double standard is a common enough practice in politics, but it invariably harms the actor who lacks the power to avert consequences. The Nawab of Junagadh tried to deliver his Hindu-majority state to Pakistan, which set the precedence for the Maharaja of Muslim-dominated Kashmir choosing India. Pakistan did not have the power to defend either the Nawab or the Nizam, nor the will to punish the Maharaja. So India, practising double standards in its turn, took it all. (Eqbal Ahmad) That may well be the truth about J&K�s accession to India, to many Kashmiri�s, Pakistanis and even to some Indian�s, but there are also other truths. The truth about Sheikh Abdullah�s genuine liking for Indian secularism. The truth about his preferring to stay with India rather than with Pakistan. The truth about his not insisting on �azadi� before or after 1953. The truth about Sheikh Abdullah being a genuine and great leader of Kashmiri�s. The truth about Faroukh Abdullah being an inept inheritor of Sheikh Abdullah�s legacy. Problem with Truths is that it has not brought us, at any point of time, any closer to a resolution than it ever can, even 50 or 100 years from now. There is one another story by Amin Kamil, which expresses the nature of this dispute much plainly than any amount of explanation or writings have so far. The story WHAT MATTERS IS THE HEAD describes a dispute between two Thanedaars of adjacent police stations over a murdered corpse found lying at the boundary of their respective area jurisdiction. Before the culprit can be found or the murdered person identified, it is necessary to determine, in which Thanedaars jurisdiction the murdered person was found. The case is confounded by the fact that it is difficult to determine which side of the boundary the head of the deceased lay, because the Thanedaars have conflicting proofs. The respective Thanedaars, in order to prove their claim about the jurisdictional right over the corpse, wrangle in colourful language over the finer details, the technicalities and the forensic procedure, thus in fact relegating the dead corpse and its case to oblivion. Finally, the bewildered bystander watching the entire drama is exasperated by this jurisdictional drama to ask for a final resolution. He is told, �What matters really is for us to find, towards which side the head of the corpse lay. So long as this is not resolved, the matter will linger on as it is.� �But what about the corpse, meanwhile?� �Let it rot.� (Sadne do ji) �India's policies have been no less riddled with blunders than Pakistan's. Its moral isolation on Kashmir is nearly total, and unlikely to be overcome by military means or political manipulation. New Delhi commands not a shred of legitimacy among Kashmiri Muslims. Ironically, even as India's standing in Kashmir appears increasingly untenable, Kashmiris today appear farther from the goal of liberation than they were in the years 1989 to 1992.� (Eqbal Ahmad) It is true; Kashmir�s problems are as a result of our country�s folly and blunders. Our Follies and blunders in Kashmir are compounded by the fact of Partition and by the existence of a dispute, as our permanent neighbour enemy continues to insist. Kashmir has been used to bleed to a cause, in which not many Kashmiris believe. The resolution of the historical dispute between India and Pakistan � through logic, diplomacy, wars, and terrorism or by Time - has defied a sane answer for last 55 years. Nor does it seem any likely that India and Pakistan can co-exist in Peace by any stratagem invented or discovered so far. Meanwhile, the Deaths and the Killings of the Innocents in Kashmir continues. We are as close to a war as at any time before. The headlines in Today�s paper read � War clouds gather, BJP talks tough on Pak.� Army: We are ready to cross Loc.� Kashmir is caught in the crossfire of History. Kashmir was happy and prosperous once, when it had chosen not to be in the crossfire. It�s almost a year since my last visit to Kashmir. The tumultuous events of the past year � September 11, December 13 Parliament Attack, The Fall of the Taliban in Afgahnistan, President of Pakistan�s famous January 12 speech denouncing Terrorism and Islamic Fundamentalism, and the most recent catastrophe of �state sponsored pogrom� in Gujarat and the terrorist attack on children and women at a Army camp in Jammu, have completely altered my fundamental understanding of the nature of man and along with it, the perception about man�s sense of his morals�which allow him to justify one violent cause at one place as �just� and to condemn another equally violent cause as �unacceptable� to civilization. I have never felt so powerless before the �insane� insistence by men - of presumably immeasurable human values and inestimable intellectual capabilities - of their personal dogmas and points of view and the catastrophic consequences thereof. I therefore repudiate every ideology that leads to violence. And I want to ask my people in Kashmir, Isn�t it time that Kashmiri people resolved, once for and all, to give up the option of violence as a means to finding the solution to a historically vexed problem. The above is an account of my first journey to Kashmir in 12 years since I was there last. I still have a home there and I am looking forward to my permanent return as soon as I can determine for myself that my life and freedom will not be at any more risk there as it is here. For more than a year now, I have found myself unable to express in words the desolation, the desperation, the hopelessness and the living death of Kashmir which I was witness to when I was last there. This account of my visit to my homeland last year is an attempt to express the pain, the bitterness and the anger I feel for being an Indian, a Kashmiri and a Kashmiri in Exile at a time when another minority in another border state of India undergoes a more brutal, a more heinous �pogrom�. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Ajay Raina is a film maker. His film about homecoming - "Tell Them, the tree they had planted has now grown" - has won the Golden Conch award at Mumbai Festival 2002 and the RAPA award. ------------------------------------------------------------------------The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the staff and management of Chowk. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reproduction of material from any Chowk.com pages without written permission is strictly prohibited Copyright � 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Chowk.com. All rights reserved. E-mail Us | Advertise on Chowk | Associate Program | Partner/Sponsors | Privacy Policy >From: reader-list-request at sarai.net >Reply-To: reader-list at sarai.net >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Subject: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #578 - 3 msgs >Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 06:25:44 +0200 > >Send Reader-list mailing list submissions to > reader-list at sarai.net > >To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://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. Right Stuff (Pradip Saha) > 2. open source cola (Bauke Freiburg) > 3. OPUS (Monica Narula) > >--__--__-- > >Message: 1 >Reply-To: prosaha at hotmail.com >From: "Pradip Saha" >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 04:32:57 +0000 >Subject: [Reader-list] Right Stuff > >Just a bit of comic relief > >I found the following item in "JetMall", the in-flight mail order shopping >catalogue distributed to Jet Air travellers. > >GANESHA: WORLDWIDE LIMITED EDITION >Item code: 6112 >Price: Rs 28575/- > >Be the proud owner of one of 500 limited editions of Ganeshas. Crafted in >92.5% sterling silver, studded with Swarovski, electro-lacquered for >lasting >protection and exclusively designed for d'mart exclusif by Linea Argenti of >Italy. Each figure comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. > >I shall post the image in picturepost, later today. > >Pradip > >_________________________________________________________________ >MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: >http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > > >--__--__-- > >Message: 2 >Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 10:08:14 +0200 (CEST) >From: "Bauke Freiburg" >To: >Cc: >Reply-To: bauke at freiburg.nl >Subject: [Reader-list] open source cola > >'OPUS' source cola... > >Read the article on: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13494. > >The Great Open Source Giveaway >Graham Lawton, New Scientist >July 1, 2002 > >If you've been to a computer show in recent months you might have seen it: >a shiny silver drink can with a ring-pull logo and the words "opencola" on >the side. Inside is a fizzy drink that tastes very much like Coca-Cola. Or >is it Pepsi? > >There's something else written on the can, though, which sets the drink >apart. It says "check out the source at opencola.com." Go to that Web >address and you'll see something that's not available on Coca-Cola's >website, or Pepsi's -- the recipe for cola. For the first time ever, you >can make the real thing in your own home. > >OpenCola is the world's first "open source" consumer product. By calling >it open source, its manufacturer is saying that instructions for making it >are freely available. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify >and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, release their recipe into >the public domain. As a way of doing business it's rather unusual -- the >Coca-Cola Company doesn't make a habit of giving away precious commercial >secrets. But that's the point. > >OpenCola is the most prominent sign yet that a long-running battle between >rival philosophies in software development has spilt over into the rest of >the world. What started as a technical debate over the best way to debug >computer programs is developing into a political battle over the ownership >of knowledge and how it is used, between those who put their faith in the >free circulation of ideas and those who prefer to designate them >"intellectual property." No one knows what the outcome will be. But in a >world of growing opposition to corporate power, restrictive intellectual >property rights and globalisation, open source is emerging as a possible >alternative, a potentially potent means of fighting back. And you're >helping to test its value right now. >The open source movement originated in 1984 when computer scientist >Richard Stallman quit his job at MIT and set up the Free Software >Foundation. His aim was to create high-quality software that was freely >available to everybody. Stallman's beef was with commercial companies that >smother their software with patents and copyrights and keep the source >code -- the original program, written in a computer language such as C++ >-- a closely guarded secret. Stallman saw this as damaging. It generated >poor-quality, bug-ridden software. And worse, it choked off the free flow >of ideas. Stallman fretted that if computer scientists could no longer >learn from one another's code, the art of programming would stagnate (New >Scientist, 12 December 1998, p 42). > >Stallman's move resonated round the computer science community and now >there are thousands of similar projects. The star of the movement is >Linux, an operating system created by Finnish student Linus Torvalds in >the early 1990s and installed on around 18 million computers worldwide. >What sets open source software apart from commercial software is the fact >that it's free, in both the political and the economic sense. If you want >to use a commercial product such as Windows XP or Mac OS X you have to pay >a fee and agree to abide by a licence that stops you from modifying or >sharing the software. But if you want to run Linux or another open source >package, you can do so without paying a penny -- although several >companies will sell you the software bundled with support services. You >can also modify the software in any way you choose, copy it and share it >without restrictions. This freedom acts as an open invitation -- some say >challenge -- to its users to make improvements. As a result, thousands of >volunteers are constantly working on Linux, adding new features and >winkling out bugs. Their contributions are reviewed by a panel and the >best ones are added to Linux. For programmers, the kudos of a successful >contribution is its own reward. The result is a stable, powerful system >that adapts rapidly to technological change. Linux is so successful that >even IBM installs it on the computers it sells. > >To maintain this benign state of affairs, open source software is covered >by a special legal instrument called the General Public License. Instead >of restricting how the software can be used, as a standard software >license does, the GPL -- often known as a "copyleft" -- grants as much >freedom as possible (see www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html). Software released >under the GPL (or a similar copyleft licence) can be copied, modified and >distributed by anyone, as long as they, too, release it under a copyleft. >That restriction is crucial, because it prevents the material from being >co-opted into later proprietary products. It also makes open source >software different from programs that are merely distributed free of >charge. In FSF's words, the GPL "makes it free and guarantees it remains >free." > >Open source has proved a very successful way of writing software. But it >has also come to embody a political stand -- one that values freedom of >expression, mistrusts corporate power, and is uncomfortable with private >ownership of knowledge. It's "a broadly libertarian view of the proper >relationship between individuals and institutions", according to open >source guru Eric Raymond. > >But it's not just software companies that lock knowledge away and release >it only to those prepared to pay. Every time you buy a CD, a book, a >magazine, even a can of Coca-Cola, you're forking out for access to >someone else's intellectual property. Your money buys you the right to >listen to, read or consume the contents, but not to rework them, or make >copies and redistribute them. No surprise, then, that people within the >open source movement have asked whether their methods would work on other >products. As yet no one's sure -- but plenty of people are trying it. >Take OpenCola. Although originally intended as a promotional tool to >explain open source software, the drink has taken on a life of its own. >The Toronto-based OpenCola company has become better known for the drink >than the software it was supposed to promote. Laird Brown, the company's >senior strategist, attributes its success to a widespread mistrust of big >corporations and the "proprietary nature of almost everything." A website >selling the stuff has shifted 150,000 cans. Politically minded students in >the US have started mixing up the recipe for parties. > >OpenCola is a happy accident and poses no real threat to Coke or Pepsi, >but elsewhere people are deliberately using the open source model to >challenge entrenched interests. One popular target is the music industry. >At the forefront of the attack is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a >San Francisco group set up to defend civil liberties in the digital >society. In April of last year, the EFF published a model copyleft called >the Open Audio License (OAL). The idea is to let musicians take advantage >of digital music's properties -- ease of copying and distribution -- >rather than fighting against them. Musicians who release music under an >OAL consent to their work being freely copied, performed, reworked and >reissued, as long as these new products are released under the same >licence. They can then rely on "viral distribution" to get heard. "If the >people like the music, they will support the artist to ensure the artist >can continue to make music," says Robin Gross of the EFF. > >It's a little early to judge whether the OAL will capture imaginations in >the same way as OpenCola. But it's already clear that some of the >strengths of open source software simply don't apply to music. In >computing, the open source method lets users improve software by >eliminating errors and inefficient bits of code, but it's not obvious how >that might happen with music. In fact, the music is not really "open >source" at all. The files posted on the OAL music website >http://www.openmusicregistry.org so far are all MP3s and Ogg Vorbises -- >formats which allow you to listen but not to modify. > >It's also not clear why any mainstream artists would ever choose to >release music under an OAL. Many bands objected to the way Napster members >circulated their music behind their backs, so why would they now allow >unrestricted distribution, or consent to strangers fiddling round with >their music? Sure enough, you're unlikely to have heard of any of the 20 >bands that have posted music on the registry. It's hard to avoid the >conclusion that Open Audio amounts to little more than an opportunity for >obscure artists to put themselves in the shop window. > >The problems with open music, however, haven't put people off trying open >source methods elsewhere. Encyclopedias, for example, look like fertile >ground. Like software, they're collaborative and modular, need regular >upgrading, and improve with peer review. But the first attempt, a free >online reference called Nupedia, hasn't exactly taken off. Two years on, >only 25 of its target 60,000 articles have been completed. "At the current >rate it will never be a large encyclopedia," says editor-in-chief Larry >Sanger. The main problem is that the experts Sanger wants to recruit to >write articles have little incentive to participate. They don't score >academic brownie points in the same way software engineers do for >upgrading Linux, and Nupedia can't pay them. > >It's a problem that's inherent to most open source products: how do you >get people to chip in? Sanger says he's exploring ways to make money out >of Nupedia while preserving the freedom of its content. Banner adverts are >a possibility. But his best hope is that academics start citing Nupedia >articles so authors can earn academic credit. > >There's another possibility: trust the collective goodwill of the open >source community. A year ago, frustrated by the treacle-like progress of >Nupedia, Sanger started another encyclopedia named Wikipedia (the name is >taken from open source Web software called WikiWiki that allows pages to >be edited by anyone on the Web). It's a lot less formal than Nupedia: >anyone can write or edit an article on any topic, which probably explains >the entries on beer and Star Trek. But it also explains its success. >Wikipedia already contains 19,000 articles and is acquiring several >thousand more each month. "People like the idea that knowledge can and >should be freely distributed and developed," says Sanger. Over time, he >reckons, thousands of dabblers should gradually fix any errors and fill in >any gaps in the articles until Wikipedia evolves into an authoritative >encyclopedia with hundreds of thousands of entries. > >Another experiment that's proved its worth is the OpenLaw project at the >Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Berkman >lawyers specialise in cyberlaw -- hacking, copyright, encryption and so on >-- and the centre has strong ties with the EFF and the open source >software community. In 1998 faculty member Lawrence Lessig, now at >Stanford Law School, was asked by online publisher Eldritch Press to mount >a legal challenge to US copyright law. Eldritch takes books whose >copyright has expired and publishes them on the Web, but new legislation >to extend copyright from 50 to 70 years after the author's death was >cutting off its supply of new material. Lessig invited law students at >Harvard and elsewhere to help craft legal arguments challenging the new >law on an online forum, which evolved into OpenLaw. > >Normal law firms write arguments the way commercial software companies >write code. Lawyers discuss a case behind closed doors, and although their >final product is released in court, the discussions or "source code" that >produced it remain secret. In contrast, OpenLaw crafts its arguments in >public and releases them under a copyleft. "We deliberately used free >software as a model," says Wendy Selzer, who took over OpenLaw when Lessig >moved to Stanford. Around 50 legal scholars now work on Eldritch's case, >and OpenLaw has taken other cases, too. > >"The gains are much the same as for software," Selzer says. "Hundreds of >people scrutinise the 'code' for bugs, and make suggestions how to fix it. >And people will take underdeveloped parts of the argument, work on them, >then patch them in." Armed with arguments crafted in this way, OpenLaw has >taken Eldritch's case -- deemed unwinnable at the outset -- right through >the system and is now seeking a hearing in the Supreme Court. > >There are drawbacks, though. The arguments are in the public domain right >from the start, so OpenLaw can't spring a surprise in court. For the same >reason, it can't take on cases where confidentiality is important. But >where there's a strong public interest element, open sourcing has big >advantages. Citizens' rights groups, for example, have taken parts of >OpenLaw's legal arguments and used them elsewhere. "People use them on >letters to Congress, or put them on flyers," Selzer says. > >The open content movement is still at an early stage and it's hard to >predict how far it will spread. "I'm not sure there are other areas where >open source would work," says Sanger. "If there were, we might have >started it ourselves." Eric Raymond has also expressed doubts. In his >much-quoted 1997 essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, he warned against >applying open source methods to other products. "Music and most books are >not like software, because they don't generally need to be debugged or >maintained," he wrote. Without that need, the products gain little from >others' scrutiny and reworking, so there's little benefit in open >sourcing. "I do not want to weaken the winning argument for open sourcing >software by tying it to a potential loser," he wrote. > >But Raymond's views have now shifted subtly. "I'm more willing to admit >that I might talk about areas other than software someday," he told New >Scientist. "But not now." The right time will be once open source software >has won the battle of ideas, he says. He expects that to happen around >2005. >And so the experiment goes on. As a contribution to it, New Scientist and >AlterNet have agreed to issue this article under a copyleft. That means >you can copy it, redistribute it, reprint it in whole or in part, and >generally play around with it as long as you, too, release your version >under a copyleft and abide by the other terms and conditions in the >licence. We also ask that you inform us of any use you make of the >article, by e-mailing copyleft at newscientist.com. > >One reason for doing so is that by releasing it under a copyleft, we can >print the recipe for OpenCola without violating its copyleft. If nothing >else, that demonstrates the power of the copyleft to spread itself. But >there's another reason, too: to see what happens. To my knowledge this is >the first magazine article published under a copyleft. Who knows what the >outcome will be? Perhaps the article will disappear without a trace. >Perhaps it will be photocopied, redistributed, re-edited, rewritten, cut >and pasted onto websites, handbills and articles all over the world. I >don't know -- but that's the point. It's not up to me any more. The >decision belongs to all of us. > >THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed >and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science >License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt. > > > > > > > > >--__--__-- > >Message: 3 >Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 19:25:26 +0530 >To: reader-list at sarai.net >From: Monica Narula >Subject: [Reader-list] OPUS > >Dear List members and Friends, >(please feel free to copy and redistribute) > >We are happy to announce the launch of OPUS, (Open Platform for >Unlimited Signification) as an online >adjunct to the documentary installation - Co-Ordinates: >28.28N/77.15E : : 2001/2002 - presented >by us (Raqs Media Collective) at Documenta11, Kassel. >Opus (Release Candidate) went public on the 8th of June, 2002, >co-inciding with the opening of Documenta11. > >The URL for Opus is www.opuscommons.net > >What does Opus stand for? >Opus is an acronym for "Open Platform for Unlimited Signification!". >Most importantly, it is an online space for people, machines and >codes to play and work together - to share, create and transform >images, sounds, videos and texts. Opus is an attempt to create a >digital commons in culture, based on the principle of sharing of >work, while at the same time, retaining the possibility (if and when >desired) of maintaining traces of individual authorship and identity. > >To read more about the principles and background of Opus, go to - >http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/record.html > > >How Opus works (what can you do in Opus) > >Opus enables you to view, create and exhibit media objects (video, >audio, still images, html and text) and make modifications on work >done by others, in the spirit of collaboration and the sharing of >creativity. Opus is an environment in which every viewer/user is also >invited to be a producer, and a means for producers to work together >to shape new content. You can view and download material, transform >it and then upload the material worked on by you back to the Opus >domain. Each media object archived, exhibited and made available for >transformation within Opus carries with it data that can identify all >those who have worked on it. This means that while Opus enables >collaboration, it also preserves the identity of Authors/Creators (no >matter how big or small their contribution may be) at each stage of a >works evolution. In this way, we hope that Opus can be come a model >for a practical realization of the idea of a Digital Commons of >creative work on the Internet. > >To read a manual of OPUS - go to - >http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/manual.html > > >The Idea >The basic ideas of the Opus project is to create a community of >creative people from all over the world, who want to share and gift >to each other the images, sounds and texts made by them for general >public usage. Opus will give people the chance to collaborate and to >present their work to an online community of practitioners and >artists willing to work outside the increasing global domination of >intellectual property regimes in cultural production. > >Once you have published your y in Opus, each act of uploading by you >becomes an opportunity for others to take your work as a starting >point for transformation, for a new rendition, for a rescension. Opus >users will also be able to give their comments and reflections on >your work through the discussion forums that will grow around each >project within Opus. > >Opus is inspired by the free software movement and is an attempt to >transpose the principles that govern the creation of free software on >to general cultural production. Opus follows the same rules as those >that operate in all free software communities - i.e. the freedom to >view, to download, to modify and to redistribute. The source(code), >in this case the video, image, sound or text - the contents of media >objects uploaded on to Opus, is free to use, to edit and to >redistribute. Needless to say the 'source-code' of the Opus software >is also free to use, edit and redistribute. Opus users are governed >by a license that protects them from their work being taken out of >the commons and into the regimen of proprietary protocols. > >To read the license that frames Opus - go to - >http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/license.html > >OPUS : A brief history > >Work on Opus began in September 2001 and the Beta version was >uploaded in April 2002. Opus is launched >into the public domain with the opening of Documenta11. > >When we (Raqs Collective) began to think through the ideas that >gradually crystallized to form Opus, we >were searching for a platform that would enable inter-media and >hybrid media practices to find fruition within a frame of open ended >collaboration. We were interested in trying to evolve a way to >combine our interests with video, our background in documentary film, >photography and sound, and our growing engagement with >hypertextuality and free software culture as a result of our work >within the Sarai Initiative at the Centre for the Study of Developing >Societies, Delhi. > >At an immediate level, the ideas that were at the core of the Opus >project developed out of our need to create an online context for a >set of offline installations. (like , for instance, Co-ordinates : >28.28N /77.15E : : 2001/2002, which is showing at Documenta11) which >we wanted to open out to a wider community of creators, so as to >enable instances of further collaboration; and out of our thoughts on >the notion of the 'Digital Commons', from which arose a text A >Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons which contains many of the >founding ideas of Opus. > >In the realization of the process of creating Opus we were joined by >several others who made the Sarai Media Lab their home for many long >days and nights along with us, sharing in the delight of discovering >fragments of archiecture that worked, or a metaphor that made sense, >and above all with the energy that they brought to every detail of >the coding and design of Opus. Opus would not be a reality without >the active collaboration of all the people who worked on it, their >skills and their imaginations. > >Many metaphors, images and ideas have made their way into the making >of OPUS, from a biological laboratory, >to a polyamourous matrix, to an understanding of the way in which >parents relate to children, from kinship >and lineage to the growth and evolution of epic narratives and >ancient texts. The traces of all these remain in varying degrees. > >Sarai (www.sarai.net) provided the background of being an >intellectually and creatively stimulating space >while all of us worked on Opus. > >CREDITS >Conception - Raqs Media Collective > >Architecture - Monica Narula, Bauke Freiburg, Silvan Zurbruegg > >Coding - Silvan Zurbruegg, Pankaj Kaushal > >Interface Design - Joy Chatterjee > >Design Co-ordination - Monica Narula >Design Acknowledgement - Rana Dasgupta >Documentation - Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Monica Narula, Bauke Freiburg > >License - Lawrence Liang, Jeebesh Bagchi > >Produced by - Raqs Media Collective >at the Sarai Media Lab, Sarai/CSDS, >Delhi, 2002 > > >Acknowledgements >Knowbotic Research, Zurich >Hochschule f�r Gestaltung und Kunst, Zurich >Dept. of New Media Studies, University of Amsterdam >Society for Old & New Media, Amsterdam >Documenta11, Kassel >Everyone @ Sarai, Delhi > >We invite you to contribute, create and share in the further >development of Opus. We believe that your >participation in Opus will strengthen and revitalize the digital commons. > >If you have more enquiries about Opus - write to >info at opuscommons.net >raqs at sarai.net >-- >Monica Narula >Sarai:The New Media Initiative >29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 >www.sarai.net > > > >--__--__-- > >_________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion >list on media and the city. >Critiques & Collaborations >To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe >in the subject header. >List archive: > > >End of Reader-list Digest _________________________________________________________________ Join the world�s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From mir_taqi_mir at hotmail.com Fri Jul 5 17:54:28 2002 From: mir_taqi_mir at hotmail.com (Mir Taqi Mir) Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 12:24:28 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Kashmir Fatigue - an article on www.chowk.com Message-ID: Kashmir Fatigue by Ajay Raina -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rejoinder to a poet who died before me.. At the top end corner of the famous Lal Chowk of Srinagar (named after the Moscow�s famous Red Square), stands Hotel Neelam, a well-identifiable landmark, strategically placed in the heart of Srinagar at the tri-junction of it�s most active thoroughfare. Looking straight ahead through the shattered glass panes of the hotel you will see the clock tower that never ever showed the correct time right from the day it came to be installed there after a fanfare inauguration by the Sher-I-Kashmir himself. Beyond the clock tower is the Residency road of the British Imperial times. This road was later named Shahid Sherwani Road after the Martyr who single-handedly stopped the Pakistani Tribal raiders from reaching Srinagar in 1948 for which he paid by his life � a tortuous and agonizing death; he was nailed to a cross. The road was later, re-named its original name. After 1990, every other known and unknown landmark of Srinagar that even remotely suggested of Kashmir�s association with Independent India was re-named or not re-re-named at all. To the left of Hotel Neelam are the now completely gutted Palladium Cinema and Hotel Lalla Rukh and beyond to Maisuma, Gow Kadal to Haba Kadal to Fateh Kadal and the infamous Downtown. To its right is the road that leads to the Amira Kadal, the first of the seven bridges of the ancient Srinagar city. Inside Hotel Neelam, one sad evening on a cold December day, an old man in his mid seventies was warming himself beside a bukhari along with another young man. We were the only three guests in the restaurant of the hotel that late evening. The streets had already emptied out. There was no electricity, which is usual in Srinagar�s winters, because the waters freeze and there is not enough of it left to run the power plants. The locals, however, believe that most of the electricity generated in Kashmir is sold off to the neighbouring States in the plains of India, as part payment of unresolved debts of past. I was in Srinagar for the first time ever after the events of 1990. I was scared because, it was the first night of my stay in Srinagar and I was alone. The old man asked me for a cigarette which I helpfully proferred. Before long, the old man started getting interested in me, he asked me where I was from, why I was in Srinagar and last of all he asked me my name�I told him my name was Ajay Kumar and than I added Raina to it as a afterthought. I was not really sure than, if I could announce my identity to any unknown person in Srinagar so soon; an identity that did not matter to me elsewhere, but in Srinagar, could have been a matter of life and death to me at anytime in the past 12 years. He asked me my fathers name and I told him� I do not know if it was just the smoke of the Bukhari, but I saw a film of cloud come over his eyes, a mist of certain sadness, a tinge of remorse perhaps? He said he used to know my father well; they had been professional colleagues till the time he had to leave... we got talking and he told me of an incident more than 40 years old. �It was the Autumn of 1958�I was with a group of friends, having tea in this same restaurant, about the same hour as now, the hour of the evening news bulletins from Radio Kashmir. (As All India Radio is known in Kashmir) The news announced the release of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah from one of his numerous incarcerations. There was an instantaneous jubilation all around. The shopkeepers downed their shutters and come out on the road and the people walking back home from office, old and young, all made up an impromptu procession that started from Lal Chowk and wended its euphoric way down the residency road, past hotel Lalla Rukh, past Biscoe school, past Partap Park towards Regal Chowk. It was a huge procession of people carrying lit candles, with thanksgiving songs on their lips. It was a huge mass of euphoria that turned into a mass frenzy in no time. At the Regal Chowk, someone from among the crowd, pointing to a house, started uttering the choicest Kashmiri abuses�in no time; a man (one of the cabinet minister or the party official -I don�t clearly remember which it was - of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad�s then government) was dragged down from his apartment and roundly abused and beaten up by the mob. With the light of the lit candles in their hands, the mob set that badly mauled and almost lifeless man to a blaze. Over his burning body, writhing in death throes, they danced�and they sang songs of thanksgiving to the God for Sher-I-Kashmir�s release.� �I was watching this gory celebration from the side pavement on Residency road near Regal Chowk,� he went on, �An old frightened man, a Kashmiri Pandit with his typical headdress and �tilak� on his forehead, nudged me and asked me if I had a pen and some paper. I fished the same from my pocket and gave it to him�He wrote something on the paper and returned it to me with an urging, that I must preserve the paper and remember this mad moment�on the paper was written, �I may not be there when the same sight will repeat before your eyes, sometime in the near future. These very people who are singing the praises of their Sher-e-Kashmir today, will one day burn his effigy on these very streets of Srinagar. The person they revile now will in turn be visited at his grave with flowers by the same men.� �In 1990, I saw the prediction of that Pandit come true. In the euphoria of �azadi� and mass frenzy, the people of Kashmir, who so revered their Sher-I-Kashmir, actually wanted to dig up the very bones of their very dear leader from his mausoleum. The grave of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, to this day remains guarded 24 hours of day and night by a posse of heavily armed security man. His son rules Kashmir now. He will in his own time anoint his own son as heir-apparent of Kashmir, in the same imperial fashion of Indian Maharajas, the way Sheikh Abdullah did more than 20 years ago when there was wide spread jubilation on the streets of Srinagar. On the other hand, the memory of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, the Chief Minister replacement of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 remains unsullied�� �At that time, in 1990,� he went on, �in the spirit of the Old Pandits prediction, I had made my very own prediction about the future of Kashmir; �These very people who have brought our land and the Pandits of Kashmir to their present misery will one day turn upon each other and tear each other apart.� �This, my friend,� he concluded, �is the entire story of what has happened to Kashmir in the last 12 years since Kashmiri Pandits left because of a forced exodus.� I never met him again after that�but subsequently, I have come to know, and read and hear that during those initial moments of Euphoria in 1990, the same kinds of forebodings and apprehensions had occurred to many older generation Kashmiris about the future of Kashmir. The waters of the many sacred springs and revered religious shrines of Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims had turned dark or had begun to overflow. The forebodings of imminent catastrophe in Kashmir are too numerous to recall, but magnitude of death and destruction that has visited upon Kashmir in the past decade, has permanently scarred the landscape of the valley and the psyche of its people within Kashmir and of those in exile in the plains of India. In 1990, the Militants of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizbul Mujahideen dealt my sense of self and my identity as an Indian a humiliatingly serious blow. 12 years since, it is still hard for any of the people who belong to my community to consider going back home. When we cried for our people then � some shot in the head with a single bullet, some tortured to death, some hanged, some sawed off into a hundred body parts and some gang-raped to death, and when we cried for our homes, farms, orchards and a heritage of traditions and beliefs left behind - we were graciously enough provided �tents� and a �migrant� status within our own country, so we could be left on our own to wipe our tears and pick up the threads of life in exile. Nobody spoke up for us then, and not enough. The wounds of �forced exile� of an entire community of Kashmiri Pandits have begun to fester and bleed again after the events of Godhra and Gujarat. My heart cries out for them but the tears have long dried up. How can I even defend what I have become? But Yes, Gujarat affects me too. It affects me enough to remind me of my own secondary status as an �exile� in my own country. When I see the images of death and destruction and read about the horror tales from Gujarat, I only see �Annihilation of my race in Kashmir� re-re-revisited upon another hapless community of people who belong to a religion, in whose name, the hapless and non-violent minorities of Kashmir valley were forced into exile. Some wise man has said, �Rebellions are normally started by the hopeful not the abject poor.� I am not sure if, when the people of Kashmir rose up in revolt against India, they were really hopeful of winning, or even if they were really sure about the real contours of �azadi� they were seeking. The success of the �popular� revolt that lasted only a few years � till the slaying of Professor. Mushir-ul-Haq, I was told - was due partly because of the frightening power of the gun over the local populace, and mostly because of the collapse of every organ of local governance and the abject surrender of will by the then inept Chief Minister of J&K, who ironically continues to rule even now. If Only if, they had refused to release the JKLF militants in exchange of Rubia Sayeed, if only if They had not started the sudden night time searches on January 19-20, reportedly on nobody�s orders because that day Farooq Abdullah had already resigned, if Only if the massacre at Gow Kadal had not taken place, if only if the procession carrying Moulvi Farooq�s Dead body had not been fired upon by panicked CRPF soldiers, perhaps the contours of the �militant-azadi� movement that picked up as a consequence of these errors of judgment may have been different today and may have led us to the real reforms people of Kashmir genuinely sought. But these are the big If�s of �our� folly and Faroukh Abdullah�s �manipulative� hold over reigns of power. The failure of the �azadi� movement is much more stark in the 12 years of continuing violence, destruction and robbing of every charm of Kashmir. The fact is, the vale of Kashmir is a deafening Vail now, desperately looking for the bottom of the abyss into which it has sunk, into which all its blood flow pours. In Kashmir of 1989-90, all the dissenting voices against the violent movement were silenced by death or by forced silent acquisition, so it had appeared that the entire population was with the revolt. Only now, when the local militancy has almost dissipated and been replaced by a dangerous variety of pan-Islamic militancy, are more and more Kashmiri people coming out to speak against the Militants who started it all. A well-known senior journalist in Srinagar said to me. �Before 1989, were we ever prevented from offering prayers in our mosques?� This is a sentiment almost echoed by a successful doctor in Srinagar, my classmate at school, who I met again after 12 years, �Who did ever stop us from practicing our religion here?� Another young journalist, sounding bitter in retrospect about those �euphoric days of revolt� said to me, �The people who used to lead the �azadi� processions, wearing shrouds in defiance of death, are still alive today, while the people they led are long dead now.� The Srinagar of today is a contrasting picture of destroyed old landmarks and burnt out structures and of new constructions in the downtown and newly sprung up suburbs. Comparing Srinagar and a metropolitan city like Delhi in terms of Population density ratios, I was surprised to know that there are more Maruti�s on Srinagar�s roads than in Delhi. Looking through my nostalgic eyes, I was certainly struck to note that Srinagar today is positively more affluent than it was in the days when Militancy started. How has this phenomenon come about in a land devastated by violent instability? �Those who only had a grass mat to cover their mud floors are today living in palatial houses.� This is a common bitter refrain by the affluent class of old, when they speak about Kashmir�s neo-rich, who started off as foot soldiers of the �militant� movement. Of the many people I asked, �Why is militancy still continuing, when people are so fed up?� I was told again and again, �it is the people with the vested interests � the militants/politicians/surrendered militants/and neo-businessmen, the "the 5% of people" - who do not want the uncertainty to end, so that they can thrive.� I recall a modern Kashmiri story, which to my knowledge best describes the �the present mind� of the Kashmiri collective mass in these times. The story, AN INFERNAL CREATURE by Amin Kamil, is about a village that used to be, but is no more. The village called Zeegyapathir had six mohallas and five graveyards on the borders between each mohalla. One day, the only son of an old woman, borne by her after several miscarriages, dies. The Dead son is buried after the performance of all the sacred Muslim rituals, but the Old woman, unable to bear the sudden loss of her only son, loses her mind. In the middle of the night at the graveyard of her son, she espies some dark mysterious figure up to some mischief� The next day morning, her dead son�s grave is found dug up and the body is left without its shroud. The body is promptly covered in a fresh shroud and re-buried. The next night, the same deed is repeated and some other fresh graves are similarly found despoiled off their shroud. There is much hue and cry and commotion in the village. Every suspect is questioned. Every villager is suspected, but the shroud stealer is never found. The deed becomes a regular practice in the village. The villagers, at first curious and angry and perturbed, had slowly reconciled with the mystery of the shroud stealer. �In this way, when all the dead bodies of the Zeegyapathir, men and women alike without exception, got robbed of the shrouds, it by and by became a custom with them. Nobody got agitated on this, nor did anybody show any kind of fear. They got used to speaking and hearing of this for two decades. �We were at the graveyard. Has he robbed it? It looks like that. Let the hell take him.� These four sentences were at the tip of the tongue of everyone at Zeegyapathir. You would be greeted by these words correct to a syllable for it had assumed the form of a ritual like giving the last bath to the dead, and burying the body.� Twenty years had passed so. One day a villager by the name of Ghani Mokul dies. In his last statement before death he confesses to being the self same mysterious shroud stealer. He is roundly cursed, but the piety of the villagers ultimately rescues him from any idea of an after death revenge. �The truth, however was that the soft-hearted people of Zeegyapathir did not like to go so far.� He is therefore properly buried. The villagers as a matter of habit continued to curse him but also felt relieved at having been rid at long last of a big calamity. However, the next day morning they find his grave not only despoiled of its shroud, but also �left exposed to the elements at the edge of the grave.� Which the first man � Ghani Mokul had never infact dared to do ever to any dead body. Ghani Mokul is however, re buried as had been the practice in the village. And the morning after the next, they find him, and a few other fresh dead bodies too, again exposed at the edge of the grave in stark nudity. �It now dawned on the people that it was not simply a case of wreaking vengeance on Ghani Mokul � the original shroud stealer, but a new monster was on the rampage�Everybody at Zeegyapathir got scared and said to one another, �We can not find another man like Ghani Mokul. He no doubt divested the dead bodies of their shroud, but naked by no means did he leave them, this hellish creature is far worse than a brute.� Then onwards, the people showered blessings on the original shroud stealer and cursed the new monster with all the abominations of the hell.� The collective mind of the mass of Kashmir is today resigned to the death and destruction they see happening around them in a similar way as the people of the fictional Zeegyapathir were resigned to the ritualistic robbing of their graveyards. The people of Kashmir are not only hopelessly resigned but also totally powerless before the Frankenstein�s, they themselves helped create and breed among them. In TV discussions over our Satellite News & Entertainment Channels, the experts opine that, �what�s going on in Kashmir is a war of �attrition�, which nobody seems like winning or losing.� They say, "our sibling neighbour is �bleeding India by a thousand cuts�, but on the ground, there are people of flesh and blood � fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and friends, the people of Kashmir and the soldiers of India - actually being killed and robbed of their human dignity. As you will be reading this � the rioting and the killings will be continuing in Gujarat�at the same time, in some remote hill village of Kashmir, a family of Hindus or Muslims will be yet again be massacred by a band of people fighting �jihad� for the liberation of Muslim majority kashmir�On average about 10 -15 deaths are reported everyday. In the past 12 years of �militancy� in Kashmir about 62,000 people have already died. When is this killing ever going to stop? When is this killing ever going to stop? I asked of some in Kashmir: A friend said, �In Kashmir, the right to natural death does not exist.� My Driver said, �The only solution to Kashmir is an Atom Bomb.� A young writer, who wants to work in Bombay films said, �Our �problem� can only be settled by a war between India and Pakistan now. Whosoever wins, gets Kashmir.� A human rights activist (he used to be a Launching Commander of Hizbul Mujahideen in the young days of revolt) said, �The killings will never stop, there will be a civil war here, as in Afghanistan.� The waiter in my hotel said, �The gun is a source of money and power to those who wield it, how will they give it up easily.� Over there in Kashmir, they call it �Gun Culture�. Over here in India, we prefer to cover our head in the sand, we say, �It is cross-border Terrorism.� � But, When are the killings ever going to stop? In Srinagar, the job of a journalist these days is writing �obituaries�: The independent Press of India (the one that lay prostrate before the forces of Emergency when it was only required to bend) championed the cause of the homegrown militants of Kashmir, because it felt the �revolt� was an answer to the decay within Kashmir�s polity. True! Can�t be denied. But the 12 years of militancy have not at all affected any change in the decay that was; the decay infact has decayed further. The political order remains the same. The ruling party is more hated now than it was before 1990, corruption has infact become a way of life and unemployment has increased many folds. The rich have become richer by addition to their ranks of another class of the neo-rich. There are more beggar women on the streets of Srinagar when there were none earlier. There is still no electricity. The villages are still without roads and safe drinking water. The only thing that has shown any remarkably real progress in Kashmir is �the proliferation � of local newspapers advocating Human rights. I counted about 10 English and about 20 Urdu newspapers but still none in Kashmiri language. The Indian press has by now lost all interest in the happenings of Kashmir unless there is something really horrendous to report, but what is the Independent Press in Kashmir championing now? Developmental issues? Azadi? Almost 11 years to the day, when the Revolt erupted in Srinagar, there was a suicide bomber attack near the main entrance to Badami Bagh Army cantonment of Srinagar. I was visiting an acquaintance, from my college days in his newspaper office. He was busy trying to get the details of the attack. First he called up his sources in the Army and the Police for their official �Death Figure�. They said one Army person and five �locals� including the suicide bomber had died. He than called his local journalist friends one after the other, and about 10 of them - who must have similarly arrived at a consensual figure amongst ten others at their own end � collectively arrived at a figure, decidedly and purposely much higher than the official death toll. Their ostensible objective: to project � that the suicide mission was a �success�. A few days later, at the airport, I met a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Madras regiment from the Indian Army. He was accompanying the coffin of a dead comrade to Chennai. It was the coffin of �The� Jawan who had stopped the suicide bomber at the Badami Bagh cantonment gate. The Subedar told me �only one soldier died, the newspapers always exaggerate. The terrorists always attack us when we are having our lunch, change of guard or when we are about to wake up in the morning.� He did not know, I may one day write about it, because I never thought I would. He also told me, �We burnt down the shopping complex opposite the gate. We thought there were terrorists there, but there were not any actually.� The next day, based on the pictures of the bombed site taken by a stringer, and after making a few phone calls, my journalist friend wrote an �eye-witness� report, which was published in some of the National English language papers at Delhi. In Kashmir, Along with the dead, they also bury the Truth everyday: They bury the Truth in tomes of newsprint, poetry and propaganda. They announce its death at Human Rights Meets in Geneva and New York, where rival Human Rights activists, representing rival points of view, speak of deaths as �points� -for and against- on a score sheet of victory and defeat. Javed Ahmed Mir, the leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, the freedom fighter of Kashmir who pioneered the �selective killings� of �pro-Indians� (mostly Kashmiri Pandits and National Conference workers � The leaders were spared) said, � We started the killings only to draw the attention of the Western Press to our cause. CNN has come to visit us. BBC has come to visit us. Rabin Raphael also came and visited us here. Now we have announced unilateral ceasefire. We want to have a political dialogue. We want peace, but the martyrdom of our Freedom fighters cannot be forgotten. They call us terrorists, but they reward Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat with Nobel Peace Prize.� The JKLF now limits itself to street fights and bandhs and to exhibiting the photographs of their dead. I remember Javed Mir pointing out to me a particular photograph � of a few months old dead child � and making me feel guilty as if it was my own daughter I had allowed to be killed. As I write this, I hear on TV of a yet another suicide attack on an Army camp at Jammu. 12 children have been killed, among them a 3 month old child. Javed Ahmed Mir is silent in Srinagar yet. They have mastered to speak eloquently about �their� pain and �their sacrifices� to seek rewards in return. About the pain of others they speak with forked tongues, they say �it was a mistake�. They condemn India of its �Human Rights Violations� and they overlook the rapes and vengeance killings by the freedom fighters within their own ranks. They speak of their own dead and forget to mourn the deaths they themselves caused, Innocents all: Shakeela w/o Ali Mohammad Dar � abducted, gang raped and tortured to death. Mir Mustafa � A political leader, kidnapped, tortured and strangulated to death. Dolly Mohi-ud-Din � kidnapped, tortured, gang raped and shot dead. Sarla Bhatt, Staff Nurse at SKIMS - kidnapped, raped and shot dead. Prof.Mushir-ul-Haq � Kidnapped and shot dead. H.L. Khera � Kidnapped and shot dead. Sohan Lal Braro � Shot dead. Archana Braro � gang raped, tortured and shot dead. Bimla Braro � gang raped and shot dead. Mohammad Amin Cheentagar � beheaded. Tika Lal Taploo, Political leader � shot dead. M. K. Ganjoo, retired Judge � shot dead. Lassa Kaul, Station Director Doordarshan Srinagar � shot dead. Satish Bhan, social worker � shot dead. Ghulam Nabi Kullar, Communist � shot dead. Abdul Sattar Ranjoor, poet � shot dead.Maulana Masoodi, an intellectual &Freedom fighter � shot dead. Syed Ghulam Nabi, Government Official � shot dead. Moulvi Farooq, a religious leader � shot dead. The list is a long one and there are many more who still continue to die �not any of these died by police firing. �and hundreds of pairs of shoes the mourners left behind, as they ran from the funeral, victims of the firing. From windows we hear grieving mothers, and snow begins to fall on us, like ash. Black on edges of flames, it cannot extinguish the neighborhoods, the homes set ablaze by midnight soldiers. Kashmir is burning: (Agha Shahid Ali) Who killed Mir Mustafa? Who killed Dr. Gooru? Who killed Moulvi Farouk? Who killed Qazi Nisar? Who killed Abdul Ghani Lone? Kashmir is burning still, who lit the fire? Who burnt the Chrar-e-Sharif? Whose midnight soldiers? In the Month of February in 1990, Kashmiris used to go in trucks and buses in processions to Chrar-e-Sharif shrine, to pray for �azadi�. They used to tie threads as promise in return for fulfillment of their dreams. In 1995, they stood silent as �Foreign Militants� - representing a brand of Islam alien to the very ethos of Kashmir � lay siege to our prime shrine and let it be burnt down by a Must Gul, who escaped to a hero�s welcome in Pakistan. ��All threads must be untied before springtime. Ask all � Muslim and Brahmin - if their wish came true? He appears beside me, cloaked in black: �Alas! Death has bent my back. It is too late for threads at Chrar-e-Sharif.� � (Agha Shahid Ali) The threads are there no more now. Along with the Shrine, the hopes for that �azadi� also lie in ruins. Today they go to the burnt down shrine at Chrar and to their Sufi �Pirs� not to pray for �azadi� but for the return of sanity to Kashmir. �Rehman Sahib is one faith healer in whom thousands of locals, especially women, believe. He lives in a mud house at Aalistang in the outskirts of Srinagar, where his sitting room is always full of mureeds (devotees). One after another, they come close and whisper their problems in his ear. �Please pray and stop my son. He wants to be a militant,� a mother from nearby Waheedpora village in Ganderbal requested the peer sahib (saint) one recent morning. Another woman sought help for an end to nocturnal raids by the security forces on her house. �I have two grown-up unmarried daughters. It is dangerous. Please help,� she begged, and started crying.� Muzamil Jaleel But why does the fire that lit Chrar-e-Sharif consume us still? Because they betrayed Nund Rishi by their silence and they allowed their temples to be desecrated and they lied about their betrayal of our Gods to the entire world. Kashmir is burning: By that dazzling light we see men removing statues from temples. We beg them, �Who will protect us if you leave?� They don�t answer; they just disappear on the road to the plains, clutching the gods. (Agha Shahid Ali). An obvious reference to the Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir, the above lines of a poem, by its implication and compounded and by its extraordinary formal brilliance suggests; that the Kashmiri Pandits left despite being stopped by their neighbours and that they came away carrying their temple gods along with them. In reality, nothing could be farther from the actual truth. In his poetic lament about the pain of Kashmir � often searing imagery�his voice unerringly eloquent in response to Kashmir�s agony�, as Edward Said writes in his praise on the back cover - Agha Shahid Ali can barely remember the agony faced by his Pandit friends in those euphoric days of near freedom, when it appeared as if the whole Muslim population of Srinagar had come out on the streets shouting �allah-o-akbar�, �hum kya chahite � azadi� and �death to Indian dogs�. He can barely remember, �the call to all Muslims of Kashmir to revolt� which was announced - � from pre-recorded audiocassettes - through the loudspeakers of mosques all over Srinagar city. He can barely bring himself to imagine the panic of a miniscule community, faced with the impotence of an administration in Kashmir that had suddenly vanished�He can barely remember, that this miniscule community was looking in the face of a yet another forced migration, the fourth in the span of a few hundred years� Your memory gets in the way of my memory� Twelve years later, when I came to Kashmir, I chanced upon a temple at Rainawari. I opened the door, but Shahid, there was no god inside, it�s true. It was all filth and ashes there, walls smeared with human refuse of many years: How could you not have seen them, stopped them � the kalashnikov people- from stealing my gods and burning your temples? The fire consumes us still because we lit the fire ourself and do not know how to put it off. Because we have started to believe in our own propaganda as truth. Because we have not allowed the truth be told. Because we have lost faith in the leaders who took us to the fight and wouldn�t know how to bring us back. I asked a Kashmiri Pandit friend, who is now settled in a far way land, to explain to me why Kashmiri Pandits chose to come away rather than stay back and fight. He wrote back to me, a long letter: �You have seen the sober faces of the population there (12 years after) but what I have experienced cannot be put into words. It was a feeling of uncertainty and isolation with doubts about the sincerity of your closest associates. It was almost being enslaved with the tyrannical smile of the victor haunting you. It was the time to decide whether you would be able to accept the NIZAM-E-MUSTAFA (rule of the faithful), either willingly or after seeing your family dishonoured and massacred. Do remember that it was a well thought of plan to drive all kafirs away. The area commander of any area never was native of the same area and thus would not relate to you. His only aim was subjugation in the name of Allah. Killing in his name was justified as was revealed by Javed Mir in your documentary. Previously (Before 1990), our differences could be settled by a word for word or at the most a fistfight. Now it was the kalishnikov. Fathers would not dare to discuss the futility or viability of the actions. Brothers would not trust Brothers lest they would be killed. THE FEAR WAS TOTAL. The sane had no say and the insane were driven into frenzy by their masters. Chaos was total and administration had collapsed completely. It is too simplistic when I put it into words but just close your eyes and imagine the plight. There can be no proper description of the events in words. Finally it was our worldly wisdom, which made all of us to flee the place. When I migrated, I had to fend for family and myself. The options were either to organize a resistance OR to start afresh. I chose the latter.� �If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldn�t have happened in this world? I�m everything you lost. You won�t forgive me. My memory keeps getting in the way of your history. There is nothing to forgive. You won�t forgive me�. (Agha Shahid Ali) But there is lot to Forgive and ask Forgiveness for. The first thing that has to be answered about Kashmir is about Kashmiri Pandits forced abandonment of their motherland, the land that belongs much more to them than to any Indian or Pakistani or Kashmiri. Who orchestrated their deaths, their feeling of persecution, and their fear? Who sent them the anonymous letters asking them to leave forthwith? Who sponsored those ads, those notices in leading local Dailies of Kashmir, threatening the Pandits of dire consequences, if they did not leave? It surely was not because Jagmohan, the then administrative head of J&K, facilitated the exodus, as so many people in Kashmir would like to say to others, but do not actually believe. To Kashmiri pandits, Jagmohan in his person represents the abject failure of the �state� in not protecting, nor ensuring the safety of its �non-violent� citizens, who remained true in their loyalty to India. Its true, and I am ashamed to admit, as most Pandits now are, that when they came as refugees to Jammu and Delhi, they went straight into the arms of �the Hindu Parties�. But tell me, what are a �traumatised� people supposed to do, but hope for refuge in the camp of a party �supposedly their own�, when threatened by �Islamic forces� and when betrayed by the secular forces of India? Which secular institution of India has spoken up for the trauma of Kashmiri Pandits yet? And after Forgiveness, There is a dispute to settle. The fact of the matter is, between Us and Them, Between India and Kashmir, between India and Pakistan there are many disputes to settle. Central to the resolution of all these disputes, is the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The Genesis of these disputes has forever been prone to myriad interpretations and conflicting points of view - of the experts as well as the layperson - which no amount of logic, good sense and wars seem to unravel or resolve. In the words of a Pakistani Writer: �When India's Home Minister Sardar Vallabhai Patel sent feelers about a possible give-and-take on Hyderabad and Kashmir, Ghulam Mohammed is said to have spurned this opportunity and carried on his lucrative dealings with Hyderabad Nizam. Pakistan also welcomed the accession of Junagadh and Manavadar, whereas an overwhelming majority in both states (as well as Hyderabad) was Hindu. In effect, Pakistan held three divergent positions on the question of accession�in favour of the Hyderabad Nizam's right to independence, Junagadh right to accede to Pakistan against the wish of the populace, and, in Kashmir, for the right to self determination. Double standard is a common enough practice in politics, but it invariably harms the actor who lacks the power to avert consequences. The Nawab of Junagadh tried to deliver his Hindu-majority state to Pakistan, which set the precedence for the Maharaja of Muslim-dominated Kashmir choosing India. Pakistan did not have the power to defend either the Nawab or the Nizam, nor the will to punish the Maharaja. So India, practising double standards in its turn, took it all. (Eqbal Ahmad) That may well be the truth about J&K�s accession to India, to many Kashmiri�s, Pakistanis and even to some Indian�s, but there are also other truths. The truth about Sheikh Abdullah�s genuine liking for Indian secularism. The truth about his preferring to stay with India rather than with Pakistan. The truth about his not insisting on �azadi� before or after 1953. The truth about Sheikh Abdullah being a genuine and great leader of Kashmiri�s. The truth about Faroukh Abdullah being an inept inheritor of Sheikh Abdullah�s legacy. Problem with Truths is that it has not brought us, at any point of time, any closer to a resolution than it ever can, even 50 or 100 years from now. There is one another story by Amin Kamil, which expresses the nature of this dispute much plainly than any amount of explanation or writings have so far. The story WHAT MATTERS IS THE HEAD describes a dispute between two Thanedaars of adjacent police stations over a murdered corpse found lying at the boundary of their respective area jurisdiction. Before the culprit can be found or the murdered person identified, it is necessary to determine, in which Thanedaars jurisdiction the murdered person was found. The case is confounded by the fact that it is difficult to determine which side of the boundary the head of the deceased lay, because the Thanedaars have conflicting proofs. The respective Thanedaars, in order to prove their claim about the jurisdictional right over the corpse, wrangle in colourful language over the finer details, the technicalities and the forensic procedure, thus in fact relegating the dead corpse and its case to oblivion. Finally, the bewildered bystander watching the entire drama is exasperated by this jurisdictional drama to ask for a final resolution. He is told, �What matters really is for us to find, towards which side the head of the corpse lay. So long as this is not resolved, the matter will linger on as it is.� �But what about the corpse, meanwhile?� �Let it rot.� (Sadne do ji) �India's policies have been no less riddled with blunders than Pakistan's. Its moral isolation on Kashmir is nearly total, and unlikely to be overcome by military means or political manipulation. New Delhi commands not a shred of legitimacy among Kashmiri Muslims. Ironically, even as India's standing in Kashmir appears increasingly untenable, Kashmiris today appear farther from the goal of liberation than they were in the years 1989 to 1992.� (Eqbal Ahmad) It is true; Kashmir�s problems are as a result of our country�s folly and blunders. Our Follies and blunders in Kashmir are compounded by the fact of Partition and by the existence of a dispute, as our permanent neighbour enemy continues to insist. Kashmir has been used to bleed to a cause, in which not many Kashmiris believe. The resolution of the historical dispute between India and Pakistan � through logic, diplomacy, wars, and terrorism or by Time - has defied a sane answer for last 55 years. Nor does it seem any likely that India and Pakistan can co-exist in Peace by any stratagem invented or discovered so far. Meanwhile, the Deaths and the Killings of the Innocents in Kashmir continues. We are as close to a war as at any time before. The headlines in Today�s paper read � War clouds gather, BJP talks tough on Pak.� Army: We are ready to cross Loc.� Kashmir is caught in the crossfire of History. Kashmir was happy and prosperous once, when it had chosen not to be in the crossfire. It�s almost a year since my last visit to Kashmir. The tumultuous events of the past year � September 11, December 13 Parliament Attack, The Fall of the Taliban in Afgahnistan, President of Pakistan�s famous January 12 speech denouncing Terrorism and Islamic Fundamentalism, and the most recent catastrophe of �state sponsored pogrom� in Gujarat and the terrorist attack on children and women at a Army camp in Jammu, have completely altered my fundamental understanding of the nature of man and along with it, the perception about man�s sense of his morals�which allow him to justify one violent cause at one place as �just� and to condemn another equally violent cause as �unacceptable� to civilization. I have never felt so powerless before the �insane� insistence by men - of presumably immeasurable human values and inestimable intellectual capabilities - of their personal dogmas and points of view and the catastrophic consequences thereof. I therefore repudiate every ideology that leads to violence. And I want to ask my people in Kashmir, Isn�t it time that Kashmiri people resolved, once for and all, to give up the option of violence as a means to finding the solution to a historically vexed problem. The above is an account of my first journey to Kashmir in 12 years since I was there last. I still have a home there and I am looking forward to my permanent return as soon as I can determine for myself that my life and freedom will not be at any more risk there as it is here. For more than a year now, I have found myself unable to express in words the desolation, the desperation, the hopelessness and the living death of Kashmir which I was witness to when I was last there. This account of my visit to my homeland last year is an attempt to express the pain, the bitterness and the anger I feel for being an Indian, a Kashmiri and a Kashmiri in Exile at a time when another minority in another border state of India undergoes a more brutal, a more heinous �pogrom�. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Ajay Raina is a film maker. His film about homecoming - "Tell Them, the tree they had planted has now grown" - has won the Golden Conch award at Mumbai Festival 2002 and the RAPA award. ------------------------------------------------------------------------The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the staff and management of Chowk. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reproduction of material from any Chowk.com pages without written permission is strictly prohibited Copyright � 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Chowk.com. All rights reserved. E-mail Us | Advertise on Chowk | Associate Program | Partner/Sponsors | Privacy Policy >From: reader-list-request at sarai.net >Reply-To: reader-list at sarai.net >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Subject: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #578 - 3 msgs >Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 06:25:44 +0200 > >Send Reader-list mailing list submissions to > reader-list at sarai.net > >To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://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. Right Stuff (Pradip Saha) > 2. open source cola (Bauke Freiburg) > 3. OPUS (Monica Narula) > >--__--__-- > >Message: 1 >Reply-To: prosaha at hotmail.com >From: "Pradip Saha" >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2002 04:32:57 +0000 >Subject: [Reader-list] Right Stuff > >Just a bit of comic relief > >I found the following item in "JetMall", the in-flight mail order shopping >catalogue distributed to Jet Air travellers. > >GANESHA: WORLDWIDE LIMITED EDITION >Item code: 6112 >Price: Rs 28575/- > >Be the proud owner of one of 500 limited editions of Ganeshas. Crafted in >92.5% sterling silver, studded with Swarovski, electro-lacquered for >lasting >protection and exclusively designed for d'mart exclusif by Linea Argenti of >Italy. Each figure comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. > >I shall post the image in picturepost, later today. > >Pradip > >_________________________________________________________________ >MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: >http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > > >--__--__-- > >Message: 2 >Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 10:08:14 +0200 (CEST) >From: "Bauke Freiburg" >To: >Cc: >Reply-To: bauke at freiburg.nl >Subject: [Reader-list] open source cola > >'OPUS' source cola... > >Read the article on: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13494. > >The Great Open Source Giveaway >Graham Lawton, New Scientist >July 1, 2002 > >If you've been to a computer show in recent months you might have seen it: >a shiny silver drink can with a ring-pull logo and the words "opencola" on >the side. Inside is a fizzy drink that tastes very much like Coca-Cola. Or >is it Pepsi? > >There's something else written on the can, though, which sets the drink >apart. It says "check out the source at opencola.com." Go to that Web >address and you'll see something that's not available on Coca-Cola's >website, or Pepsi's -- the recipe for cola. For the first time ever, you >can make the real thing in your own home. > >OpenCola is the world's first "open source" consumer product. By calling >it open source, its manufacturer is saying that instructions for making it >are freely available. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify >and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, release their recipe into >the public domain. As a way of doing business it's rather unusual -- the >Coca-Cola Company doesn't make a habit of giving away precious commercial >secrets. But that's the point. > >OpenCola is the most prominent sign yet that a long-running battle between >rival philosophies in software development has spilt over into the rest of >the world. What started as a technical debate over the best way to debug >computer programs is developing into a political battle over the ownership >of knowledge and how it is used, between those who put their faith in the >free circulation of ideas and those who prefer to designate them >"intellectual property." No one knows what the outcome will be. But in a >world of growing opposition to corporate power, restrictive intellectual >property rights and globalisation, open source is emerging as a possible >alternative, a potentially potent means of fighting back. And you're >helping to test its value right now. >The open source movement originated in 1984 when computer scientist >Richard Stallman quit his job at MIT and set up the Free Software >Foundation. His aim was to create high-quality software that was freely >available to everybody. Stallman's beef was with commercial companies that >smother their software with patents and copyrights and keep the source >code -- the original program, written in a computer language such as C++ >-- a closely guarded secret. Stallman saw this as damaging. It generated >poor-quality, bug-ridden software. And worse, it choked off the free flow >of ideas. Stallman fretted that if computer scientists could no longer >learn from one another's code, the art of programming would stagnate (New >Scientist, 12 December 1998, p 42). > >Stallman's move resonated round the computer science community and now >there are thousands of similar projects. The star of the movement is >Linux, an operating system created by Finnish student Linus Torvalds in >the early 1990s and installed on around 18 million computers worldwide. >What sets open source software apart from commercial software is the fact >that it's free, in both the political and the economic sense. If you want >to use a commercial product such as Windows XP or Mac OS X you have to pay >a fee and agree to abide by a licence that stops you from modifying or >sharing the software. But if you want to run Linux or another open source >package, you can do so without paying a penny -- although several >companies will sell you the software bundled with support services. You >can also modify the software in any way you choose, copy it and share it >without restrictions. This freedom acts as an open invitation -- some say >challenge -- to its users to make improvements. As a result, thousands of >volunteers are constantly working on Linux, adding new features and >winkling out bugs. Their contributions are reviewed by a panel and the >best ones are added to Linux. For programmers, the kudos of a successful >contribution is its own reward. The result is a stable, powerful system >that adapts rapidly to technological change. Linux is so successful that >even IBM installs it on the computers it sells. > >To maintain this benign state of affairs, open source software is covered >by a special legal instrument called the General Public License. Instead >of restricting how the software can be used, as a standard software >license does, the GPL -- often known as a "copyleft" -- grants as much >freedom as possible (see www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html). Software released >under the GPL (or a similar copyleft licence) can be copied, modified and >distributed by anyone, as long as they, too, release it under a copyleft. >That restriction is crucial, because it prevents the material from being >co-opted into later proprietary products. It also makes open source >software different from programs that are merely distributed free of >charge. In FSF's words, the GPL "makes it free and guarantees it remains >free." > >Open source has proved a very successful way of writing software. But it >has also come to embody a political stand -- one that values freedom of >expression, mistrusts corporate power, and is uncomfortable with private >ownership of knowledge. It's "a broadly libertarian view of the proper >relationship between individuals and institutions", according to open >source guru Eric Raymond. > >But it's not just software companies that lock knowledge away and release >it only to those prepared to pay. Every time you buy a CD, a book, a >magazine, even a can of Coca-Cola, you're forking out for access to >someone else's intellectual property. Your money buys you the right to >listen to, read or consume the contents, but not to rework them, or make >copies and redistribute them. No surprise, then, that people within the >open source movement have asked whether their methods would work on other >products. As yet no one's sure -- but plenty of people are trying it. >Take OpenCola. Although originally intended as a promotional tool to >explain open source software, the drink has taken on a life of its own. >The Toronto-based OpenCola company has become better known for the drink >than the software it was supposed to promote. Laird Brown, the company's >senior strategist, attributes its success to a widespread mistrust of big >corporations and the "proprietary nature of almost everything." A website >selling the stuff has shifted 150,000 cans. Politically minded students in >the US have started mixing up the recipe for parties. > >OpenCola is a happy accident and poses no real threat to Coke or Pepsi, >but elsewhere people are deliberately using the open source model to >challenge entrenched interests. One popular target is the music industry. >At the forefront of the attack is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a >San Francisco group set up to defend civil liberties in the digital >society. In April of last year, the EFF published a model copyleft called >the Open Audio License (OAL). The idea is to let musicians take advantage >of digital music's properties -- ease of copying and distribution -- >rather than fighting against them. Musicians who release music under an >OAL consent to their work being freely copied, performed, reworked and >reissued, as long as these new products are released under the same >licence. They can then rely on "viral distribution" to get heard. "If the >people like the music, they will support the artist to ensure the artist >can continue to make music," says Robin Gross of the EFF. > >It's a little early to judge whether the OAL will capture imaginations in >the same way as OpenCola. But it's already clear that some of the >strengths of open source software simply don't apply to music. In >computing, the open source method lets users improve software by >eliminating errors and inefficient bits of code, but it's not obvious how >that might happen with music. In fact, the music is not really "open >source" at all. The files posted on the OAL music website >http://www.openmusicregistry.org so far are all MP3s and Ogg Vorbises -- >formats which allow you to listen but not to modify. > >It's also not clear why any mainstream artists would ever choose to >release music under an OAL. Many bands objected to the way Napster members >circulated their music behind their backs, so why would they now allow >unrestricted distribution, or consent to strangers fiddling round with >their music? Sure enough, you're unlikely to have heard of any of the 20 >bands that have posted music on the registry. It's hard to avoid the >conclusion that Open Audio amounts to little more than an opportunity for >obscure artists to put themselves in the shop window. > >The problems with open music, however, haven't put people off trying open >source methods elsewhere. Encyclopedias, for example, look like fertile >ground. Like software, they're collaborative and modular, need regular >upgrading, and improve with peer review. But the first attempt, a free >online reference called Nupedia, hasn't exactly taken off. Two years on, >only 25 of its target 60,000 articles have been completed. "At the current >rate it will never be a large encyclopedia," says editor-in-chief Larry >Sanger. The main problem is that the experts Sanger wants to recruit to >write articles have little incentive to participate. They don't score >academic brownie points in the same way software engineers do for >upgrading Linux, and Nupedia can't pay them. > >It's a problem that's inherent to most open source products: how do you >get people to chip in? Sanger says he's exploring ways to make money out >of Nupedia while preserving the freedom of its content. Banner adverts are >a possibility. But his best hope is that academics start citing Nupedia >articles so authors can earn academic credit. > >There's another possibility: trust the collective goodwill of the open >source community. A year ago, frustrated by the treacle-like progress of >Nupedia, Sanger started another encyclopedia named Wikipedia (the name is >taken from open source Web software called WikiWiki that allows pages to >be edited by anyone on the Web). It's a lot less formal than Nupedia: >anyone can write or edit an article on any topic, which probably explains >the entries on beer and Star Trek. But it also explains its success. >Wikipedia already contains 19,000 articles and is acquiring several >thousand more each month. "People like the idea that knowledge can and >should be freely distributed and developed," says Sanger. Over time, he >reckons, thousands of dabblers should gradually fix any errors and fill in >any gaps in the articles until Wikipedia evolves into an authoritative >encyclopedia with hundreds of thousands of entries. > >Another experiment that's proved its worth is the OpenLaw project at the >Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Berkman >lawyers specialise in cyberlaw -- hacking, copyright, encryption and so on >-- and the centre has strong ties with the EFF and the open source >software community. In 1998 faculty member Lawrence Lessig, now at >Stanford Law School, was asked by online publisher Eldritch Press to mount >a legal challenge to US copyright law. Eldritch takes books whose >copyright has expired and publishes them on the Web, but new legislation >to extend copyright from 50 to 70 years after the author's death was >cutting off its supply of new material. Lessig invited law students at >Harvard and elsewhere to help craft legal arguments challenging the new >law on an online forum, which evolved into OpenLaw. > >Normal law firms write arguments the way commercial software companies >write code. Lawyers discuss a case behind closed doors, and although their >final product is released in court, the discussions or "source code" that >produced it remain secret. In contrast, OpenLaw crafts its arguments in >public and releases them under a copyleft. "We deliberately used free >software as a model," says Wendy Selzer, who took over OpenLaw when Lessig >moved to Stanford. Around 50 legal scholars now work on Eldritch's case, >and OpenLaw has taken other cases, too. > >"The gains are much the same as for software," Selzer says. "Hundreds of >people scrutinise the 'code' for bugs, and make suggestions how to fix it. >And people will take underdeveloped parts of the argument, work on them, >then patch them in." Armed with arguments crafted in this way, OpenLaw has >taken Eldritch's case -- deemed unwinnable at the outset -- right through >the system and is now seeking a hearing in the Supreme Court. > >There are drawbacks, though. The arguments are in the public domain right >from the start, so OpenLaw can't spring a surprise in court. For the same >reason, it can't take on cases where confidentiality is important. But >where there's a strong public interest element, open sourcing has big >advantages. Citizens' rights groups, for example, have taken parts of >OpenLaw's legal arguments and used them elsewhere. "People use them on >letters to Congress, or put them on flyers," Selzer says. > >The open content movement is still at an early stage and it's hard to >predict how far it will spread. "I'm not sure there are other areas where >open source would work," says Sanger. "If there were, we might have >started it ourselves." Eric Raymond has also expressed doubts. In his >much-quoted 1997 essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, he warned against >applying open source methods to other products. "Music and most books are >not like software, because they don't generally need to be debugged or >maintained," he wrote. Without that need, the products gain little from >others' scrutiny and reworking, so there's little benefit in open >sourcing. "I do not want to weaken the winning argument for open sourcing >software by tying it to a potential loser," he wrote. > >But Raymond's views have now shifted subtly. "I'm more willing to admit >that I might talk about areas other than software someday," he told New >Scientist. "But not now." The right time will be once open source software >has won the battle of ideas, he says. He expects that to happen around >2005. >And so the experiment goes on. As a contribution to it, New Scientist and >AlterNet have agreed to issue this article under a copyleft. That means >you can copy it, redistribute it, reprint it in whole or in part, and >generally play around with it as long as you, too, release your version >under a copyleft and abide by the other terms and conditions in the >licence. We also ask that you inform us of any use you make of the >article, by e-mailing copyleft at newscientist.com. > >One reason for doing so is that by releasing it under a copyleft, we can >print the recipe for OpenCola without violating its copyleft. If nothing >else, that demonstrates the power of the copyleft to spread itself. But >there's another reason, too: to see what happens. To my knowledge this is >the first magazine article published under a copyleft. Who knows what the >outcome will be? Perhaps the article will disappear without a trace. >Perhaps it will be photocopied, redistributed, re-edited, rewritten, cut >and pasted onto websites, handbills and articles all over the world. I >don't know -- but that's the point. It's not up to me any more. The >decision belongs to all of us. > >THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed >and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science >License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt. > > > > > > > > >--__--__-- > >Message: 3 >Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 19:25:26 +0530 >To: reader-list at sarai.net >From: Monica Narula >Subject: [Reader-list] OPUS > >Dear List members and Friends, >(please feel free to copy and redistribute) > >We are happy to announce the launch of OPUS, (Open Platform for >Unlimited Signification) as an online >adjunct to the documentary installation - Co-Ordinates: >28.28N/77.15E : : 2001/2002 - presented >by us (Raqs Media Collective) at Documenta11, Kassel. >Opus (Release Candidate) went public on the 8th of June, 2002, >co-inciding with the opening of Documenta11. > >The URL for Opus is www.opuscommons.net > >What does Opus stand for? >Opus is an acronym for "Open Platform for Unlimited Signification!". >Most importantly, it is an online space for people, machines and >codes to play and work together - to share, create and transform >images, sounds, videos and texts. Opus is an attempt to create a >digital commons in culture, based on the principle of sharing of >work, while at the same time, retaining the possibility (if and when >desired) of maintaining traces of individual authorship and identity. > >To read more about the principles and background of Opus, go to - >http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/record.html > > >How Opus works (what can you do in Opus) > >Opus enables you to view, create and exhibit media objects (video, >audio, still images, html and text) and make modifications on work >done by others, in the spirit of collaboration and the sharing of >creativity. Opus is an environment in which every viewer/user is also >invited to be a producer, and a means for producers to work together >to shape new content. You can view and download material, transform >it and then upload the material worked on by you back to the Opus >domain. Each media object archived, exhibited and made available for >transformation within Opus carries with it data that can identify all >those who have worked on it. This means that while Opus enables >collaboration, it also preserves the identity of Authors/Creators (no >matter how big or small their contribution may be) at each stage of a >works evolution. In this way, we hope that Opus can be come a model >for a practical realization of the idea of a Digital Commons of >creative work on the Internet. > >To read a manual of OPUS - go to - >http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/manual.html > > >The Idea >The basic ideas of the Opus project is to create a community of >creative people from all over the world, who want to share and gift >to each other the images, sounds and texts made by them for general >public usage. Opus will give people the chance to collaborate and to >present their work to an online community of practitioners and >artists willing to work outside the increasing global domination of >intellectual property regimes in cultural production. > >Once you have published your y in Opus, each act of uploading by you >becomes an opportunity for others to take your work as a starting >point for transformation, for a new rendition, for a rescension. Opus >users will also be able to give their comments and reflections on >your work through the discussion forums that will grow around each >project within Opus. > >Opus is inspired by the free software movement and is an attempt to >transpose the principles that govern the creation of free software on >to general cultural production. Opus follows the same rules as those >that operate in all free software communities - i.e. the freedom to >view, to download, to modify and to redistribute. The source(code), >in this case the video, image, sound or text - the contents of media >objects uploaded on to Opus, is free to use, to edit and to >redistribute. Needless to say the 'source-code' of the Opus software >is also free to use, edit and redistribute. Opus users are governed >by a license that protects them from their work being taken out of >the commons and into the regimen of proprietary protocols. > >To read the license that frames Opus - go to - >http://www.opuscommons.net/templates/doc/license.html > >OPUS : A brief history > >Work on Opus began in September 2001 and the Beta version was >uploaded in April 2002. Opus is launched >into the public domain with the opening of Documenta11. > >When we (Raqs Collective) began to think through the ideas that >gradually crystallized to form Opus, we >were searching for a platform that would enable inter-media and >hybrid media practices to find fruition within a frame of open ended >collaboration. We were interested in trying to evolve a way to >combine our interests with video, our background in documentary film, >photography and sound, and our growing engagement with >hypertextuality and free software culture as a result of our work >within the Sarai Initiative at the Centre for the Study of Developing >Societies, Delhi. > >At an immediate level, the ideas that were at the core of the Opus >project developed out of our need to create an online context for a >set of offline installations. (like , for instance, Co-ordinates : >28.28N /77.15E : : 2001/2002, which is showing at Documenta11) which >we wanted to open out to a wider community of creators, so as to >enable instances of further collaboration; and out of our thoughts on >the notion of the 'Digital Commons', from which arose a text A >Concise Lexicon of/for the Digital Commons which contains many of the >founding ideas of Opus. > >In the realization of the process of creating Opus we were joined by >several others who made the Sarai Media Lab their home for many long >days and nights along with us, sharing in the delight of discovering >fragments of archiecture that worked, or a metaphor that made sense, >and above all with the energy that they brought to every detail of >the coding and design of Opus. Opus would not be a reality without >the active collaboration of all the people who worked on it, their >skills and their imaginations. > >Many metaphors, images and ideas have made their way into the making >of OPUS, from a biological laboratory, >to a polyamourous matrix, to an understanding of the way in which >parents relate to children, from kinship >and lineage to the growth and evolution of epic narratives and >ancient texts. The traces of all these remain in varying degrees. > >Sarai (www.sarai.net) provided the background of being an >intellectually and creatively stimulating space >while all of us worked on Opus. > >CREDITS >Conception - Raqs Media Collective > >Architecture - Monica Narula, Bauke Freiburg, Silvan Zurbruegg > >Coding - Silvan Zurbruegg, Pankaj Kaushal > >Interface Design - Joy Chatterjee > >Design Co-ordination - Monica Narula >Design Acknowledgement - Rana Dasgupta >Documentation - Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Monica Narula, Bauke Freiburg > >License - Lawrence Liang, Jeebesh Bagchi > >Produced by - Raqs Media Collective >at the Sarai Media Lab, Sarai/CSDS, >Delhi, 2002 > > >Acknowledgements >Knowbotic Research, Zurich >Hochschule f�r Gestaltung und Kunst, Zurich >Dept. of New Media Studies, University of Amsterdam >Society for Old & New Media, Amsterdam >Documenta11, Kassel >Everyone @ Sarai, Delhi > >We invite you to contribute, create and share in the further >development of Opus. We believe that your >participation in Opus will strengthen and revitalize the digital commons. > >If you have more enquiries about Opus - write to >info at opuscommons.net >raqs at sarai.net >-- >Monica Narula >Sarai:The New Media Initiative >29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 >www.sarai.net > > > >--__--__-- > >_________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion >list on media and the city. >Critiques & Collaborations >To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe >in the subject header. >List archive: > > >End of Reader-list Digest _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com From jeebesh at sarai.net Fri Jul 5 19:15:53 2002 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 19:15:53 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Entitlement Cards Message-ID: <02070519155302.00911@pammi.sarai.kit> The mass ID cards system has now got a new name. It will be called the E-cards system. The interesting thing is that in any discussion on mass (nation or region wide) ID cards system, this word - `entitlement` is usually implied or directly refered to as a reason for it's validity. This word makes the `border` of the card disappear. Ingenious. best jeebesh PS: The death caused by nuclear bombs was made tolerable and somewhat acceptable by the use of the word `only` before a figure of projected fatality or casualty. ------------------------- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=311490 ID cards: Blunkett reveals the 'entitlement card' By Andrew Woodcock, Political Correspondent, PA News03 July 2002 All UK residents could be required to hold a card with details of their identity under a scheme outlined to the House of Commons by Home Secretary David Blunkett today. But Mr Blunkett made clear that there was no question of the "entitlement card" being a compulsory ID card, which individuals would be required to carry at all times. The scheme most likely to be adopted would involve existing credit card-style driver's licences and the recently-announced passport cards doubling up as entitlement cards, with a separate card for people who are eligible for neither of these documents. Mr Blunkett said he was personally "enthusiastic" about entitlement cards, which would be the first ID card scheme in the UK since the abandonment of wartime identity documents in 1952. They could help combat illegal immigration and illegal working, fraud and identity theft, while at the same time helping people apply for benefits and services to which they were entitled, he said. But he played down suggestions that the cards would provide a weapon in the fight against terrorism in the wake of the 11 September attacks on the USA. "Following the events of 11 September, there was a call to introduce a type of identity card' system. We said we would not be giving a knee-jerk reaction in the wake of this terrorism and we have stuck to that," he said. Home Office estimates put the cost of the scheme over the next 13 years between £1.3 billion, if simple plastic cards were used, and £3.1 billion, for hi-tech computerised cards capable of holding fingerprints or even the iris patterns in holders' eyes, which are unique to each individual. Holders could be asked to pay for the cards through a £10-£18 hike in the cost of driving licences and passports from the current charges of £29 and £30 respectively. Refusing to register for a card would probably be a punishable offence, but ministers indicated that they did not anticipate major efforts to enforce participation. They expected most people would want to "opt in" to the scheme because they would be denied services if they did not. Mr Blunkett said he was "painfully aware" of the need for information on the cards to remain absolutely confidential, in order to allay concerns over invasion of privacy. He stressed that the Government was "neutral" on the issue, and would wait until public reaction had been tested before announcing its plans early next year. Any legislation would not be introduced until the following session of Parliament, and it would take three years to set up the scheme and a further five or six years before the details of an estimated 67.5 million UK resident were included on a central database. Mr Blunkett today launched a consultation document, setting out various options and offering the public six months to comment on them. He said: "I am not going to disguise my own enthusiasm for an entitlement card system, but it is for the public to decide whether or not this is something they would see as useful and making their lives easier. "I have made it clear that the introduction of an entitlement card would be a major step and that we will not proceed without consulting widely and considering all the views expressed very carefully. "I want to see a far-reaching and meaningful public debate on the issue of entitlement cards, and a vigorous response from all parts of the community." The creation of a card scheme could involve every UK resident aged 16 and over being issued with a new unique personal number. But the Home Office stressed that no records would be kept on the cards of racial origin, sexual orientation, religious belief, trade union membership, political affiliation, health or criminal convictions or charges. "The central register would not become the depository for a wide range of information held by different Government departments or agencies about individuals," said today's document. "The Government is clear that protection against intrusion or unauthorised access to personal information is crucial if any such scheme were to work." The most hi-tech versions of the card could be used for a variety of functions, ranging from benefit applications to an EU-wide travel document, a library card or public transport season ticket. ----------------------------------------- http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jul2002-daily/04-07-2002/main/../world/w12.htm UK plans ID cards for immigrants LONDON: Britain will float plans on Wednesday for its citizens to carry identification cards to help combat illegal immigration and benefits fraud. Home Secretary David Blunkett will launch a consultation process on the issue, examining the risks and benefits of what he has called "entitlement cards". But he will stress in a statement to parliament that no decisions have yet been taken. Rights groups have branded the idea discriminatory and a breach of civil liberties. Home Office minister Beverly Hughes told BBC radio the cards would obviously serve as a form of identification, but added that she hoped the consultation process would encourage a "debate about citizenship and about cohesion in society". "There may be a role for a card in underlining people's entitlements in society and in emphasising their citizenship and their membership of society," she said. Britons have only ever had to carry identity documents during wartime, unlike the vast majority of Europeans who have to produce ID cards at the request of police or officials. But the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States and efforts to clamp down on illegal immigration into Britain through other European countries has prompted Blunkett to look at the balance between liberty and the need for identification. From rustam at cseindia.org Sat Jul 6 12:52:58 2002 From: rustam at cseindia.org (rustam) Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 12:52:58 +530 Subject: [Reader-list] Bush is Irrelevant and Must Go Message-ID: <4486C788C@cseindia.org> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 5609 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020706/61d280cf/attachment.bin From shuddha at sarai.net Sat Jul 6 17:15:28 2002 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 17:15:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Who Lit the Fire by Mohan Guruswamy Message-ID: <02070617152802.01104@sweety.sarai.kit> Dear Friends, By now, the news of the leak of the report of the Forensic Science Laboratory, Ahmedabad on the Godhra carnage that precipitated the Gujarat killings has sort of made it into the fine print (not headline news as it ought to be). If anything, this goes on to lend more credence to the theory that the entire sequence of events in Gujarat may have been premeditated in even more diabolical ways than we have been accustomed to thinking of. Below, you will find a text that I received on another list, by Mohan Guruswamy, that comes to some very disturbing conclusions. Now, we cut to another place, another time. It is very well documented that the Italian state (in collaboration with local fascist militias) and with the blessings of NATO notoriously infilitrated and even set up so-called far left "terror" groups in the 1970s (it was called 'Operation Gladio'). This strategy centred around the carrying out of spectacular bombings, which were then inevitably blamed on the far left, which did have some fringe terrorist elements. So it was not implausible to lay the blame at their door. One such incident was a bomb blast in the second class waiting room in Bologna railway station on the 2nd of August 1980 that killed 85 people and left over two hundred wounded. Criminal investigations on this 'action' and on a series of other terrorist atrocitites in Italy finally led to the trail of agents of the SISMI (the Italian official internal security agency, which had earlier been called the SID, acting in cohorts with far right groups, one of which, called P-2 counted amongst its members, a man who happens to be called Silvio Berlusconi, and who happens to be the prime minister of Italy today). Of course, at that time, the media blamed the far left and anarchists for these bombings. But the little details of protracted criminial investigations, the testimonies of retired italian intelligence officials, and the subsequent idle boasts of respectable Italian gentlemen in the fascist establishment suggested a very different set of culprits. The devil, well, is in the details. Another place, another time, another railway station ? Shuddha ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Who lit the fire? Mohan Guruswamy Email: mguru at satyam.net.in July 5, 2002 With the outing of the report of the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Ahmedabad, the question of who lit the fire in coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27 has now assumed critical importance. This incident was the immediate cause of the firestorms that engulfed Gujarat and that frenzy now is the bedrock of the supposed BJP resurgence and its aggressive espousal of a virulent Hindutva. The report of MS Dahiya, Assistant Director of the FSL, which is now part of the charge sheet com letely debunks the theories about the coach being set afire by an angry mob, which had mysteriously collected outside the Godhra railway station. The report emphatically concludes that the coach was set afire by someone "standing in the passage of the compartment near seat number 72, using a container with a wide opening about 60 liters of inflammable liquid has been poured and then a fire has been started in the bogie." The FSL has also conclusively demonstrated by experiments that it was virtually impossible to throw inflammable liquids into the train through the open windows that are at a height of seven feet. The report also shows that there was a three feet high mound running parallel to the track at a distance of 14 feet and if the fire bombers were standing on this mound and sloshing the fuel at the compartment only about 10-15% of the fuel would have got inside. Since the rest of the fuel would then have fallen o tside there would have been burn damage on and near the track. This was not so. File photographs of the burning coach very clearly show the flames raging from within and without even the external paintwork being touched. The pictures also show rescuers trying to hose down the flames standing right alongside the burning coach. Very obviously the coach was set afire from within and whosoever claims that it was set afire by the collected mob is lying through their teeth. And that might very well include the Deputy Prime Minister of India. The train was chock-a-block full of kar sevaks and whosoever was carrying "a container with a wide opening holding about 60 liters of inflammable liquid" should have been able to mingle freely with the inflamed kar sevaks. If this whosoever it was, was carrying such a container with a wide opening quite openly he, she or they would have been known to the other passengers to be able to do so without arousing apprehensions. Remember the country was in a state of heightened military alert after the December 13 attack on the Parliament and it would just not be possible for a stranger to walk into a crowded coach of true believers with a large container with liquid sloshing about. The train was almost a Rambhakt special and each compartment was concentrated with people from a particular area or belonging to a particular group within the Sangh Parivar, all of who would have been known to each other. It is therefore extremely implausible that a perfect stranger or strangers would have been able to splash the pe rol and set it alight and then escape. The killer/killers would have had to been in the adjoining compartment or be able to alight quickly from the burning compartment without arousing suspicion. Consequently the theory that it was an ISI cell that carried out the carnage becomes extremely difficult to sustain. The exact identification of the inflammable liquid, including the brand of the petrol, would be very easily obtained by spectroscopic examination, that is, if the police had collected samples of the charred material. If the quality of preliminary investigations was through even the exact type and material of the burned container, if it was left behind, could have been obtained, providing a vital step towards identifying the murderers. But that would be possibly asking too much of the Indian Police Servic ? However in such a high profile case, one would have thought that the highest standards of professionalism would have been strived for, especially when there were two Sardars in the picture. Then in all probability this is exactly what the persons behind the outrage would not have wanted? It would now seem that the harassment and intimidation of the mostly Muslim hawkers at Godhra railway station was deliberate and aimed at provoking an agitated response. If this was so, the torching of coach S-6 could have been intended to provoke a furious backlash. This seems like a classic agent provocateur operation that went out of hand. The use of an agent provocateur to create a crisis is not at all uncommon. We see much of it all around. Sometime it is a pig's head that is thrown in a mosque, another time it is a cow's head that is thrown into a temple. Cadre based political parties for who the end justifies all means are especially adept at this. Joseph Stalin, who was a small time thug working on the fringe of the underground Communist movement in pre-revolutionary Russia, caught the eye of his mentors by his ability to precipitate rises to mobilize the masses. I recall watching the live telecast on a local channel of a demonstration in Hyderabad against the increase in power tariffs and was struck by the extremely deliberate provocations of a very small group that changed a peaceful gathering into a furious mob causing the police to open fire at it. The demolition of the Babri Masjid was very clearly perpetrated by just a handful of persons who came prepared to do the job. The gathered crowd just joined with Sadhvi Rithambara exho ting from the dais "ek aur dhakha." The record shows that while Uma Bharati and Murli Manohar Joshi were hugging each other in ecstatic joy, LK Advani looked on helplessly. Its not only cadre based political parties that do this. Countries with active intelligence services routinely do this. Intelligence agencies like the American CIA, British SIS, French SDECE, Israeli Mossad, Russian FSB, Chinese GRI, Pakistani ISI and even the Indian RAW carry out such operations quite routinely. Even now Pakistan insists that the January 30, 1971 hijacking of "Ganga", an Indian Airlines Fokker Friendship aircraft, to Lahore by Hashim and Ashraf Qureshi was an Indian intelligence operati n meant to precipitate the termination of over flights to Dhaka making the link between the two Pakistani halves even more tenuous. The two Qureshi's were sentenced by a Pakistani court to 19 years but were exonerated by the Pakistan Supreme Court in 1984. In 1991 a unit of the Peoples War Group attacked the Kakatiya Fast Passenger train at Charlapalli near Hyderabad killing 47 passengers in the blaze set off by them. It took only a small quantity of incendiary material to set off the blaze. One of the attackers was apprehended. Later the PWG issued a statement that the death of 47 passengers was inadvertent and expressed regret for it. In another incident at 4.30 am on March 8, 1993 in AP's Guntur district two dalit youths Satuluri Chalapathi Rao (24) and Gantela Vijayvardhana Rao (22) inspired by the plot a popular Telugu movie held up an APRTC express bus from Hyderabad to Chilkaluripet under the threat of torching it. They wanted money to start a business. Things didn't happen as they did in the movie. The passengers panicked and in the ensuing melee the can of petrol dropped in the bus, which in turn had a leaky fuel tank and resul ed in an explosive fire. 22 passengers including two children were killed. In both cases while there was intent to commit a crime, what resulted was not intended. In the case of the two youths the intention was not even to set fire to the bus, but it happened and 22 sleeping passengers were burnt to death. The Supreme Court sentenced them to death in 1995, but the President considering all the circumstances commuted their sentence to life imprisonment and they are now incarcerated in Rajamundry jail. But it is difficult to imagine that a container with a wide mouth carrying at least 60 liters of petrol was meant to cause just an innocuous incident on the Sabarmati Express. Clearly there are many questions to be answered, particularly in light of the subsequent events for which even the National Human Rights Commission, headed by as widely respected jurist as the former Chief Justice of India, Justice AN Verma, found the Gujarat government complicit. The chota Sardar in Gujarat is plowing on remorsele sly with his campaign of igniting communal passions, and the bada Sardar in New Delhi just sits there wringing his hands. As he did when the Babri Masjid was demolished. As he did when Hindus were killed in Doda. As he did when Sikhs were killed in Anantnag. As he did when Christians were killed in the Dangs. As he did when the Red Fort was attacked. As he did when Parliament was attacked on December 13. Shakespeare's wrote about Lady Macbeth: "It is an accustom'd action with her, to seem thus washing her hands." From sayantoni at rediffmail.com Mon Jul 8 10:29:24 2002 From: sayantoni at rediffmail.com (sayantoni datta) Date: 8 Jul 2002 04:59:24 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Message-ID: <20020708045924.24698.qmail@webmail18.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020708/e344b418/attachment.pl From geert at desk.nl Tue Jul 9 07:05:44 2002 From: geert at desk.nl (geert lovink) Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 11:35:44 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: India worries about Carnivore's prowl Message-ID: <02ee01c226eb$0b52a1d0$b3de3dca@geert> From: "Declan McCullagh" Via Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 3:28 AM Subject: India worries about Carnivore's prowl, warrantless searches > http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=37906058 > "NEW DELHI: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has prepared a list of new > keywords that are to be used to intercept mails emanating from IP addresses > in India. The move comes after investigations have revealed that Mohammad > alias 'Burger,' who led the Parliament attack, was in constant touch with > his counterparts in Pakistan as well as within India through email." From lachlan at london.com Wed Jul 10 04:55:41 2002 From: lachlan at london.com (Lachlan Brown) Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 23:25:41 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] CarniBore Message-ID: <20020709232541.10200.qmail@iname.com> Stop scare mongering geert. The hype over the distribution of carnivore, omnivore and draggonet, plus ECHELON (which is simply the three in series PLUS conventional means of intelligence gathering and policing: - ie 'ask a professional colleague of the subject under scrutiny' which yields the greatest intelligence ;) Col Crush GCHQ in Winchcomb, David Sterling, Siwa Oasis 1942), seems destined to stress the need for more technology and more European-American technologists to mediate the new international, global, media. Suddenly we are not supposed to be able to discuss culture, politics, and the law online. Curious that this sudden end to meaning should happen just when culture, politics and the law writ globally don't sound so homely to EurAm 'net culture' and net culturists. I mean, some of us have a lot to say that will require a degree in cultural studies to understand, or a little bit of reading, but the specialism is freely available through Open learning, Adult Education and also conventional University degree routes. I doubt there will ever be a string of code that can decode Encoding/Decoding by Stuart Hall. Or 'H' as we like to call him. I mean, the hype about CarniBore is rather like suggesting that it is impossible to discuss anything on a train in 1900 because 'agents' might be listening in, or impossible to discuss anything on the phone in 1960 because James Bond might be pretending to be the Phone engineer. Yes, we have technology. But we also have ideas, policies and the law that constitute us as subjects with rights, and more skills than keystroke skills and a bit of .php in determining our future(s). Lachlan -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup Save up to $160 by signing up for NetZero Platinum Internet service. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=N2P0602NEP8 From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 10 17:43:31 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 21:13:31 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] Letters Exchanged between KENZABURO OE and EDWARD W. SAID Message-ID: Dear all, Here is a great piece. PS a belated welcome to Matlida and Theresa in Amsterdam to this list. Best Anjali Sagar Letters Exchanged between KENZABURO OE and EDWARD W. SAID From announcements-request at sarai.net Thu Jul 11 09:55:44 2002 From: announcements-request at sarai.net (announcements-request at sarai.net) Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 06:25:44 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcements digest, Vol 1 #69 - 1 msg Message-ID: <20020711042544.11842.84232.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> Send Announcements mailing list submissions to announcements at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announcements-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at announcements-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announcements digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Curating New Media--Inside and Outside the Institution... Thundergulch event July 16th (Erin Donnelly) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 09:29:53 -0400 From: "Erin Donnelly" To: Subject: [Announcements] Curating New Media--Inside and Outside the Institution... Thundergulch event July 16th Curating New Media--Inside and Outside the Institution Tuesday, July 16th, 7:00pm --- FREE Engine 27, 173 Franklin Street, between Hudson and Greenwich Streets Curators Anne Barlow, Anne Ellegood, Anthony Huberman, and Michelle Thursz discuss the challenges of organizing, displaying, and distributing new media art within and outside institutional settings. Panelists present compelling works from past and upcoming exhibits as a basis for discussion of emerging curatorial models, collaboration, audience development, and criticism. Special thanks to Engine 27 for hosting this event. Engine 27 is a not-for-profit center dedicated to the development of multi-channel sound works in coordination with other forms of contemporary media. Engine 27 commissions new works, supports research, artist residencies, education and public presentations. Directions: Take the 1/2 trains to Franklin Street, A/C/E trains to Canal Street, or N/R trains to City Hall. Reservations are not required, but for further information please contact Wayne Ashley, Guest Curator, Thundergulch at (212)219-9401 x106, washley007 at yahoo.com, or Erin Donnelly, Visual and Media Arts Program Associate, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council at (212)219-9401 x107, edonnelly at lmcc.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ Support for Thundergulch audience development is provided by American Express Company. Funding for Thundergulch is generously provided by Cowles Charitable Trust, Experimental Television Center, the Greenwall Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation. This project is made possible, in part, with public funds from the Electronic Media and Film Program and the Media Arts Technical Assistance Fund of the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Lower Manhattan Cultural Council 145 Hudson Street, Suite 801, New York, NY 10013 212-219-9401 212-219-2058 fax www.lmcc.net www.thundergulch.org Liz Thompson, Executive Director Moukhtar Kocache, Director of Visual & Media Arts Erin Donnelly, Associate Director of Visual & Media Arts Wayne Ashley, Guest Curator, Thundergulch --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announcements mailing list Announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements End of Announcements Digest From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 11 19:39:36 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 23:09:36 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] URGENT APPEAL In-Reply-To: Message-ID: From: "Vijaya Mulay" Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 21:48:45 +0000 To: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Cc: tapan at safhr.org, suhasinimulay at yahoo.com Subject: Fwd: Fw: URGENT APPEAL Dear Anjali You might have already received the info contained in this e mail. I have known Gautam for ages. he is one of the nicest persons that i know. Please inform your multitude if you have not already done so. Munni has already sent e-mail to Tapan to enquire what can be done from here. Akka > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Tapan >To: Bandana Shrestha >Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 7:47 PM >Subject: URGENT APPEAL > > >URGENT: Arrest of Human Rights Activist in New Delhi, India. >Mr. Gautam Navlakha, human rights activist and assistant editor of Economic and Political Weely was forcibly taken away at about 5.30 p.m (Indian Time) from Treveni Kala Sangam, (a cultual complex) in New Delhi. At the time of his illegal arrest, Mr. Navlakha was talking to Ms. Rama Laxmi, correspondent of the Washington Post. According to Ms. Rama Laxmi, about four persons in plain clothes overpowered Mr. Navlakha and virtually dragged him out of the cafeteria of the cultutral complex. He was not allowed to speak or do anything. Ms. Rama Laxmi has informed Ms. Nitya RamaKrishnan, human Rights lawyer that the abductors of Mr. Navlakha asked her about her identity. After being informed that she was a correspondent of the Washington Post, they told her that they were from the intillegence department.We have no informatrion about the identity of his abductors or his current whereabouts. > >It may be pertinent to add that Mr. Navlakha is the convenor of the defence committee for the accused in the December 13 bombing of Indian Parliament. Three Kashmir Muslims have been accues in this case by the police. All of them are being tried under the new anti terrorist act called "Prevention of Terrorism Act". > >I request you to take immediate action in this case in the interest of safety of Mr. Navlakha. > >Tapan K. Bose >Secretary General >South Asia Forum for Human Rights. > >For further information please contact: > >Ms. Nitya Ramakrishnan, Lawyer >Tel: (Mobile) +91-98102-60675 >Tel: +91-11- 3710748 > >Mr. Ashok Agrwaal >Tel: (Mobile) +91-9810098466 >Tel: +91-11-3714531 Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. Click Here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020711/4f1e8093/attachment.html From shveta at sarai.net Sat Jul 13 07:52:42 2002 From: shveta at sarai.net (Shveta Sarda) Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 07:52:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] cybermohalla by lanes Message-ID: <200207130752.42715.shveta@sarai.net> Dear all, Sarai announces the release of the book 'Galiyon Se / by lanes'. A culmination of an year-long interaction and conversations between twelve young people from the LNJP basti, Delhi (basti: a non-legal settlement, almost perpetually under the threat of dislocation), this book is to share with others the narrations, reflections, commentaries, word play and observations they have been engaging with. The writings in the book are a glimpse into the personal/public diaries in which they write about the everyday living in the city. LNJP basti, a working class settlement, is located in central Delhi. The book is about the basti - the lanes, elections, perceptions, celebrations, accidents, dislocation, evictions, work situations, technology, life stories. It includes interviews, stories, write-ups, photographs and animation. The bilingual (Hindi/English) book is the first from Cybermohalla, an experimental collaborative initiative for the creation of nodes of popular digital culture in Delhi between Ankur, a Delhi based NGO and Sarai. It has been translated, edited and designed at Sarai. _____________________________________ Galiyon Se / by lanes http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/book01/bylanes.htm (available online) Produced and Designed at Sarai Media Lab and Public Interface Zone, Sarai, Delhi Text, Photographs & Animation at Compughar by Yashoda Singh, Suraj Rai, Shamsher Ali, Shahjehan, Shahana Qureshi, Nilofer, Naseembano, Mehrunnisa, Bobby Khan, Babli Rai, Azra Tabassum, Ayesha Editing and Translations: Shveta Design: Mrityunjoy Chatterjee Editorial Adivisors: Jeebesh Bagchi (Sarai), Prabhat K. Jha (Ankur) Published by: Sarai:The New Media Initiative CSDS E-mail: dak at sarai.net, www. sarai.net + Ankur: Society for Alternatives in Education E-mail: ankureducation at vsnl.net Delhi 2002 For orders, email: dak at sarai.net Or write to Sarai, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India Price: Rs. 200 / $ 10 240 pages, 22 cm X 18 cm ISBN 81-901429-1-7 ------------------------------------------------------- From bhrigu at sarai.net Sun Jul 14 02:05:00 2002 From: bhrigu at sarai.net (Bhrigu) Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 02:05:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Thanda Matlab... Message-ID: <02071402050000.01436@janta7.sarai.kit> TAKE ACTION - SEND A FREE FAX FROM OUR WEBSITE Tell Coca-Cola to Stop Stealing Drinking Water from Local Communities! http://www.corpwatchindia.org Coca-Cola's factory in Plachimada, Kerala, has sucked the local aquifers dry. The water scarcity has hit the local Adivasi and Dalit community the hardest. On 22 April, faced with the prospect of a summer without water, the indigenous peoples and the Dalits began an indefinite strike outside the factory gates demanding its closure. On June 9th, the police arrested 130 peaceful protestors, including 30 women and 9 children (mostly infants). Support the people of Plachimada by sending a free fax to the CEO of Coca-Cola and tell him that is unpardonable to steal drinking water, and demand that he shut down the Plachimada plant now! From shveta at sarai.net Sun Jul 14 06:25:33 2002 From: shveta at sarai.net (Shveta Sarda) Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 06:25:33 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] technological imagination by lanes Message-ID: <200207140625.33449.shveta@sarai.net> dear all... what constitutes knowledge? who determines what information flows, what is contained and controlled? does there exist a repertoir of stories, narrations outside of technocratic, dominant, expert languages? how do, and how can, edges, margins, peripheries, in-between spaces strategically excluded from dominant media use, create and develop media tactically? does the present technological juncture provide a possibility for displacing dominant discourses without reverting to the strategies and techniques used in them? the following is an introductory note on the technological imagination of the cybermohalla. it forms a part of 'galiyon se / by lanes', a first book pulished from the media lab (compughar) of cybermohalla at LNJP basti, delhi. shveta -------------------------------------------------------------------- technological imagination of the cybermohalla: briefly, the co-ordinates The Internet, which is primarily the interconnection of many sub networks, is constituted of a community of online users spread across physical spaces. It works independent of hardware infrastructure and with multiple protocols. These protocols do not implicitly rely on hardware specific addressing for transport. Simply put, the Internet then is mechanism that enables communication between heterogeneous networks. One way of connecting via the Internet requires us to dial-up to a local Internet Service Provider. This mandates access to resources such as a computer and a phone line. Every machine gets a unique address, called IP (Internet Protocol) address which consists of a quartet of a byte. (A byte = 8 bits. Bits are the lowest units of information.) A hypothetical address would look like (a.b.c.d), for example 192.68.22.56. This address also somewhat indicates where the machine exists on the Internet 'map' of the globe. Users tend to remember names better than numbers, especially if the number set is large. That is why translation of IP addresses into names, and vice versa becomes important. A name. For instance www.sarai.net. This is the name of the machine that one accesses for information. This name is translated (to the digit form using a distributed database of names and IP addresses called DNS, or the Domain Name Server. Access to resources is based on a client/server basis on the Net. This means that one machine requests a service from another, which then provides it using a pre-mediated protocol. Machine A -------ISP (A) --------- ISP (B) --------- Machine B Information, say any message, is organised in blocks for transmission. These are units of binary information (1s and 0s), called packets. These travel via different routes on the Net before they reach their destination, where they are reassembled again. Certain predetermined paramenters ensure that Internet resources are used efficiently so that any one machine or network does not hog them all. Any machine on the Net, say Machine A, only knows how to deliver packets to the next computer on the route. The router directs the route of the packets. The packets then travel from one router to the other till they reach the network on which the destined machine exists. Machine A --- ISP (A) ---- Router 1 ---- Router 2 ---- ISP (B) ---- Machine B Internet Protocol, also known as TCP/IP is a set of protocols which provides a range of services and transport mechanisms. IP layer, which is the lowest in the TCP/IP stack, is responsible for addressing and routing of packets. TCP (Transport Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) form the intermediate layers responsible for safe and reliable packet delivery. Various services like HTTP, SMTP form the application layer which is used by the user for information retrieval. If addresses tell us the location of the machine, it is the Uniform Resource Locators (URL) that give us the knowledge about where the client machine can draw a resource or service. For instance, when we want to access some information from yahoo, the URL we type in is http://www.yahoo.com/ Expanded, this becomes http://www.yahoo.com:80/index.htm or index.html Each of these parts of the URL (http, ://, www.yahoo.com, :80, index.htm) has a logic to it. For instance, http tells the client the way it can access the resource. HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. This is the client/server protocol used for exchanging documents on the World Wide Web. HTTP defines the protocol to be followed to get the resource. Resources are also available through FTP, gopher. Telnet apart from http. Each of these has a different set of protocols that are followed. HTTP is popularly known as the World Wide Web, or www. It is a distributed information retreival system that operates over the Internet which makes available documents via URLs. Significantly, however, in its conceptualisation *which was by Tim Berners-Lee, the Web was not just for browsing, but also for browsers to be editors of the content they access. On the Net, content (be it a movie, a book, music, or software) travels in a digital language of 1s and 0s, allowing for the copying, replication, reproduction of resources. This diminishing cost of reproduction and delivery allows one to share resources and ideas with those interested, and is becoming easier as Internet access becomes increasingly available over high-speed, broadband connections. What this also makes possible is for the constant regeneration and reworking of ideas and works, for these to be organic concepts, not discrete, static and `completed' units. The contexts - worlds, platforms, forums - it is possible to create through the Internet also provide for a paradigm of creativity and communication. Peer to peer (P2P), for instance. Most Internet based applications, work on a client/server model, where the difference between a server and a client in a way centralises the mechanism of searching and access to a resource. In P2P the client is also the server, and vice versa. In P2P, when a machine provides resources, the software acts as a server. When it has to access the resource, it starts working as a client. Peer to peer is a class of applications that takes advantages of resources - storage, cycles, content, human presence - available at the edges of the Internet, or the links between the routers. Because accessing these decentralised resources means operating in an environment of unstable connectivity and unpredictable IP addresses, P2P nodes have significant or total autonomy from central servers. On a Gnutella network, for instance, you access a central server. This server, instead of giving you the resource you seek, gives you IP addresses of a set of peers with whom you can interact. You put forth your search query to your peers who check if they have the resource and also pass on the query to their peers. Similarly, when someone else is looking for a resource through your immediate peers, you receive a query about it through them. Different P2P networks work in different ways. Is there a significance in interaction and collaboration with peers? What does it mean when edges, margins and in-between spaces become alive, pulsating, interacting? When clients are also servers? When users are also producers, browsers are also editors? When centres are dislocated and resources are dispersed? When diversity and multiplicity thrive? When ideas are not static or `owned', but shared and developed collaboratively? When unpredictable addresses and routes with unstable connectivity are generators of knowledge, sites of narration, and nodes & zones of communication? Making knowledge collaboratively and in commons means many things to many people. For software programmers, it has meant the developing of Free Software. GNU/Linux is a common Free Software Operating System. Free Software is typically developed by self-organised volunteers whose members communicate and collaborate via the Internet. [`Free Software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept you should think of `free speech', not `free beer'. Free Software refers to users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom for the user of the software: freedom 0 - The freedom to run the programme, for any purpose. freedom 1 - The freedom to study how the programme works,and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. freedom 2 - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour. freedom 3 - The freedom to improve the programme, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. From: Free Software Foundation - http://www.gnu.org/philophy/free-sw.html] If a dissatisfaction with the `traditional' closed method of production of software can lead to the creation of free software, an unhappiness with the dominant modes of reproduction of knowledge can make us seek newer paradigms, then surely as users, as receivers, as peoples who are represented, we can also narrate, create, generate and inscribe that which exists with a new, an-other meaning. Tactical media are low-cost media that are hybrid - constantly crossing the borders that define the `old' and the `new', the `mainstream' and the `alternative'. They include radio, local T.V. channels, cameras, wall magazines, posters, street threatre, books, online forums, and more. They are about subjective documentation and reporting by peoples who have an investment and engagement with that which is being communicated, narrated, told; about multiplicity, heterogeneity; about critiquing, questioning; about forging alliances; about creating cheap `do-it-yourself' media and exploiting consumer electronics and the expanded forms of distribution. About resisting and opposing exclusion, and actively, intuitively and practically carving out spaces for interfacing and narrating. As users then, do we have a responsibility? Perhaps a need, a responsibility to be conscious of how we use `technology' as consumers. To be aware of how things work. And to participate, perhaps, in the creation of easy, mobile, agile, low-tech innovations to access tools of cultural production. note compiled by shveta in collaboration with garage at sarai from galiyon se / by lanes http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/book01/bylanes.htm (available online) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (please send comments / responses to cybermohalla at sarai.net) From shveta at sarai.net Wed Jul 17 03:04:23 2002 From: shveta at sarai.net (Shveta Sarda) Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 03:04:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] wall magazine from cybermohalla@lnjp Message-ID: <200207170304.24026.shveta@sarai.net> dear all, Ibarat is a wall magazine taken out by the Cybermohalla Project. Its 12 participants range from 15 to 23, and they plan to print it once every two months. It is pasted up in almost 25 places in their neighbourhood - LNJP Colony, which is near Ajmeri gate in New Delhi. This is the english translation of Ibarat 02. The hindi Ibarat can be viewed at http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/ibarat02/pages/page01.html shveta ============================================ Ibarat#02 An inscription, a write-up A monthly publication from the Compughar July 2002 ________________________________________________________________________ A dialogue We promised a new Ibarat every month, so here we are again. A little delayed, though, because of several reasons - the realisation of our dream to go to Bombay, school examinations of the Compughar team, relatives' marriages, and power failures from time to time. We were really happy to read your suggestions, which you wrote on the blank sheets we had placed on the walls alongside the last issue of Ibarat. Suggestions about the need to increase the font size, inclusion of the names of lanes we had missed out, other topics from the basti on which subsequent issues may be based. When we read them we felt you really do consider the Compughar as your own. The topic for this issue of Ibarat is 'work'. When we all sat down to discuss it, we realised there were many facets to work, and that these are related in myraid ways to every thing. For instance, their relationship with god, with place, with tools, with time, etc. It is about some 'works', this Ibarat. After we carried bhai Mohataram's interview in the last Ibarat, it became much easier to have conversations [for publishing] with other people. Many people volunteered to tell us things related to them. We hope that, as with the last one, you read this Ibarat with affection. Our request to you is to not spoil your own toil. What we mean is that you take care of this Ibarat because we try to search the history of our basti (settlement) or that which is related to it and put that in it. If we don't know our basti ourselves, then the government or its workers will not let us get introduced to its life. This is a result of our collective efforts, then why not let this be the ladder to create an identity of the basti. Don't forget to give us your suggestions. We will return again with another Ibarat. Till then, Khuda Haafiz. ----------------- Work What is work, in reality? What women who stay at home and do is also work. That is also work which fruit vendors, those who sit on tea shops and those who sell things from sweet shops do. And that is also work which people who sweep and collect garbage, that is sweepers, do. But then why do people view different kinds of work differently? Why are there so many points of view to work? Probably because people also see work as good and bad. For instance, people who sweep and collect garbage are considered 'fallen'. People keep a distance from themwhile walking, as if physical contact will cause disease. But why don't people realise that if it weren't for these people, who would collect the garbage? If no one collects garbage, there will be piles and piles of it. Then we wouldn't have tall buildings, only towers of rubbish. If only people understood this, work would not be thought of as big or small, as good or bad. Because work is only work. Every human being works to earn to fulfil needs at home. For instance, a butcher butchers thousands of goats, buffaloes, hens etc in a day. Many people wonder, doesn;t he get frightened? Doesn't his heart feel merciful? But to say all this is wrong, because that is his own work. If he starts feeling merciful, scared, then who will do his work? If buffaloes, goats and hens are not cut up, they will outnumber human beings. Then there won't be any space left for humans to live. ----------------------------------- A day in the life of a woman I have written about a woman. What all work she does from morning till night. The woman I am writing about is called Dhanno. Dhanno wakes up in the morning at 7:00 a.m. At 7:30 she makes tea for her son. And wakes up her younger children for school. At 8 she readies them for school. At 8:15 she collects all her utensils and washes them. At 8:45 she finishes this work. At 10 she wakes up her young daughter. And tells her to go switch the motor on and fill water. From 10:30 to 11:30 she washes clothes. At 12 she cleans the house, from inside as well as outside. She does this till 12:30. At 12:45 she strains out the water from the clothes and takes them to spread them out. Then she rests till 1:30. At 2:00 she goes to the market to buy vegetables, spices and other things for the house. She returns from the market at 3:00. And tells her daughter to cook the food. She cooks. At 3:15, her elder sister come to their house. She prepares tea for her. Brings some snacks. And chats with her sister, laughing all the time. She eats her food at 4:00 and goes to sleep at 4:30. At 5:00, her daughter Shanno asks if she can go for her tuitions. She asks, may I go? Dhanno says, no. Shanno insists. At 5:30, she gets up, angry, and starts abusing her. At 6:00, she goes and sits under a tree near where Bismillah stays. Chats a little. There was a slightly mad woman there. She was passing by. She caught hold of her hair from behind and laughed a lot. The woman walked away, abusing. At 6:15, Dhanno comes back home. Makes tea. Switches on the television and sits down. Her children return from school. They ask for food. And the children say, ammi, we are hungry. Give us food. Their mother raises her eyebrows and says, get lost, you've just come, and want food immediately. At 6:30, Shanno returns from her tuitions. Dhanno says, impertinent girl, I had told you not to go, still you went. At 7:00 she switches the television on to watch it. And listens to old songs. Then the call for prayer (azaan) is made. She switches the t.v. off. Offers her prayers, and gets up at 7:30. After some time, there is a fight going on somewhere. At quarter to eight, she goes out singing. The song was, tum yaad na aayaa karo, yaad aane se pehale tum aa jaya karo, chhota sa milan tha, ho lambi judaai hai. Aa jaao ke jan mere honthon pe aaee hai. After watching the fight, she comes back, laughing, at 9:00. Eats her food at 9:10. Then keeps watching television. And makes some handicraft material. By 10-10:30, she finishes the work and goes to sleep. ------------------------------------------- Work and god The relation between work and god is very deep. Everyone takes their god's name before commencing work. For some people, work and god are equals. If someone hits against something, they take their god's name. What some people in the basti said about work: Maulvi (one learned in Muslim law): Work gets you respect, and work gets you god. Bhai (brother) Chavva (butcher): Work increases when you take god's name. Naresh: God gives us hands and feet to work. If we don't work then leave alone roti/bread, we won't even get grass to eat. Zaibun Khala (aunt): Work is begun by taking god's name. With god's name, work becomes abundant. For instance: some women or men get up in the morning and pray to their respective gods. Children keep repeating Ram or Rahim's name. Old people keep sitting in temples. For some people, praying or reading the namaaz itself is work. For instance pundits and maulanas [hindu and muslim temple priests repsectively]. Beggars also beg by taking Ram or Allah's name. At the time of their exams, children remember many hymns or kalmas in Allah's name. ----------------------------------------------- Work and place In this basti, work is done in accordance with space. For instance, those who make surma dani's, pipes, items from thin metal sheets into which they drill holes. People have started many enterprises in their homes. Enterprises in which women also are involved. Women do several kinds of jobs. Like handicrafts, embroidery, sewing, printing and selling things in sweet shops. Women have mostly started handicraft work and they get their orders from Shakur Ki Dandi. Sometimes dealers themselves bring raw materials. When the goods are ready, it is sold in some market or some grandshop. Cloth for embroidery is brought from Turkhman Gate and Sui Walan. Designs are already printed on them so no mistakes are made while someone embroiders. Women can do this work really well beacause in earlier times it was very important that women learn sewing and embroidery. Here men and women both stitch. Women use the machine that is operated by hand, while men mostly use the one where feet have to be emplyed. We think clothes can be stitched better by using the machine operated by foot. There must be only one or two people who get their stiching jobs done outside. The are many kinds of shops here. Some sweet shops. Some people have opened shops inside their homes, and some of them, outside. It's commonplace now to open sweet shops. ----------------------------------- Work and time There are some kinds of work in our basti that happen on time. For instance, the doctor's shop. There are five doctors' shops in the basti. One is Mohamaad Ahmad's as well. He opens his shop at 9.30 in the morning. Shuts it by 2.00 in the afternoon. Another is of the doctor from near the temple. It is known as the shop of the doctor from the temple. Mohammad Ahmad is known as the doctor from the masjid. There are some workhops as well. But they do not follow a time schedule. People who live in the basti work here. In our basti there is a workshop that belongs to Laaloo. They make boxes here. Eight children work here. Three of them go to study in the morning. They work from 2.00 to 8.00. There age is between eight and ten. Two are in the second standard. And one is in the sixth. Five boys have stopped going to school. Of these eight children, four know the work from beginning to end, while others only know parts of it. These must be around 17-18 years old. If they want, they can open their own workshops. But they work with Laaloo. I spoke with Laaloo bhai. He lives in Ganj Mir Khan, but comes to LNJP colony for work. Diwali time is good for his work. After Diwali, the work flow reduces for around 1-2 months. The boys who work with bhai Laaloo get Rs 800-900 every month. ------------------------------------------- Work and tools Some work can't be done without using tools. For instance the work of a motor mechanic, carpenter and electrician. Even though all work needs tools. Tools make our work much simpler. For instance when we put a screw in something with our bare hands, the screw will remain loose, while with a screw driver the work will not only get done faster but also be stronger. There are some tools that can be found at home: for instance scissors, pliers and knives will be there in every house because a woman's work can't get done without them. Then there is some work that just can't be done without tools. Like a tailor can't work without a pair of scissors, wood work, without a saw. All tools have been created by humans to make their work simpler. Children who study in schools have as their tools pens. The names of some tools are such that they are strange to hear. For instance a motor mechanic's tools such as spanners (pilakpana, churmai ki goti, 11 ki goti), magnet puller and colour pooler etc. People also respect their tools, specially men. If by mistake their foot touches their tools, they pick it up and kiss it. Some people keep their tools near god's feet. They believe this will ensure their work will be done well and the (Hindu) god/dess of wealth Laxmi [i.e. money] will come. My father is a tailor. He doesn't let us cut our nails with the pair of scissors he uses to cut clothes. He says the scissors earn him his daily bread and it isn't good to use it to cut nails. --------------------------------------------- Work and rhythm A relationship between work and rhythm is seem everywhere. When a person gets bored while working, s/he takes assistance of rhythm (songs). Usually it is seen that when women and girls do there morning household chores (sweeping, washing utensils etc), they play a tape and keep humming along with the songs. Decks also keep playing in workshops because when work is linked with rhythm the work does not seem difficult or huge, because a lot of our attention is on the words or the tune of the song. On Sundays, everyone (children, adults, youth) are on holiday and either go out or stay at home and listen to music. There are many handicraft enterprises and worksjops in this basti and from which a lot of sound of songs can be heard. There is a workshop near where we live, where a lot of people work. Their door opens towards our home. There is a staircase there which they use to go up and down. One day they were playing the deck in very high volume at 11.30 at night. We were sleeping on the roof. My mother got up and asked them to lower the volume and one small child replied, saying they wouldn't. Before my mother could open her mouth to say anything, one man got up and lowered the volume. Then ammi came back and to the roof and lay down. Not only adults, but even children like to listen to music when working. A small child listens to a lullaby from his mother while sleeping, this shows that whether or not a child knows about the world, s/he knows about rhythm. A relationship with rhythm makes work less burdensome. --------------------------------------------------- A conversation with Hamid "But I won't give this interview," he said, laughing. "Why?" I asked, raising my eyebrows, immediately upset. "Oh no, you're thoroughly prepared to ensnare me.!" I connected the walkman, head phone and microphone and said, "No, no, there is nothing like that, ths is just for us." "No, I don't want my voice to be recorded. Elections are due very soon. I don't want for there to be any problem for my men." "Oh no," Farzana baji, who was there with me, chipped in. "No harm will come to anyone because of this, least of all to you." Farzana baji, who;s a little plump, short, has eyes of medium size, thin lips, a full, rounded face, wears glasses. She tried her best to convince Hamid, but he wouldn't relent. Insisted that he'd give us an interview, but minus the recording. "I'll tell you every thing just like this. You write it down." I didn't have much choice. Azra: So tell me, why video games? Mr. Hamid: Why video games? Actually, I'd gone to watch the film Chanakya once. I'm talkingof some three to four years ago. I was stepping out of the cinema hall when a shop caught my eye. You haven't got your tape recorder on, have you?" He glanced towards where the walkman was, cutting himslef short. Then picked it up to check. Replaced it when convinced and resumed speaking. "Yes, so as I was saying, that shop caught my attention. There were more than three to four games there. Some many children were playing. And with them, agging them on, were their parents, shouting out their encouragement. Seeing them I thought, wow, this is some game even parents don't disapprove of. If we have this in our JP colony, then, though not play along with them, at least parents will not disallow children from playing. The thought stayed with me, though I didn't act on it. Then I went to meet a friend one day. He had started a video game shop with someone. This is by the side of Delite. I saw that there were many children there as well. I asked my friend how much he earned in a day. He said anywhere between a hundred and hundred and fifty per day. Without power failures, a hundred and fifty, otherwise, at least a hundred. That's when I really seriously thought about it. Children seemed to be really hooked to it, and it could be a part time job for me. It looked like a good mental exercise for kids, as well as a source of knowledge for them. I had some money of my own, so I started this. Azra: So why did you take a loan? Mr. Hamid: Yes, I had taken a loan with Mohataram bhai's help. I'd started a box factory with that. I thoroughly enjoyed that. I worked on both simultaneously. Video game on one hand, and the factory on the other. I employed a boy here, for the game, who managed things a little. And another boy in the factory. And I would oversee both. Azra: Do you play vidoe games? Mr.Hamid: No, I don't play. Sometimes some friends come. We chat a bit. (He smiled). Sometimes I play one or two tokens. Azra: How much is one token worth? Mr. Hamid: 50 paise. This much because people here are poor. Children shouldn't fight with their mothers for money. 50 paise is affordable. Azra: But if it is so inexpensive, why do people still object? Mr. Hamid: That's because children wanted to sit here from morning to evening. Sometimes a child is away from home for hours, though not here. But when parents see them, and the child happens to be here - even if the child's been here a couple ofminutes, though away from home three hours - they think the child's been here all along. They would beat the child. I used to fight with them on this. But I used to follow a rule - I'd send the child home by my own self. But this would happen if I wasn't paying attention. But I enjoyed all this very much. ------------------------------------------------- Some more stories about our lanes There are some lanes that, though they have their own name, are known by the names of other lanes. Like the lane of Bihari Kalam's hotel. It is also known as Bismillah's lane. Some others call it Bangladeshi lane. We have heard these three kinds of things: Angoori: Very few people know about this lane. Often we give our house number for identification. Or say that we live behind Bismillah's shop, or tell the name of the Bengali hotel, Kalam's Hotel. I am from Bengal. And many people in this lane are from Bengal. It's been thirty years since I came here. Then there were no houses here. There was an open field. We cleared the area and made our house. In our lane, a lot of people make their purchases from Nan's shop, Ram Das' shop and Zakitr's shop. We know the names of lots of lanes here, like Allah Rakhi's lane, Maulana Naeem,Kullu, Roshan, Masjid, Zukur, Zebun's lanes. At least a hundred people live in this lane. From UP, Bihar, Delhi, kishan Ganj. We fight, but we make up as well. Specially there are a lot of fights over matters concerning children. Or about incidents surrounding boys and girls. About fifteen days back,a boy used to live in someone's house on rent. He teased a girl. We got together and threw the boy out of the colony.no one tolerates such things here. We want everyone to know about our lane. Here women are employed in handicrafts and making tea as well. Zarina: From Roshan's side, this is the first lane. It starts here, and ends here. Here men are mostly hawkers, mostly of fruits. Women do handicrafts and sewing work. 90-100 people live in this lane. Anita: Our lane is behind Sunil's shop. Many internal fights happen here. There is a fight for every small thing. Sometimes over water, sometimes over children. Fights happen inside homes as well. Women are engaged in handicrafts here. Rizwana: Our lane is spoken of as the second in the first lane after Arvind hospital. This first lane is very long. Some seven to eight lanes join it. But our lane is one of the smaller ones associated with it. This lane has only six rooms. Only 30-40 people live here. Men here work in tea shops, as tailors, in paan shops, groceries. Women here are involved in handicrafts and kaarchob (embroidery done by fixing the cloth in a standing frame.) In this lane is also the facility of a telephone. Calls come on this phone. Mostly from Sitamarhi, Ludhiana, Narela. Many fights happen here, huge ones. Within houses, and also outside. --------------------------------------------------- For our brothers: You wanted to know what we do at the Compughar (building). The time has come when we give you a reply to this question without saying anything. Like you used the Ibarat boards as raw material to burn for warming your hands in winters, there is now a book [Galiyon Se / by lanes] that you can use as fuel for cooking for a whole month. A book in which we have tried to tell, to narrate, to say many kinds of thoughts, reflections, realities. Now you can think for yourself this: how much fun must there be in something as spicy and seasoned as this book. ---------------------------------------------------- Articles, photographs, design, layout by the Ibarat team at the Compughar, Cybermohalla Ibarat team: Azra Tabassum, Mehrunnisa, Shamsher Ali, Suraj Rai, Shahjehan, Nilofer, Yashodha Singh, Bobby Khan, Babli Rai, Shahana Qureshi. They can be contacted at compughar at sarai.net Translation by shveta (shveta at sarai.net) http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/ibarat02/pages/english02.htm --------------------------------------------------------- Cybermohalla is an experimental collaborative initiative between Ankur, a Delhi based NGO and Sarai, for the creation of nodes of popular digital culture in Delhi . The Compughar (Media Lab) is located in LNJP basti, a working class settlement in Central Delhi. Write to cybermohalla at sarai.net About Cybermohalla: www.sarai.net Galiyon Se / by lanes: http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/book01/bylanes.htm for orders, write to dak at sarai.net or Sarai, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India From zamrooda at sarai.net Mon Jul 15 17:08:57 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 17:08:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 'The Laws' vs 'Grand Jurix' Message-ID: <200207151708.57159.zamrooda@sarai.net> Reason to be proud of the Delhi HIgh Court: Delhi High Court finds judgments published in law reports not protectable by copyright in India. Judgments are borrowed from the public domain and cannot be monopolised The Delhi High Court has found Eastern Book Company's claim of infringement of copyright in the CD-ROMs of its compilation of Supreme Court Cases untenable as copyright did not subsist in court judgments on the ground that they had been borrowed from the public domain and could not be monopolised. The case: Plaintiffs, Eastern Book Company print and publish books on law and have been publishing law reports under the name of Supreme Court Cases since 1969. The company has published a software package on CD-ROM including a database of the law reports and a search facility under the name "SCC Online Supreme Court Cases Finder". As a complementary product to the case finder, the company has also developed the full text of the Supreme Court Cases on CD-ROM. Eastern Book Company claims copyright in the headnotes, selection, manner of arrangement and presentation of the judgments both in print and in electronic forms. Defendant Navin J Desai has developed a software package named 'The Laws' published in two CD-ROMs and defendant DB Modak has developed a software package called 'Grand Jurix' in three CD-ROMs. Eastern Book Company filed suits against the defendants alleging that - The software packages Grand Jurix and The Laws had infringed its copyright in the CD-ROMs by copying the headnotes, short notes and the entire text of the copy-edited judgments verbatim, including certain mistakes made inadvertently in its journals. Desai and Modak were selling their software packages for US$ 213 (Rs.10,000) while Eastern Book Company's package was priced at US$ 1532 (Rs.72,000), thereby causing incalculable loss to the plaintiffs. The defendants argued that - Their work was much wider in scope than that of the plaintiff; The plaintiffs had filed the suits with the intent to stunt healthy competition by retaining monopoly over publication of Supreme Court judgments in CD-ROM form; Copyright was granted in relation to an original literary work. Judgments of courts were in the public domain and could not be appropriated by one party. Also copyright could not subsist in mere typographical arrangement and standard formats. The Court found that the plaintiffs had no copyright in the judgments published in their law reports on the ground that - "[A] copyright is a limited monopoly having its origin in protection. But there cannot be any monopoly in the subject matter which the author has borrowed from public domain. Others are at liberty to use the same material ... ." Eastern Book Company has reportedly appealed against the court's above order. 002.140201.05/20/35 From geert at desk.nl Tue Jul 16 06:03:58 2002 From: geert at desk.nl (geert lovink) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 10:33:58 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Special issue on Cyberfeminisms - TOC References: <200207151708.57159.zamrooda@sarai.net> Message-ID: <020b01c22c60$7cf4dd60$a4de3dca@geert> Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 07:44:35 -0400 To: air-l at aoir.org From: radhika gajjala Subject: [Air-l] Special issue on Cyberfeminisms - TOC Reply-To: air-l at aoir.org The latest issue of Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge has been launched - see http://www.rhizomes.net Issue 4: CYBERFEMINISMS Table of Contents Introduction Radhika Gajjala Gendering Processes within Technological Environments: A Cyberfeminist Issue Radhika Gajjala and Annapurna Mamidipudi Thinking Through the Cybernetic Body: Popular Cybernetics and Feminism Susanna Paasonen Buffy Wars: The Next Generation Paula Graham A Modem of One's Own: The Subject of Cyberfeminism Jodey Castricano Congregating Women: Reading 3rd Wave Feminist Practices in Subcultural Production Doreen Piano Abstract: The Laugh of the Modem: Interactive Technologies and l'ecriture feminine Michelle Kendrick Cyborgian Voices: Vignettes of Virtual Identity Kristine Blair, Angela Haas, and Davin Heckman From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Tue Jul 16 14:39:25 2002 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 02:09:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Freedom of thought in the US Message-ID: <20020716090925.65423.qmail@web14602.mail.yahoo.com> This piece by Robert Fisk gives some answers to a question that anyone who looks at the US long enough has to ask: how does a country with so many avenues for expression manage to ensure that (nearly) all statements about Israel are so astonishingly homogeneous. The short answer is: Fear. http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=313235 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com From menso at r4k.net Tue Jul 16 17:09:53 2002 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 13:39:53 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] CarniBore In-Reply-To: <20020709232541.10200.qmail@iname.com> References: <20020709232541.10200.qmail@iname.com> Message-ID: <20020716113953.GC39894@r4k.net> On Tue, Jul 09, 2002 at 11:25:41PM +0000, Lachlan Brown wrote: > > Stop scare mongering geert. The hype over the distribution of > carnivore, omnivore and draggonet, plus ECHELON (which is simply > the three in series PLUS conventional means of intelligence > gathering and policing: - ie 'ask a professional colleague > of the subject under scrutiny' which yields the greatest > intelligence ;) Col Crush GCHQ in Winchcomb, David Sterling, Siwa > Oasis 1942), seems destined to stress the need for more technology > and more European-American technologists to mediate the new > international, global, media. > > Suddenly we are not supposed to be able to discuss > culture, politics, and the law online. Curious that > this sudden end to meaning should happen just when > culture, politics and the law writ globally don't sound so > homely to EurAm 'net culture' and net culturists. > I mean, some of us have a lot to say that will require > a degree in cultural studies to understand, or a little bit > of reading, but the specialism is freely available through > Open learning, Adult Education and also conventional University > degree routes. I doubt there will ever be a string of code that > can decode Encoding/Decoding by Stuart Hall. Or 'H' as we like > to call him. > I mean, the hype about CarniBore is rather like suggesting > that it is impossible to discuss anything on a train in 1900 > because 'agents' might be listening in, or impossible to > discuss anything on the phone in 1960 because James Bond > might be pretending to be the Phone engineer. You are really not understanding this at all, are you? It is not a question of 'an agent that might be listening in', there is one, always listening and storing all that he hears. Whether one still wants to (or can) have an open discussion under these circumstances is something each person will have to figure out for them- selves. This is what this is all about, not about a degree in cultural studies or 'BS' as I like to call it. Menso -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "De dichter is een deur / Hij gaat open / En dicht " - Jack Nouws -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From pankaj at sarai.net Tue Jul 16 17:23:09 2002 From: pankaj at sarai.net (Pankaj Kaushal) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 17:23:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] life sentences for hackers Message-ID: <20020716115309.GA5997@localhost> The American House of Representatives on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers. full story: http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2100-1001-944057.html?type=pt&part=msnbc&tag=alert&form=feed&subj=cnetnews draft bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03482: -- Real programmers don't document. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand. From ragu at asianetonline.net Wed Jul 17 06:55:08 2002 From: ragu at asianetonline.net (Raghavendra Bhat) Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 06:55:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] life sentences for hackers In-Reply-To: <20020716115309.GA5997@localhost> References: <20020716115309.GA5997@localhost> Message-ID: <20020717012508.GA1930@gnuhead.dyndns.org> Pankaj Kaushal posts : >> approved a bill that would allow for life prison sentences for >> malicious computer hackers Tnx for the link. The scenario is scary indeed and if we, in India are not vocal enough about the freedom angle, particularly about what software be used in our public institutions; the damage that would occur from a similar legislation here would be a huge setback. All computer users should be more politically involved in software issues, more than ever before. The Open Source guys should note that they cannot move forward without the basic *freedoms* and their commercial calculations will go awry.....;-) -- .-"".__."``". ragOO, Amateur Radio VU2RGU .-.--. _...' (/) (/) ``' Free Software for a Brave GNU World (O/ O) \-' ` -="""=. ', Computing as a Community Resource! ~`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From marni at thepaper.org.au Wed Jul 17 07:43:40 2002 From: marni at thepaper.org.au (marn*i) Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 12:13:40 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Media independence in Indonesia Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020717120303.00a2ec90@thepaper.org.au> hey all, I recently spent a couple of months in Java, Indonesia as part of the smallvoices project. Below is an article on the current state of independent media in Indonesia that i thought might be of interest. More localised content on individual media projects can be found at: http://www.smallvoices.org/featurelisting.htm You can join the smallvoices announcement list for monthly updates by sending a blank email to: announce-subscribe at smallvoices.org. For more about the project, go to: http://www.smallvoices.org/about.htm cheers, marni. THE STATE OF PRESS: MEDIA AND INDEPENDENCE IN POST-SUHARTO INDONESIA By Marni Cordell from www.smallvoices.org During the Suharto regime in Indonesia (1966 - 1998), media was severely State restricted and subject to enforced self-censorship. When Suharto stepped down - at the beginning of what has been dubbed 'the Reform Era' - press restrictions were lifted, and commercial and government-funded media in Indonesia was allowed to function relatively free from State control. Although stronger restrictions will almost certainly be introduced when the Megawati government's new broadcast law is presented in July of this year, the Indonesian archipelago is currently considered to have a "free press". Under Suharto, in response to the government's repressive media laws, a strong sector of independent and alternative media existed throughout Indonesia. Post '98 however, many independent journalists have now shifted their focus to work in the mainstream arena, or, independently but with the financial support of large foreign NGOs and even multinational companies. Although many do hold grievance with the government's plans to tighten press laws, there exists a widespread belief among media workers in Indonesia that an independent sector is no longer necessary since overt press restrictions have been lifted; because "press freedom" exists. There is however, still a strong community of grassroots organisations throughout the country that work without influence or support from corporations or government: creating photo-copied information leaflets and zines, using political songs and public mediums such as graffiti and posters to disseminate information and address issues that remain to be confronted in the mainstream press. DEFINING INDEPENDENCE While in many countries the term "independent media" is used to describe media that is free from governmental and commercial control, in Indonesia a higher emphasis is placed on whether or not a journalist remains independent from the issues; or: un-biased. So a journalist will often call themselves "independent" if they believe they report with integrity and even-handedness, even if they work for a mainstream news source. While the concept of 'subjectivity' might be something that is embraced by an independent media source in Australia (through the belief that allowing different points of view creates a media democracy), in Indonesia, personally-affected reporting has been the cause of a huge amount of violence and conflict, and most people are very wary of its destructive capacity. In Indonesia, if an issue is presented from a point of view that is heavily sympathetic toward one party, the under-represented party will often express their dissatisfaction through personal attack. Particularly in areas where conflict between social groups is already rife, destruction of equipment, threats, kidnappings and even murder, all 'control' the media in ways that government restrictions used to. The reason for this, according to Akuat Supriyanto, External Relations Officer for the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), is that neither journalists nor the public in Indonesia are accustomed to having a critical press; or to legitimate avenues for complaint when the press oversteps its bounds. In Supriyanto's opinion, the population of Indonesia is not yet ready for press freedom. He explains: "In the reform era, there is a kind of euphoria. A lot of people think that they can do anything; that there is no law. So journalists sometimes do anything they want to, they ignore the ethics of journalism. And on the other side, the readers of newspapers and magazines in Indonesia don't know how to complain (through legal avenues) if the newspaper or magazine writes something bad about them." Supriyanto describes how the Reform Era has left many people disillusioned with the government's ability to exercise control: "if, for example, someone finds a robber in the street, they will attack them. They don't put their faith anymore in the legal system." Similarly he believes that people attack media workers directly "because they don't believe the law authority will give sanction to the press." In the past three years there has been a push by NGOs and media support organisations to educate both journalists and the public about the rights and responsibilities involved with press freedom. According to Supriyanto: "the Indonesian people need media education." PRESS FREEDOM AND PUBLIC EDUCATION The South East Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA) is just one of a handful of independent media support organisations working within Indonesia. SEAPA was formed in 1999 by press organisations from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia and was modeled on the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York. According to Rico Aditjondro, Publication Officer for SEAPA in Jakarta, the main purpose of the organisation is to "protect journalists and promote press freedom". SEAPA Jakarta provides education and training to media workers in the ethics of journalism, as well as providing support and advocacy for journalists who get caught on the receiving end of an angry member of the public. They are also involved in a public education campaign to inform people of their role within a free press, which, according to Aditjondro, attempts to impart that "no matter how bad the journalist is, if you want to complain or attack them, don't do it through physical violence or threat, use the legal channels, and dialogue." Although SEAPA Jakarta was only formed in January 2000, it is currently the largest branch. According to Aditjondro: "Indonesia has the highest attack rate on journalists" of all three countries. The concept of Peace Journalism is also being introduced by some of the NGOs that are undertaking media training, and does offer some sound ideas about socially responsible journalism. The Peace Journalism concept was developed by Johan Galtung, Peace Studies professor and director of the TRANSCEND Network, who first started using the term in the 1970s. Rather than focusing on the immediate accounts of conflict such as the amount of dead bodies and collateral damage, Peace Journalism, according to the SEAPA publication Alert, attempts to "map out the problems: identifying parties involved and analysing different agendas" and also recognises that "nationalism and cultural identities often unconsciously effect journalism reporting". In short, says Lucia Fransisca, Media Information Officer for the British Council in Jakarta, Peace Journalism is about "working out as a journalist how you can play a role in solving the conflict," by reporting accurate facts alongside humanising points of view. Fransisca's position at the British Council has involved organising training programs for journalists in conflict areas, where she says the ethics behind Peace Journalism have been useful. The main challenge to providing training to journalists in these areas is to recognise that the journalists themselves are often deeply affected by the conflict: "because they live in that conflict area it's difficult for them to separate their emotions from the issue we might be talking to them about professionalism, but deep inside their heart there is anger or hatred because maybe their family's been killed; so first we need to offer space for people to sit and understand each other." In Ambon in the Malukus, where there is serious ongoing conflict between religious groups, a media centre has been set up to act as a neutral space between journalists from both sides. Francisca is cynical about the notion of a free press, claiming that no matter what level of press freedom is advocated by the State, mainstream media will never be independent "because the Power uses the mainstream media as one of their tools, to manipulate people's awareness." She says that one major way that the government in Indonesia does this is "by blaming ethnicity for conflict," when often the conflicts that take place between religious or ethnic groups in Indonesia are initiated - and perpetuated - by government policy. THE CHALLENGE OF INDEPENDENCE Perhaps then, the only truly independent media sources in Indonesia are those who work completely free from commercial, governmental and non-governmental support and influence, such as the Kontra Kultura Kolektif (KKK) from Bandung, Java. KKK produce photo-copied leaflets that critically address issues such as government policy and corporate intervention and distribute them throughout their neighbourhood. They work with very little funding and have a small but growing readership. The difficulty with attempting to establish any kind of independent media source in Indonesia, according to one newspaper vendor, is that most Indonesian people have a strong religious bias toward a certain news outlet, and are very reluctant to explore other options for information. He refers to the situation in Jakarta: where Christians read Kompas and Muslim people read Republika. In his opinion, there is no changing this bias. But as Pam, a member of KKK, says, the purpose of independent media is not just disseminating information to a large audience, it's also about empowering people: "Why I don't agree that we should depend on the mainstream media is because it makes us more passive The point of the alternative system is leading by example, because then we empower people by showing them that if they don't like how something is done, they can make their own." A REVISION OF LEGISLATION Late last year there was a push by the People's Representative Council in Indonesia to tighten press laws, claiming that the Reform Era law had failed to anticipate the downside of press freedom such as defamation and provocative reporting. Members of the press community argue that the State Criminal Code (KUHP) already has articles to prevent each of these violations, and that the problem lies in the implementation of the KUHP, not in the press law. However, a revision of the law - with tighter regulations - is currently in parliament and expected to be presented in July of this year. Using the draft as indication, it is anticipated to be much more repressive than the current legislation, with threats and fines up to billions of rupiah for broadcast violations. It will be interesting to note whether the tightened restrictions will succeed in silencing those journalists who shifted from the student and alternative to mainstream sector in the belief that it would allow them freedom of expression; or whether they will head back underground and revert to the methods of Pam and his crew: distributing critical information by moonlight, whether press law allows them to or not. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020717/5fd5c070/attachment.html From lachlan at london.com Thu Jul 18 08:04:20 2002 From: lachlan at london.com (Lachlan Brown) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 02:34:20 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Carnivore: Its Simply Not Cricket Message-ID: <20020718023420.21288.qmail@iname.com> Well, thanks. >not about a degree in cultural >studies or 'BS' as I like to call it. BS? The Birmingham School? I think its moved on a bit from there! (Though sometimes I wonder...) I think an important question to raise is: Why just when the consituency of Internet users has begun to shift from a Eur-American axis, when South Asians, women of color (ie undercurrents) and lists like Afro-Futurism are using Internet to great effect in forming affinities and opinion sharing internationally, and at a time when less than 50% of users are now American do we suddenly get a lot of hype about the 'dangers of surveillance technology'? I do not disagree with the fact that potentially 'packet sniffers' (where does this terminology come from?) can intercept all digital communication, nor that the sophistication of strategies of intelligence gathering which have been around for decades cannot fill in what 'Carnivore' 'Omnivore' and 'Dragonet'- all used by the FBI apparantly - miss in our media and communication lives. Nor would I disagree with concern about private misuse of surveillance methods and technical applications. I think that the addition of yet more technology to counter the detrimental impacts of technolgy on culture is the wrong tactic. And I think Geert is wrong to hype the potential 'frightfulness' of technology. There are technologies more frightful than Carnivore, and these are more immediate threats to people's wellfare, rights, and health. This 'tactical' thinking surrenders the 'strategic' terrain to enemies, real or imagined. It leads to paranoia. It leads to disempowerment. A more successful strategy (one more fully worked out in a range of civil rights issues during the past several decades at least) is to counter through clearly articulated argument for rights, for policies that protect rights, and for legislation that upholds rights vis a vis State as well as private sector. I think this is the more productive way to go. I read the article Geert linked to and it ended with the admission that 'According to the official: "The IB is the only Indian intelligence Agency that has the ability to intercept mails. None of the other agencies involved in investigations—the Delhi Police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)—have the ability to intercept mails. Only the CIA has similar capabilities." 'The official, however, also admitted that the exercise of intercepting mails will present a logistical nightmare given the huge mass of mails emanating from India.' A surveillance society is formed by the *belief* in the effectivity of surveillance. It is not countered by the distribution of state surveillance technologies developed during the Cold War among the general public. That's rather like Archie Bunker's (famous American TV Sit Com 'red neck' reactionary Yank character) suggestion during the hijack panic of the 1970s that the solution was to 'arm the passengers.' I think Geert is slipping uneccessarily into hyping panic over 'technology', when the answer to the problem will require more than yet more technology (American and European technology) a bit of work on rights and responsibilities. The article also commented on one kind of potential use: "Commenting on the issue of invasion of privacy of an individual, the official said: "This exercise is similar to the secret cellphone tapping of suspects involved in ... cricket match-fixing, that was implemented by the Delhi Police. It met with a lot of success. The issue of intercepting mail is being done in the interest of national security." Lachlan -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup Save up to $160 by signing up for NetZero Platinum Internet service. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=N2P0602NEP8 From lachlan at london.com Thu Jul 18 08:18:01 2002 From: lachlan at london.com (Lachlan Brown) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 02:48:01 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Secret Agent Message-ID: <20020718024801.40103.qmail@iname.com> This 'tactical' thinking surrenders the 'strategic' terrain to enemies, real or imagined. It leads to paranoia. It leads to disempowerment. menso wrote: >You are really not understanding this at all, are you? >It is not a question of 'an agent that might be listening in', there is one, always listening and storing all that he hears. Would you like to tell us about this 'agent' Menso? Would you like to tell us about where all keystrokes, all communication, all digital culture has its repository? Would you like to outline a technical programme to counter this accumulation of information on all our lives? More to the point, would you like to tell us about the kind of society it might be where such accumulation of digital culture might be employed to the detriment of individual and collective rights? As I say, a more successful strategy (one more fully worked out in a range of civil rights issues during the past several decades at least) is to counter through clearly articulated argument for rights, for policies that protect rights, and for legislation that upholds rights vis a vis State as well as private sector. I think this is the more productive way to go. Paranoia leads to disempowerment. Brown, Lachlan Brown Lachlan Brown T(416) 826 6937 VM (416) 822 1123 -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup Save up to $160 by signing up for NetZero Platinum Internet service. http://www.netzero.net/?refcd=N2P0602NEP8 From coolzanny at hotmail.com Thu Jul 18 12:48:41 2002 From: coolzanny at hotmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 12:48:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Devdas Message-ID: Dear Readers on the List, Recently, I watched Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas. It definitely has modern touches to it. What is interesting is the potrayal of Devdas's character, which to my mind represents today's youth perfectly. Here are some of my personal reflections after watching Devdas. Sharing them with you. Regards, Zainab Devdas � Some Personal Reflections The recently released Devdas, has been a much-talked about film. This 50-crore flick is one of Bollywood�s most expensively made films. The film became controversial with many accidents taking place on the sets during its making. The costumes and the sets are extravagant, but even �extravagant� is a poor word considering that Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai have adorned costumes weighing forty to fifty kilograms and costing in the region of rupees 15 lakh per outfit. The exquisitely detailed sets of Devdas, which were noticeable the moment you entered film city in Mumbai, have also been created at great expense. Devdas is the saga of a man who fails in love. He is unable to marry his beloved Paro. Consequently, he takes to alcohol to punish himself for his inability to consummate his love for Paro into marriage. After Paro gets married to a rich zamindar, Devdas begins to make the rounds of the ill-famed prostitution bazaar in pre-independent Calcutta. Here, a beautiful danseuse Chandramukhi falls in love with him and in the process, she quits dancing and devotes herself to Devdas. In the end, Devdas dies a sad death due to alcoholism and Paro is unable to be with him when he breathes his last. Devdas, as played by Shah Rukh Khan in this Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, is very much a reflection of today�s youth. As I reflect on the character of Devdas in this film, I realize that Devdas�s passive-aggressiveness is very much a trait of the youth in today�s society. Devdas had a disturbed relationship with his father since childhood. As a child, his father would often beat him up for not attending class and prancing around the village with Paro. To this, Devdas would rebel silently and build up anger within him. Subsequently, we find that throughout the film, Devdas has an angry temperament and in his fits of anger, he ends up making rash decisions. This characterization is quite different from the previous characterizations of Devdas, where Devdas is shown to be a soft and gentle person. I find that this trait of Devdas, as portrayed by Bhansali, will resonate with the sentiments of several youngsters whose anger has become displaced. In today�s society, we still find that fathers and sons having uneasy relationships. Most of us are unable to resolve our childhood emotional baggages and we continue to carry them with us as we grow. Resultantly, we transfer them onto our children who are the easiest victims. In our society, we view it as taboo to confront difficult relationships and resolve them with love and affection. The mere display of affection between a father and son is viewed as awkward and �not so normal�. The pressures on a man allow him no space and he is unable to craft strong bonds with other men. In Bhansali�s film, Devdas is sent off to London so that he is away from Paro and is able to focus on his studies and become a successful lawyer. For Devdas, this is a huge trauma and he feels abandoned by his father and his family. However, he bears this silently. Perhaps, as a ten-year-old, he wouldn�t have any other choice. When Devdas comes back from London, he wants to marry Paro. But his family is against this match because they are a rich zamindari family while Paro hails from a lower caste family. Devdas is unable to flout the rules set by his family and consequently, we find that Paro gets married to a rich zamindar, who has children almost her age. We all know that our parents like to decide for us and have their say when it comes to our careers and marriage. We resent their choices and decisions for us and like Devdas, we also rebel silently, from within. But how many of us have the courage to question openly and gain the freedom to make our own choices and decisions. Like Devdas, we too build up anger within ourselves but how would this anger help? We talk about freedom and independence in our society, but where will this freedom and independence come from when we are still chained in our minds, when we do not have the freedom to decide for ourselves? For me, the highest and most basic form of freedom is the freedom to choose and decide for oneself, being aware of and responsible for the consequences of our choices and decisions. One of the popular newspapers in our city posed the question, �Can Devdas be a hero for today�s youth?� I feel that Devdas perfectly represents today�s youth who are weak and are unable to flout the establishment. Today�s youth are angst-ridden youngsters hungry for revolution. But they feel incapable of carrying out the revolution themselves because they are used to status quo. (Of course, status-quo represents comfort and who wants to walk out of comfort?!?!) Instead, they focus hard on enjoying themselves (just like Devdas who wanted to drown his miseries in alcohol). But how successful are we in trying to run away from our real problems? Devdas was a victim � a victim of his own anger, a victim who kept punishing himself and a victim who portrayed himself as helpless. We can continue to be Devdas�es� and wallow in self-pity. Like Devdas, we can choose to be angry with ourselves and with the larger society. But if we do not want to be Devdas, what is the way out? You would think that I am asking you to rebel outright and go against all that is. No! I am asking you to become aware of your weaknesses and take to find the courage to act inspite of the weaknesses. Weaknesses instill a sense of fear within us. True courage is to act inspite of the fear. If we are to establish independent and free societies, the first step is to change ourselves. We can continue to be indifferent to our personal conditions and to the problems in society. But please know that a society which is indifferent to its own deteriorating situation is one day victimized by its own apathy. So, what choice do you want to make? - Zainab Bawa _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From menso at r4k.net Thu Jul 18 14:39:21 2002 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 11:09:21 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Carnivore: Its Simply Not Cricket In-Reply-To: <20020718023420.21288.qmail@iname.com> References: <20020718023420.21288.qmail@iname.com> Message-ID: <20020718090921.GD70640@r4k.net> On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 02:34:20AM +0000, Lachlan Brown wrote: > I think an important question to raise is: Why just when the > consituency of Internet users has begun to shift from a Eur-American > axis, when South Asians, women of color (ie undercurrents) and lists > like Afro-Futurism are using Internet to great effect in forming > affinities and opinion sharing internationally, and at a time when less > than 50% of users are now American do we suddenly get a lot of hype > about the 'dangers of surveillance technology'? Because we only just found out that such large networks were in place, well, the big public anyway. All the spy-networks I know of are based in either EU or US though, not Africa, so I don't really see your point here. Are you trying to convince me that this is some conspiracy os the US/EU to try and silence Asian media? That these networks not actually exist or should not be taken too seriously? > I do not disagree with the fact that potentially 'packet sniffers' > (where does this terminology come from?) can intercept all digital > communication, nor that the sophistication of strategies of intelligence > gathering which have been around for decades cannot fill in what 'Carnivore' > 'Omnivore' and 'Dragonet'- all used by the FBI apparantly - miss in our > media and communication lives. The internet, as you might or might not know, sends it's data in little packets, a packet sniffer 'sniffs' these packets to see what's inside them, hence: packet sniffer. > Nor would I disagree with concern about private misuse of surveillance > methods and technical applications. Good. > I think that the addition of yet more technology to counter the > detrimental impacts of technolgy on culture is the wrong tactic. And I > think Geert is wrong to hype the potential 'frightfulness' of technology. > There are technologies more frightful than Carnivore, and these are more > immediate threats to people's wellfare, rights, and health. This 'tactical' > thinking surrenders the 'strategic' terrain to enemies, real or imagined. > It leads to paranoia. It leads to disempowerment. Explain to me just how I'm being disempowered by encrypting my e-mail so that only the intended receipient can read it? > A more successful strategy (one more fully worked out in a range of > civil rights issues during the past several decades at least) is to counter > through clearly articulated argument for rights, for policies that protect > rights, and for legislation that upholds rights vis a vis State as well as > private sector. I think this is the more productive way to go. I think it's quite a naive way. Privacy groups have been doing this and reach little, especially after September 11th when everyone who did not want whatever government agency to read their mail automatically became a terrorist. We have rights, we have policies for rights, and we have laws (and now even anti-terrorist laws) which make all these rights useless. > I read the article Geert linked to and it ended with the > admission that 'According to the official: "The IB is the only > Indian intelligence Agency that has the ability to intercept > mails. None of the other agencies involved in investigations—the > Delhi Police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), > Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)—have the ability > to intercept mails. Only the CIA has similar capabilities." > 'The official, however, also admitted that the > exercise of intercepting mails will present a logistical > nightmare given the huge mass of mails emanating from India.' I can imagine. I can also imagine I would say this if I'd be running the system, even if it would be perfectly functioning. > A surveillance society is formed by the *belief* > in the effectivity of surveillance. It is not countered by > the distribution of state surveillance technologies developed > during the Cold War among the general public. That's rather like > Archie Bunker's (famous American TV Sit Com 'red neck' reactionary > Yank character) suggestion during the hijack panic of the 1970s > that the solution was to 'arm the passengers. A surveillance society is what we live in, whether or not you believe in, for example, the camera's that film you 6 hours a day when you're outside, they are there and filming you, period. I've made quite a few postings to this list in the past explaining somewhat how this works, about surveillance cameras, about tracking by GSM phone and traffic analysis, etc. I suggest you read these. > I think Geert is slipping uneccessarily into hyping panic over > 'technology', when the answer to the problem will require more > than yet more technology (American and European technology) a bit > of work on rights and responsibilities. Well, you go explain the US that they are denying me my rights with Echelon and I'll just send my private e-mail encrypted in the meanwhile, ok? > The article also commented on one kind of potential use: > > "Commenting on the issue of invasion of privacy of an individual, the > official said: "This exercise is similar to the secret cellphone > tapping of suspects involved in ... cricket match-fixing, > that was implemented by the Delhi Police. It met with a lot of success. > The issue of intercepting mail is being done in the interest of national > security." All things that take away privacy from the individual are always done for the sake of national security, because then the herd goes "mooooooo" and accepts. Menso -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Disco never died, it just changed it's name to protect the innocent" - Gloria Gaynor -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From menso at r4k.net Thu Jul 18 15:27:00 2002 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 11:57:00 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] The Secret Agent In-Reply-To: <20020718024801.40103.qmail@iname.com> References: <20020718024801.40103.qmail@iname.com> Message-ID: <20020718095700.GE70640@r4k.net> On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 02:48:01AM +0000, Lachlan Brown wrote: > This 'tactical' thinking surrenders the 'strategic' terrain > to enemies, real or imagined. It leads to paranoia. It leads > to disempowerment. > > menso wrote: > >You are really not understanding this at all, are you? > > >It is not a question of 'an agent that might be listening in', > there is one, always listening and storing all that he hears. > > Would you like to tell us about this 'agent' Menso? Would you > like to tell us about where all keystrokes, all communication, > all digital culture has its repository? I suggest you read this: http://cryptome.org/cryptout.htm#Echelon > Would you like to > outline a technical programme to counter this accumulation > of information on all our lives? We can't really do anything about it, besides encrypting our communications or to have them somewhere away from prying eyes. And even encrypting might not be such a good solution since new, faster cpu's are discovered all the time. > More to the point, would you > like to tell us about the kind of society it might be where > such accumulation of digital culture might be employed to the > detriment of individual and collective rights? That would be 'any society' Mr Brown, whenever the authorities think it's necessary. I believe 60% of the police officers that are fired from the Dutch police are fired because of 'abuse of the system', and these are just the people that do it for their own fun & profit. > As I say, a more successful strategy (one more fully worked out > in a range of civil rights issues during the past several decades > at least) is to counter through clearly articulated argument for rights, > for policies that protect rights, and for legislation that upholds rights > vis a vis State as well as private sector. I think > this is the more productive way to go. Yes, it is, but it isn't working. The general public doesn't care (the 'I have nothing to hide so why should I worry' syndrome) and our privacy rights vanish with each mention of the word 'terrorist'. > Paranoia leads to disempowerment. Trying to keep your private life private is not paranoia. Menso -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From cybermohalla at sarai.net Thu Jul 18 05:23:56 2002 From: cybermohalla at sarai.net (Cybermohalla) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 05:23:56 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] about cybermohalla Message-ID: <200207180523.56287.cybermohalla@sarai.net> dear all, the cybermohalla project of sarai turned one year old in may 2002. the following is an introduction to the project, included in galiyon se/by lanes (http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/book01/bylanes.htm), a first book publication from cybermohalla. looking forward to an engaged discussion, best, shveta -------------------------------------------------------- About Cybermohalla Cybermohalla, the word, suggests a hybrid location. It has the open-endedness of cyberspace, qualified by the local specificities and intimacy of a mohalla, or a dense urban neighbourhood. Sarai's Cybermohalla project takes on the meaning of the word mohalla, its sense of alleys and corners, its sense of relatedness and concreteness, as a means for talking about one's 'place' in the city, and in cyberspace. One can approach the Cybermohalla project from many directions. One can begin with a critique of the technological imagination and the expressive universe of the dominant mediascape, and then go on to map a counter strategy which grounds itself on access, sharing and democratic extensibility. One can see it as an experiment to engage with media technologies and software 'tactically' and create multiple local media contexts emerging within the larger media network that the Internet seems to engender. Still further, one can see it as an engagement with local history, experiences, modes of expression and creativity. In its broadest imagination, one can see Cybermohalla as a desire for a wide and horizontal network (both real and virtual) of voices, texts, sounds and images in dialogue and debate. 'Public'-ation modes are and will be as diverse as wall magazines, books, posters, stickers, web pages, audio streams, animation, etc. The present technological juncture provides a possibility - the point is to actualize it. Currently, Cybermohalla has as its physical co-ordinates Sarai and a Media Lab (Compughar) at LNJP basti, Delhi. A working class settlement that is under constant threat of dislocation, the basti is in the heart of the city though invisible to Delhi's many millions. Compughar, started in May 2001, is a small media lab running on free software and low cost media equipment, and is a collaborative effort between Sarai and Ankur, an NGO working for the last two decades in experimental education. The young people (mainly young women) who come to the Compughar are between the ages of 15 to 23. Most of them are school irregulars and dropouts. Their writings can be seen as a database of narrative, comment, observation, word play and reflection.To us their writngs evoke a sense of the everyday that gestures towards an intricate social ecology. We invite you to enjoy and engage with this specific mode of writing the city. Jeebesh Bagchi ------------------------------------------ Cybermohalla is an experimental collaborative initiative between Ankur, a Delhi based NGO and Sarai, for the creation of nodes of popular digital culture in Delhi . The Compughar (Media Lab) is located in LNJP basti, a working class settlement in Central Delhi. Write to cybermohalla at sarai.net About Cybermohalla: www.sarai.net Galiyon Se / by lanes: http://www.sarai.net/community/cybermohalla/book01/bylanes.htm From ragu at vsnl.com Tue Jul 16 18:44:01 2002 From: ragu at vsnl.com (Raghavendra Bhat) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 18:44:01 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] life sentences for hackers In-Reply-To: <20020716115309.GA5997@localhost> References: <20020716115309.GA5997@localhost> Message-ID: <20020716131400.GA1469@gnuhead.dyndns.org> Pankaj Kaushal posts : >> approved a bill that would allow for life prison sentences for >> malicious computer hackers Tnx for the link. The scenario is scary indeed and if we, in India are not vocal enough about the freedom angle, particularly about what software be used in our public institutions; the damage that would occur from a similar legislation here would be a huge setback. All computer users should be more politically involved in software issues, more than ever before. The Open Source guys should note that they cannot move forward without the basic *freedoms* and their commercial calculations will go awry.....;-) -- .-"".__."``". ragOO, Amateur Radio VU2RGU .-.--. _...' (/) (/) ``' Free Software for a Brave GNU World (O/ O) \-' ` -="""=. ', Computing as a Community Resource! ~`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From info at nmartproject.net Thu Jul 18 16:35:35 2002 From: info at nmartproject.net (NewMediaArtProjectNetwork) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 13:05:35 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Feature on JavaMuseum: Italian NetArt Message-ID: <01c401c22e4b$0b081860$0600a8c0@NMARTPROJECTNET> Press Release JavaMuseum Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art www.javamuseum.org (Java=Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs) is happy to launch the first feature in the framework of the "2nd of Java series 2002", entitled: "Actual Positions of Italian NetArt" The title already says, that in Italy exists a "scene" of artists working with and in the new environment: Internet, and further that this growing scene is more than worth to be spotlighted. "Italy represents the craddle of European culture and art. During the centuries, continously came exciting impulses from there which gave the development of art new directions. People might ask themselves, how it would be in these technologically dominated times with New Media, where currently a special education is obviously only is in the beginning and no institution is currently focussed on these new formes of contemporary art working. Regarding this situation, it may surprise, that it is Italy where some of the most active and influencing online publications on New Media and art come from, to mention only these: Neural, Noema or Random. And reagarding these conditions, it may not surprise on the other and, that especially from Italy come some very active netartists, even if some of them are continously under way between Italy and USA, especially New York. This feature would like to spotlight 24 of them. It is an exciting mixture between allready well known and upcoming, emerging artists. Each of them represents a fascinating new aspect in appoarching this new art form: NetArt." Each artist is represented with a selection of exemplary net based art works. These are the featured artists: Caterina Davinio, Carla Della Beffa, Mauro Ceolin, Bugs, ego, Isabella Bordoni, Domiziana Giordano, dlsan, Sergio Maltagliati, Speranza Casillo, Domenico Olivero, Coniglioviola, Giocomo Verde, Luigia Cardarelli, Avatar project, 80/81, Francesca di Gregorio Gruppo A12, Carlo Zanni, non-featured, ctrl, Nicola Tosic, Agnese Trocchi, Limiteazero The online exhibition is designed, created and curated by Agricola de Cologne, curator and director of JavaMuseum. The durance of the show is not limited, but the "Feature" will remain online for permanent. Further more, the show is open for any new upcoming net based working artist from Italy. In so far it is an ongoing project to be updated from time to time. JavaMuseum Forum for Internet Technologies in Contemporary Art www.javamuseum.org info at javamuseum.org (Java=Joint Advanced Virtual Affairs) JavaMuseum is corporate member of NewMediaArtProjectNetwork Contacts: press at javamuseum.org *************************** Optimized for VGA resolution 1024x768 soundcard and the latest Flash 6 player/plug-in required browsers: MS IE 5.0+ or NN 6.0+ From rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com Thu Jul 18 22:16:56 2002 From: rehanhasanansari at yahoo.com (rehan ansari) Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 09:46:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Devdas style, Karachi Message-ID: <20020718164656.96104.qmail@web40105.mail.yahoo.com> Self destruction, Devdas style By: Rehan Ansari July 18,2002 Overheard at a party, a perfect Karachi story. And it�s got Devdas in it. Miss was going home, driving with a friend, to Defence where all homes have big gates. Over the course of the last 20 years boundary walls around houses in Defence have gone up half a foot a year, the rate of growth of the walls is so high that if you squint you can see them growing. If you close your eyes you can hear them growing. She either drives along Zamzama or over the Kala Pul or the fancy flyovers. Lots of ways to get to Defence. Whatever music they are listening in the car is not Bollywood, hip hop, rap, anything black, that�s not Defence. For my money it will be rock, pop, boy or girl band, or house music. Karachi has a lot of land, unlike Mumbai, the rich can build and build and still be by the sea: Phase IV, phase V existed in the 80s, and now there are phases VI, VII, VIII� you can build all the way to Kutch. If you are poor you can live among the poor, there is a lot of land for them too, it is not near the sea, it�s towards the hinterland of Baluchistan and Sind. Spread out like outstretched fingers are townships, and I really mean the apartheid metaphor, of Orangi, Lyari. They have been without roads, water, electricity, schools, hospitals since the birth of Pakistan. (There may be an argument for martial rule if the General gave everybody the living conditions of a cantonment.) I imagine the whole event as if I were in the car with her. Everything that has to do with violence and politics is true in the following story. We drive past the American Embassy, next to it is the office of a multinational bank, opposite which is Frere Hall. I remember I met a friend, a banker, at this multinational and we took sandwiches to the park and she showed me papers that she was carrying, some new product the bank was launching, a particularly easy-to-give loan, that�s what the marketing plan said. In her papers she showed me a section of standard directions, she said, about those to whom the loan will not be given. People identified by the part of town they lived in: Orangi, Lyari. That bench we sat on, under the red platic umbrella, is where bodies landed, flying through the air from the direction of the American embassy, after the bombing. We drive along Gizri. At a traffic light, two Afghan boys approach the car selling plastic rosebuds. I refuse to buy any but ask them where they are from and they say Gizri. There are katchi abadis, the Karachi term for slums, in Gizri but really Gizri is an upper class enclave, region really, it�s huge. Where are your people from? Gizri. Where were you born? Gizri. She has arrived home to her father�s house. Her father is the Karachi success story. From a muhajir family, professional, English-speaking, a businessman, clients are multinationals, married into a landed elite (land somewhere in India, but true blue really). So successful this man, so good with the English language, he was in a cabinet with one of the prime ministers of the 90s (There is always someone good with the English language in Pakistani civilian cabinets, Mushahid Hussain for Nawaz Sharif, Aitzaz Ahsan and Javed Jabbar for Benazir. The military never keeps one. They are the only babus who count and they ignore everybody else who speaks, particularly, the English language.) She is inside the car, the airconditioner is on, so is the music. Her own blaring horn, she can barely hear, the walls of the house so high, the gate so thick the chowkidar has a hard time telling that the headlights are being flicked that he is late to respond as usual. She turns her window down inadvertently. There is a gun to her head, a man had walked up from behind the car. She is silent, the horn is silent, he tells her to send the saheli sitting next to her inside the house to tell the parents they must come out immediately. They come out: the father, the important man, dishevelled, mother in a nightie. Unbeknownst to the couple the mother�s senile father has heard the commotion going on and comes out with an ornamental gun. Father has to wrestle his nawabsahib father-in-law to the ground. Man with gun, unfazed, has mother bring in jewellery and cash out of the house to the car. When he is satisfied he announces he needs a lift home, and that the miss in the car will drive him. They drive to sabzi mandi, the other part of town for her. Before he gets off he tells her he is going to kiss her. He does. She describes it as a �ganda sa kiss.� (Of course, what else, he doesn�t know how.) He left her a note with his name and a number and said kabhi koi kaam ho, kisi ko marwana ho, to. On the way back she takes much longer. She gets lost, somewhere behind sabzi mandi. Whether it�s the fighting arm of the MQM, or the sectarian outfits like Sipah e Sahaba, who murder Shia professionals, or the jihadi outfits with the suicide bombers, they are all part of a culture of death blooming for 20 years. All the assassins come from the same parts of town, those townships that are the fingers of Karachi. Fingers that come together as fists that beat The girl who was taken for a ride and kiss is a filmmaker. I wonder if she will make a Devdas film for her city. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020718/8c5b3082/attachment.html From zamrooda at sarai.net Fri Jul 19 11:59:16 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 11:59:16 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Act Now! Speak up! Message-ID: <200207191159.16602.zamrooda@sarai.net> Dear All The silent majority needs to speak up now. This is our chance to actually do something instead of just complaining about the rot that is eating away at the heart of our nation. Do it now! On May 2, 2002 the Supreme Court of India passed a landmark judgement mandating candidates contesting parliamentary or assembly elections to disclose to the public: Their criminal records (convictions, acquittals, charges, etc.), if any Their assets and liabilities Their educational qualifications Greater transparency strikes at the root of corrupt and criminal politics. People have a right to know; if they still elect corrupt politicians, they probably deserve no better. This directive has to be implemented by the Election Commissioner. All major parties are resisting it. This is a rare opportunity for the silent majority to make itself heard. If we don't, we have no one else to blame. You can make yourself heard. Please sign the petition to the Election Commissioner http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/SupremeCourtIndia_Clean_Politics/ http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/SupremeCourtIndia_Clean_Politics/> Please also forward this message to every Indian on your e-mailing list. From bhrigu at sarai.net Sun Jul 21 02:10:20 2002 From: bhrigu at sarai.net (Bhrigu) Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 02:10:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 4th of July Message-ID: <02072102102000.06508@janta7.sarai.kit> The Fourth of July Susan Brannon July 6, 2002 Watching the fireworks from afar off, I sat and remembered America. America is withdrawing a large amount of their funds to the international NGO humanitarian groups and causing a ripple effect within the donor communities. The European donors are concerned to donate funds due to the ideology that donors have with matching or donating funds that are given from other countries. The American fight against terrorism has evolutionized to withholding or withdrawing funding to those who may be doing work near of in the region where the said terrorist communities reside. The local population needs assistance at an increased level as long as the current occupation exists. The poverty rate in Gaza is 80% who are currently $340.00 US dollars per month. The poverty rate is increasing inside of the West Bankcities at a rapid rate. Closures and curfews are a main cause for this increase. West Bank agricultural fields are rotting and burning in the sun. The sheep are dying because they cannot be fed or graze in the hillsides. In Gaza, no one can purchase fish because it is too expensive for the local communities because the fisherman can't go out and fish from their boats. The famous Nablus soap is piled to the ceiling hoping for the day they can export, outside of their own city to other west bank cities. Olive oil production plants are stocking olive oil bottles ready for shipment in offices and other storage units due to the overflow and lack of permission to continue exporting. People are being shot in their homes and cannot receive medical attention because the medical teams cannot leave the hospital; the hospitals are empty because no one can get there. The husband repairs the gun shot wound of his 12 year old son and does the best he can while the wife cries in panic. The siblings look out of the window and memorize the numbers written on the tanks that are parked across the street while Israeli soldiers occupy their neighbor's house. They make up names for each soldier that goes in and out of the home and they discuss which soldier looks nice and which one looks mean. After the father provides medical attention to the wound of his son with an untrained eye, he receives a telephone call from his co-worker from another city. He tells his boss that everything is okay and apologizes for the lack of being able to finish some reports because he cannot get into the office. He asks his boss to email him copies of the reports and information so he can work from his home in an unconscious attempt to maintain some sense of normalcy. His boss complies and tells him not to worry about the reports. Families are locked up together inside of their homes with their 4-6 year old children who are escalating with restlessness due having to remain inside a small contained area for such a long time. Children questions while they are bopping up and down on the couch or climbing on top of the table, "Why can't I go outside? I want to ride my bike." The parents attempt to keep them busy throughout the entire day and night but the tension continues to grow. Parents try to explain that it is not safe for them to go and play in their own yard without creating fear in the child's mind about the foreign tanks and trucks that roam the streets. A recent study compiled by Ben Gurion University, has revealed that 70% of Palestinian children suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. God Bless America and President Bush. Mohammad didn't help the cause much when he decided to enter into the LA airport and attempt to shoot a bunch of people. Israeli newspapers blasted "Terrorist attack in LA" mentioning the rise of anti-Semitism in the world and how the Jews are being threatened. Do they stop to ask why? I don't think so. This gives reason for the "War Against Terrorism" and "Operation (I call) Depletion" to continue while the world stumbles along in its ignorance. One humanitarian worker told me last night that in the last few weeks during the latest siege, she was refused a total of 28 times so far at checkpoint attempting to bring in medical supplies and food to the destitute towns. I did a little math: there is a group of 30 International NGO humanitarian agencies attempting to enter into the Military Zone cities during this current siege, if all 30 orgs are denied 28 times that makes a total of 840 humanitarian aid refusals. The shelves are bare and scattered with a few reminders of food from rushed and hectic purchases during the sporadic curfew lifts and lack of replacement from lack of deliveries from checkpoint refusals. "The Palestinian as individuals are on their last legs, the people are on their last string" was the cry at the latest press conference called by the NGO group (IDA?) in hopes the world will wake up to the crumbling civilization that is occurring in the Holy Land. The message didn't seem to get across, misguided headlines read, "NGO's accuse Israel of Refusal to deliver Humanitarian Aid." Notice the word, "Accuse", this is a strong usage of the word: to blame, lay blame on to charge or indict. They could have said, "Israel Denies Entrance to Humanitarian Workers" or "Palestinian Starvation Rises while Israel Denies Humanitarian Workers " This is a perfect example of Media's play on words that set a negative connotation towards Humanitarian Organizations that are known for their moral justices and relief aid. One journalist asked the question, "Do you have a security check procedure for your aid workers that deliver the medical supplies and food into the West Bank cities?" Wait, what kind of question is that? First of all, delivering medical aid and food into an unbalanced war torn area is not something most people want to do. Most people do not want to risk being shot at or stuck inside during the F-16 and apache helicopter attacks. It is obvious that this journalist has never been in a convoy that delivers food into a war torn area. The place is a ghost town and all the people are caged inside. The only living things on the streets are tanks, the caravan and cats. The caravans go in, unload their products and quickly leave in hopes that nothing happens while they are there. The Humanitarian Workers that deliver the medical aid and food should all be given medals of honor, for their perseverance, persistence, and bravery for doing what they do. I know the plan, Israel is suffering economically and they can sell their food inside of the West Bank cities to help their own struggling economy. During the last incursion that lasted for 40 days, only Israeli products were allowed inside for resale. This time, the problem is worsened because income-earning capacities are plunging inside of the West Bank, soon curfews will be lifted for a few hours for shopping and no one will be able to purchase anything for lack of money. The homemade gardens that were planted as a safety net for family food are dying due to lack of ability to maintain them. Starvation and poverty are becoming the norm. What a plan Sharon has for his people at the expense of an entire population. God Bless Israel.   From bhrigu at sarai.net Tue Jul 23 08:08:42 2002 From: bhrigu at sarai.net (bhrigu at sarai.net) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 02:38:42 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] One Week in Aman Chowk (Part 1) Message-ID: <200207230238.g6N2cgaQ028882@mail.sarai.net> A few weeks ago i visited Ahmedabad as a volunteer, along with a group of 9 other people to help Citizen's Initiative, a group of Gujrat-based NGO's, with their efforts in various relief camps. Here is a piece i wrote a few days after my return. One week in Aman Chowk (Part 1) How do you make sense of a tragedy? How do you tell other people about it? It is possible that you could try and evoke the first-hand horror of it by concentrating on a definite period or a set of acts of violence as singular events of terror. But how do you possibly convey the everydayness of it, the continuity of terror, as it is renewed in smaller ways, as it spills into the present and the future and becomes mundane in public consciousness. I fear that the former is easier because it grabs our attention. Since returning to Delhi from Ahmedabad, I must have narrated 'my experiences of Gujrat' on numerous different occasions to people with vastly varying degrees of political engagement and beliefs. What has remained the same is that each time I have felt a burden akin to that of Sheherazade - what if my listeners are not shocked, horrified and fascinated by what I have to say? What if they don't understand the spectacular nature of the tragedy? Another thing - the people who organised themselves as perpetrators of the acts and events that occurred in recent months in Gujrat, at some level, also intended it to act as a medieval (and increasingly modern) reactionary form of punishment as public spectacle. The brutality of recent events in Gujrat are now a part of public memory and will circulate as narratives locally, and otherwise, in various forms whether or not we write, act or do anything at all. Unfortunately, if the bloody past of South Asia is anything to go by, it is very possible that the spectacular element of these narratives will re-surface with frightening regularity in the future with all kinds of consequences. Is there any way to write against such terror? There is the danger that if our images and words are shocking enough, they might provoke an equally horrifying reaction. A different but equally frightening possibility - it might gradually further what has been called a "dismay of images". Potential consumers of such images will then increasingly require ever more detail in words and images of hurt and suffering to authenticate reality. It is best then to proceed with some degree of caution. As easy as it is to produce an eminently readable account full of killings, beheadings, arson, and rape, it is that much more difficult to narrate a riveting account of the difficulties encountered in running a camp, in designing an adequately broad compensation form or say, the processes by which people are resettled (or prevented from leading a stable life) over a longer period of time. Thus, in what follows I will try and spend some energy on the mundane, as I do on the grotesque, in the hope that we can try and convey the horror, not just of a specified 'official' period of violence but of all that which continues in the lives of the people that we met. ------------------------------- A few weeks back, in mid-June I was sitting with Taufiqkhan Pathan, the main camp organiser of the Aman Chowk relief camp in Bapunagar, Ahmedabad. Taufiqkhan is an elected municipal official, the Chairman of the Hospital Committee of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. In early March, the Aman Chowk camp had about 6000 people. By the time we visited it in June, there were about 2500 people still there. Most people at the Aman Chowk camp came from directly adjacent or neighbouring areas - Chunnilal Devshankar Chawl, Manilal Chawl, Shantiniketan, Sone ki Chawl, Akbar Nagar, Arban Nagar, and from jhuggi clusters surrounding the nearby telephone exchange. Others came from further off - Haldervas in Khera district about 35km away, Kuha village in the rural district just off Ahmedabad city, Chamanpura, Naroda Patiya and Meghaninagar. In calm and measured tones Taufiqkhan described to me the logistics of setting up a camp, a process he had previously undertaken in 1985 and 1992 at exactly the same spot in Aman Chowk, following outbreaks of what he described as toofan. It was a long, disjointed interview in the course of which we discussed, among other things, how people were brought to Aman Chowk, the surrounding Bapunagar area, the difference between previous instances of violence and the present one, and changes in the character of the city of Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad, once known as the 'Manchester of the East' had a total of 73 large-scale mills. Of these only 13 or so now remain. Bapunagar is a mill district, well known for its fragility and tendency towards communal clashes, over the last many decades. However, Taufiqkhan spoke with nostalgia of the time before the closure of various textile-mills across the city, when large diaspora of migrant labour helped Ahmedabad become one of the most prosperous cities in the country. He describes that period as one of tolerance, at a time when the area was known as 'mini-India' because of the diversity of its inhabitants. Once the mills began to shut down in the 1980s, many people moved out of Bapunagar. In the 1970s, Bapunagar was a Muslim majority area but gradually as migrant Muslim mill-workers moved out, the area changed in character and became segregated into distinct Muslim and Hindu neighbourhoods. As far back as most people can remember the road separating the Hindu from the Muslim residential areas has been called the 'border'. Most present residents are ex-millworkers, who shifted to smaller scale factories and cottage industries or opened small businesses and shops to make a living. February 28th and the weeks that followed, quite drastically altered the look of most businesses, shops, restaurants and homes on the Muslim side of the border. The pattern is similar across long rows of shops, or the remains of what used to be houses. The closer you are to the border, the greater the annihilation. Doors blasted open with bottles of kerosene and petrol bombs, black, singed walls, piles of rubble in various corners, the occasional small household-based karkhana with broken, blackened machines. The Hindu side of the border looks quite pleasant, houses of various different hues and colours, Ganesha or an occasional Durga adorning the front door. If you have a suitably wide-angle lens, there is even a spot near the border from where you can take a photograph - an endless row of colour-coordinated black on one side and an equally long row of neat, unharmed, multi-coloured, houses on the other. Throughout the interview Taufiqkhan's tone was energetic and businesslike and his words were guarded. When he spoke of the riot-affected, they were people very different from him, bechare jhuggi-jhopri dwellers. Only once in the entire conversation, did his voice drop - "I have lived here in Bapunagar for the past 41 years. During this time there have been many ups and downs but I have never seen anything like this." Before the interview I had planned to ask him about the circulation of a set of stories about municipal hospitals in Ahmedabad, some of them possibly under his direct jurisdiction, where it was rumoured that in early March, during the worst period of violence, Muslim patients arriving for treatment were poisoned, or otherwise brutalized by Hindu hospital workers, nurses and doctors. I had planned to ask him other things too - How did he react to the murder of Ehsan Jafri, an ex-M.P. and a fellow Congress party member of even bigger political stature than him? It is said that while a screaming mob stood outside Ehsan Jafri's house, he made frantic telephone calls to the Director General of police, the Police Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, the Additional chief Secretary (Home) and others. There was no response. A group of people walked into Ehsan Jafri's house and burnt him alive. I wanted to ask him, Taufiqbhai - do you trust your colleagues in the Municipal Corporation? Whom all do you meet at work every morning? What is the chain of command above you? Are you being able to do your work these days? Sitting barely 10 meters away from the camp, in an interview conducted with a number of people from the camp and nearby areas sitting around us, many of whom had presumably voted for him, I couldn't bring myself to ask him any of this. Shortly after I returned to Delhi, two news items on www.ahmedabad.com, a local website I have been following quite closely since early March caught my eye: - Indicating that early polls are likely in Gujarat, the BJP intends to organise a gaurav yatra (pride march) to propagate the "achievements" of the Modi government. Pushing forward its Hindutva plank in the state, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad also plans to hold a "rath yatra" in its full grandeur on July 12�.Though the elections are slated for February next year, strategists in the Modi government are in favour of an early poll. They feel that Chief Minister Narendra Modi has become the "most popular leader among the Hindu community in the state and no time should be lost to take advantage of his popularity." (26th June, 2002) - Having feared opposition from their neighbours earlier, riot victims staying in camps across the city are now refusing to return to the homes, apprehending violence during the Rathyatra on July 12, which also happens to be a Friday. The victims, especially in Behrampura, Naroda and Chamanpura fear that violence might erupt again and are refusing to even start rebuilding their shops and houses, organiser of Aman Chowk relief camp in Bapunagar, Taufiqkhan Pathan said. "We have closed down our camp but people from these areas refuse to go. We have about 400 persons who are still staying with us," he said. About 20 families from Naroda Patiya and 60 families from Meghaninagar, Roshanbhai Chawl, Chiloda and Chamanpura do not wish to go back till the Rathyatra is over, Mr. Pathan said�"We do not get anything from the collector's office and as per the records, the camp is closed. However, since people continue to stay here we have to continue the camp unofficially," he said. (24th June, 2002) 400 persons who are still staying with us, some of whom were still in the process of recovering from the earthquake in Gujrat the year before, others who had told us about their fear of the Rath Yatra even while we were there, and a handful of whom I have kept in touch with since returning to Delhi. As I write this in end June, it has started raining in Ahmedabad. Aman Chowk has flooded, so the remaining people have collected in a smaller part of what used to be the camp. A few days back there was a massive short circuit so the bulbs that used to light up the camp and the surrounding area at night aren't working anymore, and of course, the government has stopped ration and water supplies because the camp is now 'shut'. ---------------------- From bhrigu at sarai.net Tue Jul 23 08:10:49 2002 From: bhrigu at sarai.net (bhrigu at sarai.net) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 02:40:49 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] One week in Aman Chowk (Part 2) Message-ID: <200207230240.g6N2enaQ028954@mail.sarai.net> One week in Aman Chowk (Part 2) Our daily routine at the camp. The first part of the day with the children, playing games, singing, painting etc. The second part of the day would be spent in and around the camp, talking to people, sitting in the camp office, trying to figure out other ways in which help from outsiders could be given, such that it would not be in conflict with the (largely local) networks of people already at work. On our second day there, we met Mushtaqbhai during his shift in the camp office. He took the three of us under his wing from then on. Surrounding Aman Chowk on three sides are houses of various sizes, and bylanes which lead out onto the main road. These houses have a wholly Muslim population, which makes Aman Chowk a natural place of refuge at the time of a dhamaal (the word most often used to describe a period of violence). Mushtaqbhai lives in one of the houses situated in a bylane on the edge of an opening that leads to Rakhiyal road. He is in his early 30s and works in a factory that produces plastic folders. He worked in a tea shop through his years in school and at the time of the dhamaal, apart from working in the factory, he was beginning an M.A in Urdu. He has not been able to go back to the factory. "I have been working there for the last 15 years and many of us who work there have been together since we were in our late teens. I went back to work a couple of weeks ago after two months. If you go back somewhere after a long time, especially when you have gone through a period of difficulty, you expect some sort of welcome. Instead many people I've known for years taunted me. Kahaan tha itne din? Phat rahi thi teri? Some of the others looked quite threatening. I haven't been back since." Instead, he has committed himself full-time to the camp office. He explained the division of labour at the camp office to us. That bearded man there, sitting behind the table is Mujibbhai. He is in the dargah committee and is in-charge of compensation and the day-to-day finances of the camp. Aslambhai is also in the dargah committee. He is very knowledgeable about the people who live around here. When the local police have to arrest someone from the area, they first come to Aslambhai. The portly man with the moustache is Rasoolbhai. He takes care of sanitation and the other administrative tasks. If you ever want to make an announcement on the camp loudspeaker, he is the man you need to ask. Mushtaqbhai is a bit wary of the elders and spends most of his time these days with Maksood, also in his early 30s, a second cousin of his, whom he has become close to in the days following the dhamaal. Maksoodbhai and his father are well-known members of the Ahmedabad Auto-Rickshaw Driver's Union. Both Mushtaq and Maksood have been travelling through various places in the vicinity, conducting their own informal surveys, estimating the extent of damages and locating smaller camps, where help hasn't reached from other quarters. One evening in the camp we asked them if they would come with us for dinner. In fact, wouldn't it be great if they came to St.Xavier's College, where we were staying and attended our evening meeting. They could then meet other volunteers like us from various parts of the country and tell them what kind of help was needed in their own area and other places they had visited. We could go out for dinner after that. The three of us left in an auto-rickshaw. Mushtaq said that they would wind up their work at the office and follow an hour or so later on Maksood's motorbike. The ride back from the camp to Xavier's always fascinated me. You would get out of the walled city, cross either Ellis or Nehru Bridge and enter a new country (The Gujrat Pradesh of the Hindu Rashtra, as the VHP board informed you). The Walled City of Ahmedabad is 'chaotic', 'violence-prone', 'riot-affected'. New Ahmedabad on the other hand is prosperous, well planned and modern. Yet, it is here that you get a sense of the pathology of planned and efficiently executed violence. This is where you can smell the neurosis of the people, the city and the state. What happened across the bridge, on the 'other' side, cannot be explained away with reductively rational economic logic - unemployed, illiterate, backward people at each other's throats. And this time it isn't the 'cultural' explanation either - communities with long histories of conflict colliding on the occasion of a festival or a procession, over the sacrifice of a cow or over the use of some common space for a mutually incommensurable religious practice. Nor was it - and this is important to state again and again no matter how many people have said it before - a 'spontaneous' reaction to Godhra. A 'reaction' it may well have been but there was nothing 'spontaneous' about it in the least. Despite decades of violence, South Asia is still relatively unfamiliar with the nature and scope of recent events in Gujrat. This was carefully planned genocide requiring the expertise of politicians at various levels, municipal officials, administrative officers, both high and low ranking police officers and constables in large numbers, accountants, managers, people with an in-depth knowledge of chemicals and explosives, people with legal expertise, capital from upper-class businessmen and manpower numbering in thousands. All of this was planned here, on this, the happy, shiny, rich side of the city. It happened here first in its minute bloodthirsty detail in the imagination of the planners and their people. It happened with the collaboration of the prosperous Hindu middle class that lives on this side of the city, who carry on with their lives, business as usual; who through their actions or conversely, their inaction, endorsed and even celebrated the events of the past few months. The wide streets, the big buildings, the baroque temples, the fancy cars booming with loud music, the posh marketplaces teeming with people are all bathed in blood, and anyone can see it pouring out of the cracks. Mushtaq and Maksood crossed Ellis Bridge, entered the new city and came to Xavier's. They attended our meeting and met other members of our group, stationed in different camps across the city. Maksood's mobile phone rang. It was Mushtaq's mother. There had been police firing that evening at Juhapura and she wanted to know how long they would take to get home. We went for dinner to a nearby restaurant. There was a group of men sitting on the table behind us and a couple on the table to our left. There was Ganesha just above us on the wall and a photograph of Durga with a trishul above the entrance. Jokingly we told them how a strictly subzi diet had been imposed on us because this side of the city had only vegetarian restaurants. Mushtaq promised us lunch at his house the next day. There was another group of younger men, laughing loudly, just outside the restaurant at the STD booth who watched us while we ate paan after dinner. We walked back to Xavier's. After the first turning we saw a group of people, mostly men. Probably taking a late evening walk. We crossed the road. At Xavier's Maksood started his bike. I wanted to ask Mushtaq if I could call him in an hour to check if he had reached but I didn't, because I knew he wouldn't like it. I'd been in this city for a week. He'd lived here all his life. From bhrigu at sarai.net Tue Jul 23 08:13:29 2002 From: bhrigu at sarai.net (bhrigu at sarai.net) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 02:43:29 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] One Week in Aman Chowk (Part 3) Message-ID: <200207230243.g6N2hTaQ029021@mail.sarai.net> One Week in Aman Chowk (Part 3) The one thing that took up most of our time and attention at Aman Chowk was the children. The first day we arrived, we went to the camp office and made an announcement. Jo bachhe drama aur painting karna chahein, khelna chahein, voh manch par aa jayein. This was a large, elevated platform right next to the camp. A wave of about 200 children arrived from various parts of the camp. We played simple games involving clapping, sound and movement. Many of the adults from the camp gathered around to watch and smiled and laughed with us. I think there may have been a note of relief. Here was someone who did not want to take any photographs, was not officiously noting down things in a pad and did not want them to tell their stories for the hundredth time. (Outsiders making quick, short visits, or 'tragic tourists' as they have come to be called, will often come back and say, "People are dying to tell their stories". This need not always be the case at all. Quite often people from the camps are fed up, having narrated incidents over and over again). Afterwards, many of the children wanted to sit with us, talk, hold our hands and show us around the camp. Gradually we learnt their names. Firoz was the boy who would catch hold of my finger as soon as I arrived and not let go until I left. His younger sister Ruksaar and their baby brother Taufiq respectively adopted the other two from our group of three visitors to their camp. Niloufer was the girl who always had a baby on her arm. Sabeer was the boy who would ask me, at least five times, at the end of each day - "Kal Aaoge?" and then add "Roz Aana", again five times, extending the 'o' each time, till he was tired with the effort. Fatima was the girl with the angelic smile who would wreak havoc in the singing sessions by singing loudly and out of tune. Rahim, Munin and Hassan were the bigger boys, who would often help us out during our sessions with the younger kids. A couple of them worked at nearby chai shops. Two days before we left, they bought each of us a small gift from money they had saved up and collected over the past few days. Many of the kids lived in the houses in the surrounding area, but spent the day playing in and around the camp. Some of the houses, such as Hasan's, had bullet holes and marks on the walls from the police firing. For the first couple of days no one brought up the dhamaal. Perhaps they were protected, I thought. They lived far away and their parents brought them here under the cover of the night. This turned out to be further from the truth than I could have possibly imagined. After a couple of days, Firoz, though he didn't talk about the dhamaal was quite insistent that we come to visit 'his' Dargah. He also wanted to show us where he used to live. I presumed that it would be at some distance, which would mean going with him in an auto-rickshaw or a bus. This worried me a bit because I wasn't sure if his mother would approve of our taking him away like that. In this I was wrong again, his house was a two-minute walk from the camp. Barely a kilometre away, left from Aman Chowk is a row of erstwhile kuchha and pakka houses that used to comprise Manilal ki Chawl. What remains now is only piles of black soot, some bricks and an occasional remnant of a wall. One of these spaces used to belong to Firoz and he comes to look at it everyday. Further down the road is the dargah, one of the many that was ravaged in this part of the city. The front entrance is still standing, which is surprising given the ferociousness of the attack with which the rest of it is marked. Further inside is a canopy without a head. What removed the head was an LPG gas cylinder, the top half of which is still inserted firmly into the base of the structure, so firmly that they haven't been able to take it out. Its sturdy red frame still retains some of the apocalyptic energy from the days it first found its place there - it jumps up and attacks you as you enter the dargah. Just beyond the area that used to be Manilal ki Chawl is a line of trees on a small, shady patch at the top of a hillock. If you climb the hillock you can look down into the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, the largest public space in this part of Ahmedabad. Several important political leaders have addressed rallies in this stadium. The hillock continues onto a plateau where there is a small park for children with swings and a few slides. Further down is another green patch, another Dargah (also in ruins) and then finally the main road. This area, prior to the dhamaal, used to belong to the children. On another evening, Mushtaq recounts his own childhood, now almost two decades back, based in this same space. The early part of the evening would be neeche in the stadium, playing cricket. Late evenings, he would climb the hill, come to the small park and sit in relative privacy further away from the swings where other children were playing, and study, because there were too many disturbances at home. On Sundays the stadium would be full, like a mela. Five or six cricket matches on simultaneously, ice-cream, cold drinks, chaat and other snack vendors, toys, some clothes and other knick-knacks for sale. In late February many of the children spotted the stadium filling up with a different kind of crowd. Numbers vary depending on how intensely the story is being told but a reasonable guess would be between three or four thousand people, armed to the teeth. Muslim residents from the area gathered on the road above the hill to try and create a line of defence. Police vans arrived in large numbers and began firing at this line of defence. Their subsequent retreat behind the first row of houses to take shelter from the police firing opened up the space for the first wave of two thousand to enter from the stadium and begin some preliminary arson. Some of the children hid and watched their houses being burnt. Here we are two and a half months later, standing at exactly the same spot, surrounded by soot and rubble. The remaining crowd in the stadium waits in anticipation for the first wave to return. This crowd is well looked after. Water tankers, food stalls, sweets and other goodies dot various parts of the stadium. In one corner alcohol is served, further off a puja is held. We walk up the hillock to take a bird's eye view of the stadium. On the road behind us, a police jeep passes and for a moment, no one speaks. Rahim points to a gate in the distance. Vahaan se Hindu log aaye the. On the last day before leaving, I tell him, Main Hindu hoon. He thinks for a bit, looks a bit shocked, then tells me, Shayad sabh Hindu log ek se nahin hote, kuch achhe bhi ho sakte hain. Munin remembers a number of trucks with loudspeakers, repeatedly making announcements, occasionally throwing taunts at the retreating line of defence. Kaccha Chawal Kaccha Paan, Mullah bhago Pakistan. Firoz remembers other sounds, helicopter blades, bulldozers banging against walls, blasts and screams. More announcements, Yahaan dhamaal hone vali hain, Yahaan se bhaag jao, Rehna hai to Hindu ban ke raho. Videos are circulated among the people of Bapunagar, gifted to them by the attacking tolas. These contain footage from the previous few days of violence at Naroda-Patiya, one of the worst hit areas anywhere in Gujrat. One night, back at Xavier's, police footage from Naroda-Patiya was screened in the common room. I have been to the archaeological site at Pompeii in Italy. In one of the houses there, just next to an ornately decorated wall, you are startled by the presence of a contorted body, as if it were sculpted with coal black putty. An artwork of horror, perfectly preserved over centuries by a sudden burst of lava from Mt.Vesuvius, the shock still registered on its face by a mouth wide open, screaming. The body is almost 2000 years old, but if you look at it, you can still hear the scream. The Naroda Patiya video had many such bodies and let it suffice to say that Mt.Vesuvius was much, much kinder. I could spend the next two paragraphs describing what I saw in the five minutes that I could bear to watch the video. Worse, I could describe what I saw on the faces of those left to salvage the remains of bodies and entrails, faces covered with hankies, tears streaming down their eyes. But I set out to write against terror, not to describe it in its grisly, corporeal detail. The morning after they screened the video at Xavier's, I woke up bathed in sweat, got out of the room and brushed my teeth, crying. After roughly four or five hours the first wave of attackers returns, the second wave, waiting in the stadium takes over. This passing of the baton, wave to wave, continues for 36 hours and the tola spreads to various parts of Bapunagar. In this time every Muslim of any social standing in the area is calling every influential person they know but phone after phone is off the hook. When they do get through, they are told, 36 ghanton tak hamare haath bandhey hue hain. In areas of recurring communal violence, communities have their own networks of 'protection'. In this case that network had been systematically and successfully disabled. How did these waves finally stop? Perhaps the attackers got tired, or they thought their work was done. Perhaps they moved on to other areas, to join their colleagues elsewhere. According to Rahim, military ne aake hamein bacha liya, nahin to voh andar Aman Chowk tak bhi pahunch gaye hote, sab kuch khatam ho jaata. Another evening we were walking down the same road, past the same hillock with Mushtaq. Further down the road was a small, blackened shop without a door. A man came out of it. Namaste, mera naam Radheshyam. Mushtaq gave him a friendly pat on his back, his grim expression unchanged. Is bechare ki dukaan galti se jal gayi. Unhone socha yeh mussalman hai. We walked on ahead and visited other shops and houses. It was getting late and we needed to be back in time for our evening meeting at Xavier's. We cut through the park and another wooded patch and emerged on the left side of the stadium to be confronted by a small, mud hut with saffron coloured walls. This was a street corner Mandir, like many others on street corners all over India. On the wall of the Mandir was a hand-painted local hybrid version of Durga with a trishul. A middle-aged woman came out with a thaali and a diya, she had just finished performing arti. We kept walking. Mushtaq spoke. Champabhen, bade din ho gaye mile hue! He went up to her and she smiled. Arre Mushtaq! Kaise ho? Following him, we walked up to the temple as well. Arre, jao jao, andar jao. Abhi prasad chadha hai, Mushtaq told us. I walked in and almost automatically, I bent down, touched the base of the statue and folded my hands. Champabhen gave me some prasad, a fraction of a laddoo. Mushtaq and Maksood took some as well, with their right hand, left hand cupping it from below. Later as we waited for a bus Mushtaq told us, Yahaan ke Hindu logon se hamari koi ladayi nahin hai. Voh to Police aayi, bahaar ke log aaye, tabahi machaa ke chale gaye. During a previous period of violence in 1992, following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Mushtaq had hidden Hindu families from Bapunagar in his house for over a week. Back at Xavier's we heard stories, very different ones. Neighbours, close friends, long-term area residents participating in the murders of people they had known for years, celebrating the destruction of houses they had visited, bloodying spaces they had inhabited together. --------------------------- In liberal, secular or humanist narrations of violence it is customary to end on a note of hope. To find some story, however small, which stops us at least some length short of dystopia. There are things I can say about Aman Chowk, which would be suitable for such an ending. There is the owner of Mushtaq's factory, Jayantibhai Patel, whom he calls 'kaka', who sent him a machine, so that he might continue to make plastic folders from his own home. Champabehn, a taluka panchayat delegate and Lalsingh Thakur, a landowner, both from Haldervas, hid a large number of Muslim families in their fields and houses and called up Taufiqkhan, who went with trucks to fetch the families to Aman Chowk. I hope there are more such stories. I do want to be able to speak of hope - to write about the NGOs, the volunteers coming in from all over the country, the local people, both Muslim and Hindu, working tirelessly to restore some sense of stability - and say that things will improve. But hope, these days, is increasingly scarce. What continues to frighten me about Gujrat, is not so much the violence that has occurred but things as they presently stand. Newspapers regularly inform us that Chief Minister Narendra Modi has become "the most popular leader among the Hindu community in the state." Forget the actually existing 'truth' behind such a statement. Just for someone to be able to say such a thing without being called ridiculous, without being labeled a reprobate liar, is in itself a shocking commentary on the state of affairs in Gujrat. Having said that, let us also be clear about one thing - it is not that if it weren't for the BJP or the Sangh Parivar, 'ordinary' people in Gujrat would live in a static and blissful state of 'communal harmony'. A condition somewhat endemic to ordinary lives in South Asia is mutual suspicion over various kinds of difference - class, caste, religion, region, language etc. In Gujrat and other places all over India, there are areas and times when lives become particularly polarised. Despite this, the traces that party politics has left on everyday lives over the previous decade have been different, new and extremely frightening. We know quite well that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar entered mainstream politics by zoning in on what has possibly been our weakest and most fatal vector of difference - religious identity, the dependable divisiveness of which has facilitated centuries of domination of various kinds. In many parts of India, we have watched the BJP and the Sangh Parivar tap, harness and mobilize histories of hatred and successfully create fresher, more painful wounds. In Gujrat, this experiment has come to fruition. They have transformed an existing mythology of suspicion into systematic and efficient machinery of destruction. In the process of creating a set of enemies, they have helped large populations discover the evil they have imputed to these 'aliens', and unabashedly mimic the savagery they have imputed. What sort of understanding - what sort of speech, writing and construction of meaning by any mode - can deal with and subvert that? Whatever it is, we need to find it fast. What terrifies me even more is this - what next? What are the other places where similar processes are being put in place? Where else are ordinary people gradually moving towards a state of communalisation, the real extent of which we will only realize after the next apocalypse? Over the past few months I have listened to discussions of politics on the streets and in the drawing rooms of Delhi with increasing concern. The story goes that India and its Hindus have been passive for too long, be it against external or internal enemies. It would seem that the tide has turned. They are now baying for blood. This with a government creating, fuelling, renewing this hatred, slowly installing machinery whose existence we are as yet unaware of. A government that has shown that it is willing to pave the way for this aggression to turn into organised action. We are steadily heading for the kind of violence that will make the partition of 1947 look like a minor blemish in the history of South Asia. That followed by daily lives of constant terror, sudden suicide bombings and a culture of suspicion and surveillance. What shames me at this moment is my failure to find any way to write against this impending terror, my inability to speak of healing and hope. ------------------------------- When the muezzin died, the city was robbed of every call. The houses were swept about like leaves for burning. Now every night we bury our houses - and theirs; the ones left empty. We are faithful. On their doors we hang wreaths. O pardon me thou bleeding piece of earth - The sky is stunned, its become a ceiling of stone. I tell you it must weep. After such knowledge what forgiveness? What defence? (Lines from the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali) From aiindex at mnet.fr Tue Jul 23 06:14:41 2002 From: aiindex at mnet.fr (Harsh Kapoor) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 01:44:41 +0100 Subject: [Reader-list] The way it was: The television boycott (Bapsi Sidhwa) Message-ID: Daily Times (Lahore) July 23, 2002 Main News The way it was: The television boycott Bapsi Sidhwa Once the decision was taken there was an immediate sense of relief, and recalling all the chatter and discussions we had kept aloof from, there was now a sense of urgency to catch up with all that we had missed It was the early autumn of 1965 and black-and-white television was scheduled to make its debut in Pakistan in November. My husband Noshir, who was prone to taking an occasional 'stand', determined that we would not buy a television set; we were not to be turned into Zombies by the 'idiot box'. In those days I had few views of my own, and I went along with his. Lahore was abuzz with the news. Speculation on the miracle of television in our midst was as gratifying as the thought of our inclusion in a more up-to-date and advanced world. But our family, with quiet disdain, ignored the pressure building up around us. The subtle hints insinuated into the conversation by our servants were also ignored and we remained determinedly TV-less. A few years later, India, too, set up its own nascent television stations, and to everyone's amazement the Amritsar television channel suddenly became available for viewing in Lahore. This shouldn't have surprised us so much, considering Amritsar is barely 20 miles from Lahore as television waves travel, though for all its physical proximity to us, Amritsar could as well have been in Alaska - so little communication was there between the two neighboring cities because of travel restrictions imposed by both governments. Now, as Indian news and documentaries from Amritsar began to appear on our TV screens, this chasm was unexpectedly bridged. Although we were as addicted to news and politics as all our friends - after all politics is still a staple of our evenings' entertainment and chatter even in Houston - Noshir and I maintained our boycott. I have to admit it took me a while to appreciate the true nature of the concern that had caused him to take his 'stand'. Being a compulsive talker - a genetic construct that has earned the Parsees in Bombay the title kagra-khao or crow-eaters, I suspect Noshir feared that TV would infringe on the time he and our friend's spent in talk and argument. In fact he said as much: TV would mark the end of civilized dispute and turn his evening's companions into non-combative dummies. He wasn't that wrong. In the years since, the addition of cable and videos have intruded somewhat on the gossip and grouching sessions among the women, and the gossip and political harangues among the men. Being a fresh medium of entertainment, the taboos that attached to Pakistani cinema did not attach to Pakistani television. Where Pakistani film actresses were drawn exclusively from among the nautch-girls at the Heera Mandi, television attracted educated and talented women from good families. In fact the infusion of this fresh talent, accompanied by an innovative and creative approach, provided Pakistan television with a distinct edge over Indian TV presentation and dramas for many years to come. Indian TV, however, had one advantage over Pakistan television. It had reams and reams of Indian films not seen by the Pakistani public. So Indian TV compensated for its many earlier shortcomings by launching an avalanche of Indian movies. The film that started it all for the Lahoris was the famed Pakiza. Starring Meena Kumari and Raj Kumar, featuring a slew of songs by Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi, the film had acquired so much renown that some Lahoris had gone through the trouble of procuring Indian visas to travel to Amritsar to see it. The rumor that Amritsar television was to screen Pakiza on a particular Thursday zipped through the 7 million Lahorites like an electric charge. Nothing was talked about for days. Its songs, already madly popular, could be heard blaring from every house, car and wayside stall. The streets were full of cars and carts transporting enormous cardboard cartons as sales of television sets zoomed. Those who didn't yet have television sets - they were still too expensive for the vast majority - made elaborate programmes to view the film with those fortunate friends and acquaintances who possessed them. Puzzled by our obduracy our servants, who had hitherto broached the subject with caution, now threw caution to the winds and wanted to know when we would get a TV like so-and-so. They huddled grumbling in their quarters, and grouped around the chauffeurs of our friend's cars and darkly indulged, I suspect, in speculative gossip about our solvency. The week before the scheduled screening of Pakiza their service to us became at first startlingly alert and obliging, and seeing that didn't help their cause any, they became sullen and heavy featured as they went about their daily tasks with a lassitude bordering on insurgency. At one time proud of the house they served, their affronted demeanor now proclaimed their humiliation at being attached to a house that didn't match their neighbor's assets. We avoided their eyes and acquired a curt and supercilious manner. And the day dawned: the Thursday on which Pakiza was to be shown on Amritsar television at 7 o'clock of an autumn evening. The smaller restaurants and tea-stalls set up sun-flower colored shamiyana-marquees in front of their premises and hired chairs for all those who could afford a cup of tea or samosas or whatever, and standing and squatting room for those who couldn't. Thursday evening arrived and the servants vanished. Our friends were short on the telephone and otherwise un-contactable. Feeling forlorn and abandoned, deprived of participation in what we now realized was after all a landmark occasion, we decided to visit our television-owning friends Nilofer and Fakhar Majeed in the Cantonment. Once the decision was taken there was an immediate sense of relief, and recalling all the chatter and discussions we had kept aloof from, there was now a sense of urgency to catch up with all that we had missed. It was a memorable 4-mile drive. Lahore appeared to have suddenly become a ghost city, blanketed by an eerie silence. Our house was near the Main Gulberg market and the bustle of the market circle was stilled. Nothing moved but our little Volksy. There was not a child or dog or beggar on streets usually congested with traffic. As if through a curfew, and with a heightening sense of emergency, we drove through the deserted streets to partake of a phenomenon which, after all, was a citywide event. In the Cantonment we were welcomed into a hushed room packed with people and we squeezed ourselves into little spaces to settle on the carpets. We sat through the film. We sat through it with silent determination, our eyes glued to the streaks and snow that filled the screen and the occasional snatches of black and white images of the famously tearful and bewitching Meena Kumari singing on her kotha, as our host, with helpful suggestions from the audience, fiddled with the tracking knobs. A strategically situated youth, who could both watch the screen and step outside when necessary, was in constant communion with another youth adjusting the antenna on the roof. The film suddenly became clear and the youth on the roof was yelled at to hold the antenna in just that exact position. The antenna stabilized and the audience, at one with a city fulfilling an aspiration, sighed, and carried away by the melodrama, wept in empathy with Meena Kumari. At breakfast the next morning our ayah Zorah, looking solemn with the sense of occasion, untied the little knot in her dingy dupatta and carefully straightening a crumpled rupee note placed it before my husband on the dining table. Chappatti tongs in hand, the cook emerged from the kitchen and gravely placed another rupee note before us on the table. He was followed by Shukardin the bearer, the gardener and the sweeper. It being Friday, the dhobi was there and he also partook of the ceremony, placing his rupee note atop the untidy little pile of rupee notes. They stood across us from the table, respectfully, their arms hanging down their sides and shuffling, and Zohra-the-outspoken, who was the usual spokesperson, with a propriety and sense of event rare to her, announced: 'Here is our contribution. We will all give you one rupee each every month till you have enough money to buy a TV.' The TV was installed in our house the very next day. It was a relief to finally again belong to the family of man as it was reconstituted in Lahore by television. Bapsi Sidhwa is a leading Pakistani novelist and has written such acclaimed works as "The Bride," "The Crow Eaters," and "Ice-Candy Man" From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 23 05:33:04 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 09:03:04 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] PROTECT FREE SPEECH FILMMAKER PATWARDHAN'S WAR AND PEACE - Signatures In-Reply-To: <002d01c230df$dba59f60$1e56c5cb@patwardhan> Message-ID: Dear friends, Please take the time to sign this petition in the name of free speech and democracy in India. Best Anjali http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ekta_wp/petition.html From benjamin at typedown.com Wed Jul 24 15:23:43 2002 From: benjamin at typedown.com (Benjamin Fischer) Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 11:53:43 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] 16. Stuttgarter Filmwinter // Call for submissions In-Reply-To: <200207171332.g6HDWFb26905@www.points.de> Message-ID: http://www.filmwinter.de English version see below: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Call for submissions 16. Stuttgarter Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media Festival 16.-19. Januar 2003 Warm Up 9.-15. Januar 2003 Filmhaus Stuttgart und andere Orte Die 16. Ausgabe des Stuttgarter Filmwinters wirft ihre eiskalten Schatten voraus: Künstler, Medienschaffende und Filmemacher können bis zur Deadline 1. Oktober 2002 ihre Arbeiten einreichen. In den Sektionen Film/Video und Neue Medien werden Preise in Höhe von ca. 10.000 Euro vergeben. Infos und Regularien sind unter http://www.filmwinter.de erhältlich. Anmeldeformulare im PDF-Format können von der Festival-Website heruntergeladen werden. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 16th Stuttgart Filmwinter - Festival for Expanded Media Festival January 16-19, 2003 Warm Up January 9-15, 2003 Stuttgart Filmhaus and other venues Call for submissions: Artists, media producers, and film makers are invited to submit their work to the Stuttgart Filmwinter. Deadline for entries is October 1, 2002. In the fields of film/video and new media (internet/CD-ROM/media installation) prizes amounting 10.000 Euro will be given. For further information and for detailed regulations please visit our web site http://www.filmwinter.de Entry forms in pdf-format are available for download from the festival's web site. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// From yazadjal at vsnl.net Tue Jul 23 15:48:14 2002 From: yazadjal at vsnl.net (Yazad Jal) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 15:48:14 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Military Reflections Message-ID: <021301c23237$4c2246a0$a602c5cb@vsnl.net.in> Military Reflections Why We Fight Wars, Why We Don't, And How We Lie About It -Fred Reed A few thoughts on things military, roused by hype about our recent access of patriotism for the War on Terrorism, and maybe by one too many war documentaries on late-night television. (1) Men seldom enlist from patriotism. They enlist in time of peace because they are bored, need a job, dream of travel, don't know what else to do with themselves, want to prove their manhood, or have heard lurid tales about the women in Hong Kong. Patriotism is at best an afterthought. In time of war, reasons again vary. Some enlist to get the service least likely to see combat. During Viet Nam, the National Guard was popular for just this reason. Gutsier men will join because they want to see combat. They simply like the action. Some of these later become correspondents, and go from war to war. A few men, the ones who adhere to the elite commando outfits, carry with them an intense and angry aggressiveness for which they seek a acceptable outlet. They want to kill people. None of this is patriotism. Nor is it a desire to save the world from communism, national socialism, slavery, or the misbehavior of the Japanese. The truth is that people do not care greatly about unpleasant political systems in places they have never seen. Truth, virtue, and morality are add-ons convenient for explaining things done for less noble reasons. (2) Most men actively do not want to fight for their country, and will go to great lengths to avoid it. That is why in serious wars we need a draft. After the war, draftees may find it socially useful to discover that they were inspired by patriotism. (3) Soldiers often have not the slightest idea why they are fighting. Oddly, they don't seem to care. I doubt that one enlisted man in fifty could have found Viet Nam on a map. Nor could have much of the public on whose behalf they were said to be fighting. Few soldiers knew what communism was, other than a darkly threatening Very Bad Thing. Few could spell it, nor did they care. Books were available. They didn't read them. Nor, usually, did the public. Soldiers didn't care in the least whether the Vietnamese, whom they generally hated, lived under communism. (4) Draftees go to war not because they are brave, but because they are not brave enough. It takes courage to volunteer for war. It takes courage, or at least decisiveness, to hide in Mexico. It does not take courage to be drafted. This is why it works. The draft relies on the principle that at each step, from reporting for training to getting irrevocably on the troop ship, it is easier to cooperate than to resist. A draftee may fight bravely. Yet he wouldn't have gone unless compelled. (5) Much of America does not like its soldiers, or its military. The upper classes hold servicemen in contempt. The Ivy Leagues for example provide almost no volunteers. Parents near bases often forbid their daughters to date servicemen. Our grade schools expel boys for drawing soldiers. At the end of a successful war a maimed GI may get a week of drinks bought for him, but after that he just makes people uncomfortable. Veterans of Korea were ignored. Those from Vietnam were often despised. (6) In democracies, prosecution of war depends on hiding the nature of war. On the History Channel we endlessly see the bombers of WWII flying over Europe, to stirring music, amid clouds pocked with flak, turrets blazing at incoming Messerschmitts. Bombs fall, flash-flash-flash, across the remote city below. It's an adrenal rush, exciting, and calls to something deep in the audience. You don't see little Hans, far below and four years old, screaming because something wet and messy is oozing from Mommy's head and her eyes are funny and the fire is getting closer and why doesn't someone help him? Nor do you see the turret gunner with his intestines hanging out like greasy rope and blood pooling in low spots. The anger such observations arouse in many military men is a dead giveaway of their discomfort. Governments know that if people saw much of this, they might not fight. (7) American wars often begin, through unprepared ness and simple stupidity, with the pointless sacrifice of countless troops, which is usually explained as springing from the perfidy of the enemy. In WWI, WWII, and Korea we were utterly unready. Pearl Harbor occurred because we didn't bother to track the Japanese fleet. Having bled our soldiers profusely because of inattention, we congratulate ourselves on winning in the long run. Stirring music again accompanies the congratulation. (8) Officers, characterized by physical rather than moral courage, usually seem more interested in protecting their careers than the lives of their men. They will assault a beach, but won't open their mouths. The higher the rank, the more they behave like cheap politicians. I saw this many times when I covered the military. For example, a pilot once wrote me saying that certain social policies were gravely damaging the capacity of his service to fight and would lead, in a serious war, to substantial military incapacity and loss of life. He then said for God's sake not to use his name or identify his unit. CYA. The same pilot flew many missions over Baghdad. (9) After a war, veterans often dislike their own country more intensely than they do the enemy. A soldier goes to war, perhaps encouraged by martial bands and splendid uniforms, to fight someone he is told is the enemy. He returns missing a leg, wearing a colostomy bag, or remembering things that it is better not to remember. He then finds that people at home have been partying and living the good life while he was bleeding, that they don't really care about him, that some laugh at him for having been stupid enough to go. And he no longer has anything in common with them. An impassable gulf separates him from the country. Year by year as the war recedes, its apparent importance diminishes. The enemy, like as not, suddenly becomes an ally. Yet the soldier still has the colostomy bag, still sits in the wheelchair. He feels used by the happy people who stayed at home, decides that he was had, that somebody, he's not sure just who, maybe the whole country, played him for a sucker. And he hates them for it. ©Fred Reed 2002 http://www.fredoneverything.net/ColMenu.html From rainaajay at hotmail.com Tue Jul 23 14:31:37 2002 From: rainaajay at hotmail.com (Raina) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 14:31:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] kasai ki chali 4 Message-ID: Dear Friends, For those of us who have received the first mail in which i had sought help and advice regarding our relief endeavour at Kasai Ki Chali, this is the fourth mail in that series. This mail is a report on our work so far. We have received wonderful support from lots of people across India and even from some Indians abroad. We have received two truckloads of material help from Delhi and Mumbai and some cash from a few friends.This quote from a mail we received is just an example of how forthcoming and emotionally supportive people have been to our little endeavour. Dear Cousin Ajay, I'm an environmental scientist by job and orphanage director by heart. I'm from an extremely small village way up the (Kashmir) valley. My family was forced to leave Kashmir with nothing but our lives when I was 16. We stayed in the camps in Delhi for some time, so I know a bit what your chali is going through. The camps are the same - the regular rules of society just don't apply any more - people will cut your throat for a cup of rice. Amazing sometimes how we grow up to be so small. It's their fear and insecurity talking though. Hang in there. And remember too - hai lekhon motiyon se keemati tumhari hansi. Zara sambhal ke rakhanna is luteron se. We have one idea for you from my boys at the orphanage. It's cheap to implement and has kind of cool ripple effects. We take the seeds of fruit we eat at snack time and plant them in pots, cans, plastic cups, plastic bottles that we cut the tops off of, anything else we can find. the children get the responsibility of minding the seedlings, watering them, etc. when the plants get big enough, we plant them around our complex, sell off extra ones, or donate them to other organisations, old folks homes, free schools, etc (just because we're needy doesnt mean we're exempt from doing our part). in a couple years, depending on the type of tree, they will bear fruit. they dont necessarily have to be planted in the ground either - people who buy the seedlings can plant them in large pots and grow them on balconies and roofs. the benefits of this scheme are numerous: 1. trees improve local air quality and ambient heat index for the neighbourhood 2. our complex gets beautified 3. its inexpensive to start and maintain 4. in a few years, we get more tasty, vitamin packed snacks! 5. the kids get to learn some basic biology lessons 6. "trash" such as cans and plastic dont end up sitting around the neighbourhood streets or in the dumps never disintegrating 7. and where do the seeds come from for the next batch? you guessed it! :). it works with vegetables too. and it provides a way for us to reduce our operating costs - growing our own food as well as providing a small income source. whatever money we make gets reinvested into the orphanage. start up costs are minimal - the price of some oranges - and it's sustainable. sending you smiles and good wishes from our side! best regards, Pallavi Raina In our last mail to us all, we had updated you about the employment requirements of the people of the Chali. We felt that instead of continuing to give them things we could help them better by providing them the initial financial impetus to start life again on their own strength and with their dignity intact. The money we have received so far for the above purpose has been kept in reserve till we receive suffidient funds to begin with one scheme atleast. We are thinking of raising just sufficient money to donate to the people (without any conditions) who are anxious of re-starting their small trades. We are also planning to buy 10 'Thelas', for the people from the Kasai Ki Chali who used to sell their wares from them. We still have not been able to identify people from Gasiram Ki Chali who may require similar assistance. We spoke to an NGO in Ahmedabad, which finances riot victims on free interest loans. They give loans up to Rs. 10,000 and they have their own conditions: like guarantee given by two salaried officials and so on. We took this package to the Chali people. They were initially quite enthusiastic. We had around 8 potential applicants till they realised that conditions would be difficult for them. Since then no one has come forward to pursue his case further. Gisabhai Chacha, at 60 years, who can't even sign his name, cannot even comprehend all the conditions. He says that all he wants back is the handcart that was burnt during the riots, so that he can start selling titbits again, and to live with dignity. While working on that line, the trucks from Bombay and Delhi reached Ahmedabad. We transported all the stock to a room at the chali that has become our unofficial office. It took us quiet a while to sort out just the 16 plastic boris from Goonj/ Delhi and lots of Potli's and assorted bags of cloths from Mumbai. The bori's contained cloth and utensils. So far we distributed to 60 households of KASAI KI CHALI (KKC) 1. Clothes to men, women, young people and children 2. Notebooks. 3. Bedsheets 4. Towels 5. Degchi and Thali 6. stove 7. pressure cooker 8. tawa 9. bucket 10.mug 11. Footwear to children only Some cloths are still left to distribute There is still the Bombay ka maal that has to be opened, sorted out and distributed. We will keep this stuff for the people of Gasi Ram ki Chali (GRC) But what really depress-es us here is the petty fights that go on in the Chali, which tend to get out of hand. The Islamic Relief Committee, which was rebuilding the houses had in fact left their re-construction work mid way and gone away in a huff. At the time of writing this report they have returned. The policy of the committee is that, if the people have received good compensation cheques, then they should pool in some money from that towards rebuilding their houses. Perhaps it makes perfect sense. Some households in Kasai ki Chali have got cheques of up to 50,000, but they made sure the committee did not know about it. But, sooner rather than later it reached the ears of the committee that Kasai ki Chali had got good cheques. Though by then they had finished more than half the houses free of cost, they started asking the rest to pool in a certain percentage of their compensation money. Nobody else in the Chali wanted to pay. Who had leaked the news on to the Committee regarding the cheques? Old rivalries started surfacing. Fights broke out regularly. Men, women alike started giving colourful galis to their erstwhile friends. The Committee walked away. 3- 4 badly damaged, burnt and broken down houses were still left unbuilt. Whose fault is it? We don't know either. We don't know whether we can judge them for wanting to keep as much of the money they got for themselves. We don't know whether we can blame the Committee for wanting people who have got Rs 50,000 as compensation to pay up a little. The atmosphere in the chali is full of mistrust and bottled up anger. Naseema Ben (she came to the Chali in 1950 from a village in Haryana, after having seen the partition riots) says, "All this mistrust started only after the recent carnage. "These people, most of them at least, were born here. They grew up here, playing with each other, fighting with each other. They know each other well. Then why would they mistrust each other so much over a thousand rupees or even over a UNICEF kit with soaps and bed sheets?" (Which they still haven't got, by the way) Their anger right now may not be so much against the 'talwar' wielding Hindu as against those of their own who came to help them rebuild their homes and now demand a part of their compensation money. We are treading slowly here, trying not to step on any toes. We are distributing things with caution. We are making an unashamed big public show of how fair/ impartial we are!!!!!! They have to sign if they get their share. If they do not want hand me downs, and allow that to be given away to some body else, they still have to sign. Some of the children of the Chali are still sitting at home. They are unable to go to their old schools because of fear. Their admission in new schools in Muslim dominated areas is still to take place. We do not know how we can help here. This is where Kasai ki Chali is now. As we had apprehended in our first mail to you all, "The real problems are expected to start now, when people start going back to their homes." Perhaps Kasai ki chali is happening in all the affected Muslim Localities of Gujarat. Perhaps we are only over reacting to what we keep hearing about other places in Ahmedabad. As for Gasiram ki Chali, things are even more complicated there. The people of this Chali are still living in the Behrampura camp. They have been in the camp for 5 months now. At the entrance to their Chali, there now stands an illegal pan shop, as if it had always been there. The tensions within the people of the chali are now very visible even to outsiders like us. There is one Sharifaben, from the Chali who is employed by an NGO. She has been trying hard to get the pan shop removed. She has spoken to every one from KPS Gill to every lower rung officer in the collector's office. Everyday they come back with definite assurances that the illegal Pan shop will be demolished by that evening. Till the writing of this mail, the Pan shop still stood there, blocking the entry of its rightful residents. Sharifaben says, "I am working day in and day out for the people of my chali, but they did not even raise the issue of getting me the Red Cross kit, which everybody got but me and 4 other people from my Chali." The Chali Men say, " What the hell, isn't she earning money in the bargain? Who is she helping? Herself? Or the people of her Chali?" They fight over everything including kits, ration cards, surveys and cheques. The inner violence that is surfacing now scares us. We wonder about the people of Naroda Patia, who have actually seen their family being killed. When will their violence surface? In what form? Meanwhile we hope, and we continue sorting out notebooks/ pens/ crayons/ toys/ bed sheets etc, cloths etc; One problem we face here is; if there are only 16 bed sheets how do we distribute them? It might end up not being distributed at all. Who are we to decide which 16 people get what we have to give? When you send stuff, as far as possible, please try to send at least 60 (for Kasai Ki Chali) or 46 (for Gasiram ki Chali) so that we can distribute the same to every household, without any discrimination. Things received so far: From announcements-request at sarai.net Wed Jul 24 09:55:46 2002 From: announcements-request at sarai.net (announcements-request at sarai.net) Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 06:25:46 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcements digest, Vol 1 #71 - 1 msg Message-ID: <20020724042546.6957.2490.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> Send Announcements mailing list submissions to announcements at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announcements-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at announcements-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announcements digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Bridges Call for Papers (Monica Narula) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 16:14:48 +0530 To: announcements at sarai.net From: Monica Narula Subject: [Announcements] Bridges Call for Papers Below you will find a call for papers for the Bridges Summit II, which will be held at The Banff Centre October 4-6, 2002. The deadline for submission is July 22. We hope that you will post and distribute the call to interested colleagues and perhaps submit an abstract (just 300 words). As the deadline is fast approaching, and you are now just receiving this, please contact ford a couple of days extension. The first BRIDGES Consortium was held in 2001 in Los Angeles. It brought together top experts from educational, research and funding institutions and the private sector, as well as independent artists, technologists, and scientists, to explore interdisciplinary collaboration between art, culture, science and technology. This year, it is the turn of the BNMI to welcome this international forum. The BRIDGES Consortium works from the belief that the great challenge of convergence is not technology, but communication between people. It pinpoints collaboration itself as a skill to be identified, studied, and learned, and proposes practical strategies for including it as a vital component in education, creation and research. It identifies best practices, amplifies networks and provides a means of communication for those engaged in the reality of collaborative research. Differences in work styles, priorities, language usage and invention, communication styles, educational principles, institutional frameworks, temperaments, and even fundamental values have the potential to become either obstacles or stimulants to effective collaboration. And creating with ever-more complex technology requires greater specialization as well as better collaboration between technicians and creators. The purpose of the First Summit was to establish the need and role for BRIDGES in the culture, science and technology landscape. In Banff, we will expand the cross-disciplinary realm to include social sciences and humanities researchers who are partners in culture and science collaboration. The summit will result in an on-line document accessible for use by anyone working in the culture, science and technology area, and in the building of an active community engaged in ongoing initiatives that support cross-disciplinary work. For the results of our First Summit, please check our web site at: www.annenberg.edu/BRIDGES For more information and to submit an abstract please contact: Janet Anderson Bridges II Coordinator Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) The Banff Centre Box 1020, Station 40 Banff, AB, T1L 1H5 Phone: 1-403-762-6282 Fax: 1-403-762-6665 www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi CALL FOR PAPERS BRIDGES II: COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, CONVERGENCE October 4-6, 2002 The Banff Centre, Banff New Media Institute, & The University of Calgary in collaboration with the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California. The first BRIDGES Consortium was held in 2001 in Los Angeles. It brought together artists, technologists, and scientists, top experts from educational, research and funding institutions and the private sector, to explore interdisciplinary collaboration between art, culture, science and technology. At the BRIDGES II Consortium we plan to expand the cross-disciplinary realm to include social sciences and humanities researchers who are partners in culture and science collaboration. This year, BRIDGES comes to Canada and will be held at the Banff New Media Institute. We hope to make it a truly international event. As well as a number of keynote speakers, we invite you to join BRIDGES II, either as the presenter of a paper or to participate in the consortium's scheduled discussions of collaboration as a form of knowledge and a set of skills to be identified, studied, and learned. Through a number of different session formats, including break-out groups involving all consortium delegates, we wish to identify best practices, amplify networks, and provide a means of communication for those engaged in the reality of collaborative research. Difference in work styles, priorities, language usage and invention, communication styles, educational principles, institutional frameworks, temperaments, and even fundamental values have the potential to become either obstacles or stimulants to effective collaboration. And creating with ever-more complex technology requires greater specialization as well as better collaboration between technicians and creators. Issues of access are critical, as we look at international challenges and regional discrepancies. We welcome submissions of proposals for 20 minute papers for the following panels (suggested approaches are given in the questions following the panel titles, but proposed papers need not be restricted to these areas): Collaborative Methods: What can we learn from collaboration in science, in arts, in social sciences and humanities that we can apply across these disciplinary areas? What can learn from studying the research process as much as the outcomes of research? The Ethics of Collaboration: What are the ethics of collaboration between science and art? Social sciences and art? How can we ensure mutual respect? How do projects shift depending on who is leading the research? Policy & Collaboration: What policies exist, are emerging, and are needed to support collaboration? What policies and practices do we need on the international front? What assumptions and ideas lie behind institutional policies? What are the implications for training the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers? Who is excluded from policy making? What are the incentives for young researchers and artists to collaborate? Collaboration & Gender: How is collaboration gendered? Is it read as feminine? How does it intrude on science hierarchy? How does it intrude on art hierarchy? Who is blocked from leading projects? What are the biases surrounding this? Where Does Art & Science Collaboration fit in a period of Global Crisis & War: What examples can we draw from history? What circumstances are different in today's historical moment? How do developments in new technologies inflect our understanding and our experience of global crisis and war? Digital Archives & Databases for Collaboration: What are effective models for networks? What are the access issues? How do we understand virtual and actual presence in the design of archives and/or databases?) We will also have two showcases: A festival of new media works or documentation AND a show and tell of tools that enable collaboration. � 300-word abstracts for proposed papers � one page new media and tools descriptions, with URL's, should be sent NO LATER THAN JULY 15, 2002 to: Sara Diamond & Susan Bennett Convenors, BRIDGES II C/o Janet Anderson Banff New Media Institute The Banff Centre, Banff AB, T1L 1H5 Phone: 1-403-762-6282 Fax: 1-403-762-6665 Email: janet_anderson at banffcentre.ca For further information about BRIDGES II, contact Janet Anderson, Project Coordinator at the above contact information. For the results of BRIDGES I, please check our website at: www.annenberg.edu/BRIDGES -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announcements mailing list Announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements End of Announcements Digest From slc at publicus.net Thu Jul 25 00:03:59 2002 From: slc at publicus.net (Steven Clift) Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 13:33:59 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] E-Democracy Links, UK Govt E-Democracy Report and more . Message-ID: <3D3EACC7.25205.49BB6E2@localhost> E-Democracy Links, UK Government E-Democracy Report and more ... Over the last year, governments around the world have started to explore "e-democracy" policies and applications that complement their initial focus on e-government services. This is an important trend to follow and requires civic activity from the local level on up around the world. Below are some key resources to help you explore e-democracy-related issues. 1. New E-Democracy Links Flyer A simple two-page flyer with links to the top "E-Democracy Resources" is now available in HTML, PDF, or Word format. The flyer may be redistributed in print at conferences and other events. Access the flyer at: http://www.publicus.net/articles/edemresources.html 2. UK Government Releases Major E-Democracy Paper, Host Online Consultation The UK national government recently released a major paper on e-democracy titled, "In the service of democracy." This is the major e-democracy event of the year and will likely spawn similar policy development and e-democracy projects in other nations. To access the report and online consultation options, see: http://www.edemocracy.gov.uk To download their full 61 page, 1MB document in PDF, see: http://www.edemocracy.gov.uk/downloads/e-Democracy.pdf 3. Democracies Online Newswire - E-mail Announcement List Now with 2500 members, DO-WIRE is the place for primary source announcements related to democracy, politics, government and information and communications technologies. Since 1998 this moderated e-list has focused on the use of ICTs in governance and community (not on the politics or regulation of technology). To subscribe (no more than seven messages a week) to this free public service, visit: http://www.e-democracy.org/do See the sample subject lines below. 4. Other recent articles/resources from Steven Clift - http://publicus.net Online Consultations and Events - Top Ten Tips for Government and Civic Hosts http://www.publicus.net/articles/consult.html The Future of E-Democracy - The 50 Year Plan http://www.publicus.net/articles/future.html Democracies Online Message Archive http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire at tc.umn.edu/ ... including, additional UK e-democracy policy links http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire at tc.umn.edu/msg00507.html Other sample DO-WIRE subject lines: [DW] Young Voters and ICTs - 3 UK Reports [DW] Major UK e-Democracy Consultation Paper Released [DW] Using Online Tools to Track Campaign Finance [DW] UK Fax Machine Uprising - BBC [DW] "Information Commons" - Reports, Articles, and Legislation [DW] Democracy, Freedom & Internet Conf - European Parliament [DW] Global E-Gov Survey, Internet Stats [DW] Broadband PewInternet, S Korea Broadband E-Democracy [DW] Evidence-Based Governance in the Electronic Age [DW] Texting and Lobbying - Leading UK Example [DW] Web gives a voice to Iranian women - BBC [DW] Forum for European e-Public Services - e-Forum [DW] Ventura Not Running, MN Election Links, US Senate Race [DW] Mobile E-mail and Canadian Liberal Party Politics [DW] Online Voting Articles and Links - New Resource [DW] Tunisian Online Journalist/Forum Host Jailed Please keep me informed of e-democracy-related happenings in your community and nation so I can continue to pass on the good word to those around the world working to make a difference with ICTs in everyday politics and democracy. Send your DO-WIRE submissions to: clift at publicus.net Sincerely, Steven Clift http://www.publicus.net Democracies Online http://www.e-democracy.org/do From yazadjal at vsnl.net Thu Jul 25 17:43:08 2002 From: yazadjal at vsnl.net (Yazad Jal) Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 17:43:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Hamas Kills Its Own Message-ID: <02bf01c233d4$af804e60$223fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> HAMAS KILLS ITS OWN John Podhoretz http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/53201.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- July 24, 2002 -- THERE'S no ambiguity regarding the responsibility for the horrible deaths incurred by the Israeli attack on one of the world's worst terrorists. The responsibility lies with the dead terrorist himself, Salah Shehada, and with the evildoing gang called Hamas that he helped to start and run. Don't take it from me. Take it from international law - specifically, from the text of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. The Fourth Geneva Convention goes into great and elaborate detail about how to assign fault when military activities take place in civilian areas. Those who are actually fighting the war are not considered "protected persons." Only civilians are granted the status of "protected persons" whose rights cannot be violated with impunity. The Fourth Geneva Convention convicts Hamas and Salah Shehada in one sentence. That sentence makes up the entirety of Part 3, Article 1, Section 28. It reads: "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." This sentence appears in the Fourth Geneva Convention precisely to deal with situations like the ones the Israelis faced. Here's how. The Jewish state is at war with Hamas and Palestinian militant organizations wreaking terrorist havoc. Hamas is at war with Israel. But instead of separating themselves from the general population in military camps and wearing uniforms, as required by international law, Hamas members and other Palestinian terrorists try to use civilians - the "protected persons" mentioned in 3:1:28 - as living camouflage. To prevent such a thing from happening, international law explicitly gives Israel the right to conduct military operations against military targets under these circumstances. Again, let's check out that 3:1:28 sentence: "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." There were plenty of "protected persons" around the home of the Hamas leader on Tuesday. He wanted it that way: Salah Shehada chose to live in an apartment house in Gaza City with his family and hundreds of others around him so that they would serve as human shields. And because Salah Shehada did that, he's responsible for what happens to them. That's what the very next sentence of the Fourth Geneva Convention says: "The party to the conflict in whose hands protected persons may be is responsible for the treatment accorded to them by its agents." Let's translate: The "party to the conflict" here is Hamas, or more specifically, Salah Shehada. Because Salah Shehada chose to live in a civilian setting, the "protected persons" are deemed to be "in his hands." And since they are in his hands, Salah Shehada "is responsible for the treatment accorded to them." We can argue about whether the killing of Salah Shehada was a prudent act. The White House clearly thinks it wasn't. We can argue about whether assassinations of key terrorist leaders stops terrorism. The Israelis clearly think they do, and the slowdown in attacks seems to be a confirmation of that. But we can't argue about who's responsible for the 15 deaths and 100-plus injuries in the Gaza City attack on Tuesday. The responsible party is Hamas. The responsible party is Salah Shehada, who was already responsible for hundreds of deaths for which he was gleefully proud. May he rot in Hell. E-mail: podhoretz at nypost.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020725/54ac1588/attachment.html From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Jul 25 18:22:20 2002 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 18:22:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Report on No Border Camp Message-ID: <02072518222000.07316@sweety.sarai.kit> Dear all on the Reader List (apologies for crossposting to those on the Nettime list) This is a report from Geert Lovink at a NO BORDER CAMP organised at Strasbourg, (ongoing), that was posted recently on Nettime. I think it points to an interesting intersection of non statist political actions and processes with an alternative media culture. I spent a couple of days at this camp earlier this week and will write a report to the list soon, but I thought it would be of interest to people on this list to read Geerts report before that. Cheers Shuddha ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: first report from the strasbourg no border camp Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 21:54:47 +1000 From: "geert lovink" To: "nettime-l" Dear nettimers, a brief hallo from the No Border camp in Strasbourg, on the left bank of the Rhine, on French territory, looking at the German side of the river. I arrived yesterday afternoon. There are between 2000-3000 activists here from all over Europe, not just German or French, but also large contigents of Italians, Spanish, Dutch and English. It is amazing to see the how the no border camp concept has grown since the first one took place in 1998 (see my reports on nettime, August 1998 and another one from August 1999). The idea of the no border camp grew out of the (German) No One Is Illegal campaign, which was launched at Documenta X in July 1997 (inspired by the French Sans Papiers movement). There are now a multitude of border camps taking place all over Europe and beyond, for instance Tijuana/Mexico and Woomera/Australia (www.woomera2002.com). The understanding of what borders are and where they should be located has emerged from actual borders of nation states to all sorts of borders such as detention centres, international airports and now, here in Strasbourg, the SIS European central police computer. The camp here in Strasbourg started a few days ago. Today there is a demonstration at the International Court for Human Rights. The big demonstration is this Saturday and will go to the place where the central European mainframe computer is located that registers all foreigners, refugees, migrants etc that (try to) enter the Schengen fortress of Europe. The presence of independent media on the camp has exploded in a spectacular way over the last few years. I am now sitting in the radio tent which has a 50 watt transmitter and netcasts simultaneously, 24 hours a day. There is a double DSL connection (landline), and a wireless WiFi network. The ASCII group from Amsterdam, together with lots of other net activist groups is offering public access terminals in a special tent. There are a great number of video groups, for instance AKKRAAK from Berlin and Organic Chaos (www.organicchaos.org). There will be a few workshops related to tactical media, net activism, and a debate how to link the freedom of movement with the freedom of communication (see: www.dsec.info). The Austrian Publix Theatre Caravan/NoBorder is here as well with their impressive doubledecker bus (http://zone.noborder.org/x11/templ/index.php). The whole media zone here at the camp has been coined 'Sillicon Valley', a somewhat ironical/provocative term because there is some resistance amongst activists against the independent media initiatives. Anti-media elements have accused the net activists of 'sheltering' mainstream journalists. There is a fierce debate going on at the moment about the presence of cameras and microphones. If you would like to follow what is going on here, there are many sites to chose from. There is also a lot of reporting done in various languages (English, French, German, Spanish) on the www.indymedia.org sites. General site: www.noborder.org Strasbourg camp: http://www.noborder.org/strasbourg/index.php Program: http://www.noborder.org/strasbourg/program/index.html About the camp radio: http://www.noborder.org/strasbourg/radio/index.html Stream: http://www.freeteam.nl:8000/playlist.pls?mount=/sis&file=dummy.pls Open publishing: https://event.indymedia.de/event/servlet/OpenMir?do=addposting Ciao, Geert -- Some background information about SIS, the Schengen Information System Electronic instrument of migration control and deportation When the police forces and Justice and Home Affairs ministers of the five original Schengen states started to plan the The Schengen Information System (SIS) at the end of the 1980's, they justified the central collection of data with the reasoning that the abolition of internal border controls was a security risk as drug smugglers, terroritsts and organised criminals could wander freely over European territory. This is why Europe was in need of a common ivrstigation area, a common system to investigate and search for persons and objects. A close investigation of the nature of the data stored however, reveals that far from being an instrument for security, the SIS is forst and foremost an instrument of control and a means to detect and deport non-EU- nationals. More recent plans point to the development that the SIS will in future also be used to control the movement of political activists. The SIS, which came into operation in 1995, is the first supranational investigation system for law enforcement agencies which can be accessed from local terminals of all participating states. It consists of a central unit located in Strasbourg, which is linked to national systems. The central unit ensures that all the data sets are saved both in the central unit and the national systems. The national units are responsible for posting notices on wanted persons or objects. In Germany for example, this is the Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BKA). The national units are also contacted if a person is successfully traced down - hence their name: SIRENE (Supplementary Information Request at the National Entry). Via an independent communication network they provide information that far surpasses the relatively short SIS data sets. On 27 March 1995, the SIS was linked to seven states and came into operation. These states were the five states which were the first to sign the Schengen Implementation Agreement (SIA), that is, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany, as well as Spain and Portugal. On 1 December 1997, Italy, Austria and Greece joined. Since 25 March 2001, the northern EU states Denmark, Sweden and Finland and the non-EU-states Norway and Iceland also linked up with the Schengen Information System, which means that altogether 15 national components are linked to the central terminal in Strasbourg. Great Britain and Ireland are planning to participate at least partially in the SIS. It is only a matter of time until the eastern and southern European accession states will join. The SIS - a technical deportation device By 1998, the SIS data volume had reached 8.6 million records, out of which 7.4 million referred to property (cars, banknotes, stolen identity cards, weapons). Because of the high percentage of so called alias- groups (430.000) only 795.000 entries of the 1.2 million remaining person specific data sets referred to actual people. As far as the tracing down of people is concerned the SIS has turned out to be, first and foremost, an instrument of a repressive migration and deportation policy. Approximately 88% of wanted persons are third country nationals who are to be deported or prevented from crossing the border into the EU. This refusal of entry and deportation order, with its corresponding collection of data, is regulated under Article 96 of the SIA. During the course of the year 1998, the wanted persons list of the SIS grew substantially. This is due to the fact that Italy, Austria and Greece joined the system on 1 December 1997. Italy alone had entered 220.000 person specific data sets during 1998, and therefore became the second largest owner of data sets of all the SIS member states. Out of these 220.000, 88% referred to Article 96 SIA. Germany however, remains the country with the largest data base on people, with 350.000 entries - an amount which corresponds to almost 44% of all person specific data sets (Of these, 98 % refer to Article 96). France follows Italy with 113.000 person specific entries (60 % of which are Article 96 related). Most of SIS related person specific investigations are directed against Article 96 related non-EU migrants. The majority (56%) of successes, so- called SIS "hits", concerns refugees and migrants as well, as they are often stopped and searched by the police only because of their outer appearances. Although the number of data sets referring to objects is much higher that person specific data, successes in this area equal a mere 26%. Out of these, 26% refer to stolen lorries that are successfully traced down. The SIS is therefore most successful where control is the easiest and therefore most often carried out on grounds of the size of the object and in relation to people, due to easily detectable outer appearances, that is skin colour. Racist Control Practices The deletion of redundant data sets, as it was carried out in 1997 for example, prove the low efficiency of the (almost) EU-wide electronic investigation system. The SIS is only efficient in so far as it can enforce a practice of control typical for the electronic tracing on a European level: in practise, this means that a person is stopped and searched not due to a concrete suspicion, but because his/her outward appearance corresponds to certain criteria and because there is a terminal available from which the SIS can be accessed. These kind of stop and search operations, independent from the existence of suspicion, were formerly only allowed at the borders. But already the introduction of national investigation systems had changed the criteria that determine what is suspicious and what is not: in reference to the SIA, Germany first introduced the "dragnet control", and therefore non-suspect related stop and search operations, and later extended it from the border regions to inland areas. This shift can be detected from Germany's SIS statistics. Out of the 65 million SIS inquiries made by German authorities, 52 % were requested by frontier officials and mobile patrols near the border. The remaining 47.5 % of requests were made by police in the inland, therefore related to non- suspect related stop and search operations that were carried out in inner cities, on country roads and in trains, and that are first and foremost directed against migrants. SIS - the second generation: When Austria, Italy and Greece joined the system in 1997, there were indications that the capacity of the system would soon reach its limits. The system was therefore expanded to include the "SIS 1 plus", before the northern European states were linked up. Simultaneously, the Schengen Executive Committee decided to build another SIS. The present documents of the SIS working group of the European Council and Schengen Executive Committee prove that they are not only aiming at an expansion of the capacity of the system but are changing its content as well. This will entail some changes in the Schengen Implementation Agreement. So far, Italy is the only country that wants to check the necessity for this change before approving the decision. France has some reservations against the planned expansion of the data storage period under Article 96 SIA (Refusal and deportation of non-EU- migrants) and Article 99 SIA (police surveillance). More data, longer storage periods, DNA profiles Up to now person specific data can only be stored for three years, after which it has to be reviewed. Data related to police surveillance is stored for only for 12 months in the data base of the SIS. The expansion of the period of time for which data can be stored will automatically result in an rise of the number of person specific data. That is particularly so for Article 96 related data, which, as already said, has made up 80-90% of all person specific data over the past years. The second generation of the SIS will not only result in an expansion in quantity but also in a change in quality. So far, data sets have hardly contained more than the warrant notice. Concerning persons this included the personal details, the reason for the entry or investigation (arrest, location of residence etc.) and details on the national authority which posted the data into the system. Other personal details could only amount to necessary short desciptions such as "violent" or "armed". The SIS 2 will profoundly change that. It is planned not only to record the "kind of criminal offence" and the information "runaway prisoner" or "person in psychological danger", but also personal "identification material", that is photographs, fingerprints and DNA profiles. # 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 Jul 25 23:57:39 2002 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 23:57:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Strange alliances Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20020725235300.02e01768@mail.sarai.net> This is the full article of Robert Fisk on the alliances between the Christian right and the Israel's supporters in the US....there is a reference to the far-right new york post (yazad jal, has, as usual, posted a grotesque apology for Israel's bombing of Gaza - from an article from the Post!) A strange kind of freedom By Robert Fisk Inside the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, the Californian audience had been struck silent. Dennis Bernstein, the Jewish host of KPFA Radio's Flashpoint current affairs programme, was reading some recent e-mails that he had received from Israel's supporters in America. Each one left the people in the church Muslims, Jews, Christians in a state of shock. "You mother-fucking-asshole-self-hating Jewish piece of shit. Hitler killed the wrong Jews. He should have killed your parents, so a piece of Jewish shit like you would not have been born. God willing, Arab terrorists will cut you to pieces Daniel Pearl-style, AMEN!!!" Bernstein's sin was to have covered the story of Israel's invasion of Jenin in April and to have interviewed journalists who investigated the killings that took place there including Phil Reeves and Justin Huggler of The Independent for his Flashpoint programme. Bernstein's grandfather was a revered Orthodox Rabbi of international prominence but neither his family history nor his origins spared him. "Read this and weep, you mother-fucker self-hating Jew boy!!!" another e-mail told Bernstein. "God willing a Palestinian will murder you, rape your wife and slash your kids' throats." Yet another: "I hope that you, Barbara Lubin and all other Jewish Marxist Communist traitors anti-American cop haters will die a violent and cruel death just like the victims of suicide bombers in Israel." Lubin is also Jewish, the executive director of the Middle East Children's Alliance, a one-time committed Zionist but now one of Israel's fiercest critics. Her e-mails are even worse. Indeed, you have to come to America to realise just how brave this small but vocal Jewish community is. Bernstein is the first to acknowledge that a combination of Israeli lobbyists and conservative Christian fundamentalists have in effect censored all free discussion of Israel and the Middle East out of the public domain in the US. "Everyone else is terrified," Bernstein says. "The only ones who begin to open their mouths are the Jews in this country. You know, as a kid, I sent money to plant trees in Israel. But now we are horrified by a government representing a country that we grew up loving and cherishing. Israel's defenders have a special vengeance for Jews who don't fall in line behind Sharon's scorched-earth policy because they give the lie to the charge that Israel's critics are simply anti-Semite." Adam Shapiro is among those who have paid a price for their beliefs. He is a Jew engaged to an American-born Palestinian, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement who was trapped in Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the spring while administering medical aid. After telling CNN that the Sharon government was acting like "terrorists" while receiving $3bn a year in US military aid, Shapiro and his family were savaged in the New York Post. The paper slandered Shapiro as the "Jewish Taliban" and demeaned his family as "traitors". Israeli supporters publicised his family's address and his parents were forced to flee their Brooklyn home and seek police protection. Shapiro's father, a New York public high-school teacher and a part-time Yeshiva (Jewish day school) teacher, was fired from his job. His brother receives regular death threats. Israel's supporters have no qualms about their alliance with the Christian right. Indeed, the fundamentalists can campaign on their own in Israel's favour, as I discovered for myself at Stanford recently when I was about to give a lecture on the media and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, part of a series of talks arranged largely by Jewish Americans. A right-wing Christian "Free Republic" outfit posted my name on its website, and described me as a "PLO butt-kisser" and asked its supporters to "freep" my lecture. A few demonstrators turned up outside the First United Methodist Church in Sacramento where I was to speak, waving American and Israeli flags. "Jew haters!" they screamed at the organisers, a dark irony since these were non-Jews shrieking their abuse at Jews. They were also handing out crudely printed flyers. "Nothing to worry about, Bob," one of my Jewish hosts remarked. "They can't even spell your name right." True. But also false. "Stop the Lies!" the leaflet read. "There was no massacre in Jenin. Fiske [sic] is paid big bucks to spin [lie] for the Arabs..." But the real lie was in that last sentence. I never take any payment for lectures so that no one can ever claim that I'm paid to give the views of others. But the truth didn't matter to these people. Nor did the content of my talk which began, by chance, with the words "There was no massacre" in which I described Arafat as a "corrupt, vain little despot" and suicide bombings as "a fearful, evil weapon". None of this was relevant. The aim was to shut me up. Dennis Bernstein sums it up quite simply: "Any US journalist, columnist, editor, college professor, student-activist, public official or clergy member who dares to speak critically of Israel or accurately report the brutalities of its illegal occupation will be vilified as an anti-Semite." In fact, no sooner had Bernstein made these remarks than pro-Israeli groups initiated an extraordinary campaign against some of the most pro-Israeli newspapers in America, all claiming that The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle were biased in their coverage of the Middle-East conflict. Just how The New York Times which boasts William Safire and Charles Krauthammer, those giants of pro-Israeli bias, among its writers could be anti-Israeli is difficult to see, although it is just possible that, amid its reports on Israel's destruction in the West Bank and Gaza, some mildly critical comments found their way into print. The New York Times, for example, did report that Israeli soldiers used civilians as human shields though only in the very last paragraph of a dispatch from Jenin. From kjkhoo at softhome.net Thu Jul 25 21:25:54 2002 From: kjkhoo at softhome.net (kjkhoo at softhome.net) Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 23:55:54 +0800 Subject: [Reader-list] Hamas Kills Its Own In-Reply-To: <02bf01c233d4$af804e60$223fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> References: <02bf01c233d4$af804e60$223fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: I've been quietly reading and learning from this list, but this post calls for a riposte. If Podhoretz's argument holds any water, then it applies to Israel as well. At 5:43 PM +0530 25/7/02, Yazad Jal wrote: >HAMAS KILLS ITS OWN > >John Podhoretz >http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/53201.htm > > > > >July 24, 2002 -- THERE'S no ambiguity regarding the responsibility >for the horrible deaths incurred by the Israeli attack on one of the >world's worst terrorists. The responsibility lies with the dead >terrorist himself, Salah Shehada, and with the evildoing gang called >Hamas that he helped to start and run. > >Don't take it from me. Take it from international law - >specifically, from the text of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative >to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. [snipped] From yazadjal at vsnl.net Fri Jul 26 09:43:40 2002 From: yazadjal at vsnl.net (Yazad Jal) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:43:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Strange alliances References: <5.0.2.1.2.20020725235300.02e01768@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <007101c2345a$d855d540$ed02c5cb@vsnl.net.in> > This is the full article of Robert Fisk on the alliances between the > Christian right and the Israel's supporters in the US....there is a > reference to the far-right new york post (yazad jal, has, as usual, > posted a grotesque apology for Israel's bombing of Gaza - from an article > from the Post!) Dear Ravi Interesting article from Fisk. But could you please spare us the name calling? If you think what was sent was a "grotesque" apology, take the time to substantiate your statement. And does it matter where an article comes from? You're attacking the messenger--not the message. The point I'm trying to make is simple: there are different rules for Israel and different for the Palestinians. There is a definite bias against Israel (if I may venture and say this -- a widespread bias all across the media). I'd like to discuss this on reader-list--without the ad hominem please. -yazad From monica at sarai.net Fri Jul 26 12:02:44 2002 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 12:02:44 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] shared material on Gujarat Message-ID: >From: "gurpal" >To: "gurpal gujarat" >Subject: shared footage mail no. 3 >Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 17:59:04 +0530 > >note from neeraj: > >hi all, > >for those of you who missed our first two mails on the shared >footage idea....a small group of us came here to ahmedabad in the >middle of may, with a view to create a bank of footage about the >pogrom. the idea was that this footage could be used by like minded >filmmakers to make several films which would cover all the aspects >of the genocide in gujarat. we also tried to assist the legal effort >by recording testimonies or visual evidence where necessary. this is >an effort of a group of individuals funded by themselves and some >friends. in terms of people coming in to chip in with their time and >effort, we were a little lacking...we hope that the 'shramdaan' of >those who came will bear fruit and many films will be made from this >footage, which, if sensibly distributed, will go some way in >stemming the growing tide of fundamentalism > > > >we're now entering the last leg of our stay in ahmedabad. there has >been quite a bit we've managed to do (thanks to everyone) and some >things that we have not been able to do. below is a summary of both, >and what the shape of our current plans are. the important thing in >this phase, we think, is to close the many individual stories we've >begun which can be seen by themselves, or strung with other things >to address larger issues/ canvasses. also there are some stories >which we haven't begun shooting, but have lined up, which are very >important which we've to shoot start to finish. looking at these >lists here is what we plan: > > >4 manweeks of shoot to wind up in ahmedabad. >consists of > >1. documents illustrative of : >-police atrocities/ role of police in 'riots' >-criminal injustice practiced and supported by the state >-pain on loss of life/ property/ livelihood >-apathy in relief camps >-inhuman compensation >-token rehabilitation >-sustained threat and discrimination >-ghettoisation >-spread of violence to 'well off' people as well >-secular valor in the face of adversity >-islands of sanity > >2. interviews to contextualise the situation in gujarat (not >necessarily of the victims themselves, but those that have been >engaged with gujarat for a long time, in various fields): >-general history of class/ caste forces in realpolitik >-specific history/events of the last decade >-the socio economic context of this carnage in general, and the main >massacres in specific. >-the role of media >-the debate of riots vs. carnage/ pogrom/ genocide >-the participation of women, dalits and adivasis >-processes and strategies of struggle for justice in a belligerent state > >the above are just things that are still hanging open. i think we've >done substantially more than that, which is the kind of work that >requires breadth of coverage (e.g. the situation of people with the >closing of camps, both in urban and rural areas; the rath yatra and >associated things etc.). and we also have 'closed' quite a number of >stories. which meditate one or the other aspect of the whole thing. > >with more resources and hands in here, we could also do the >following, which we have not been able to: > >1. not been specifically able to cover illustrative cases on (though >we have leads and access): >-brutality specific to women >-violence through medical intervention/ -communalisation of health care >-processes initiated with witnesses of the main carnages >-the debate on the participation of women, dalits and adivasis > >2. cover the situation in rural gujarat with adequate breadth and >select aspects of it in depth. > >we're also suffering from a lack of versatile hands for: >-logging, transferring, capturing, production back up. > >i feel the most crucial stage of this project is to do a decent >logging, with cross indexing etc. in some form which is easily >accessible and open to data manipulation (in the sense of sorting by >areas, or keywords, or incidents etc.). we're working on it, but the >base of it will remain a thorough and commented log. its crucial for >the whole thing to work to have each and every interview/ vox pop/ >group interview etc. transcripted and available in electronic form. >this is the thing going on parallel with the wind up shooting. so we >need people to come here and help us wind up the shooting. and we >now really also need people everywhere to chip in from wherever they >are and do transcripting/ rough logging. we can provide cd's, vhs, >audio tape or whatever form they can work with, along with some kind >of instructions (numbering, classifying etc.) and who to co-ordinate >with and how. > >we have been working with cameras lent by people and often these are >not in the best shape. we have ended up spending a packet on repairs >and servicing. we also require tapes(hi 8, minidv, vhs-c, vhs), >mikes, batteries, blank cd's and any equipment that you think could >be useful to us. look forward to your help in this regard. > >keep us going, do write in, love and regards, neeraj. >n_sahay at hotmail.com > >note from gurpal: > >just wanted to add a note of thanks to all friends who have chipped >in with money...we are keeping an account of where it is being spent >and shortly it will be posted to all.... > >and we are also looking for articles, books, still photos, news >clippings from now or earlier, which may be in any way relevant to a >study of the current situation in ahmedabad/gujarat.... > >please be in touch >regards,gurpal >gurpalforpeace at hotmail.com -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From ravis at sarai.net Fri Jul 26 13:48:45 2002 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 13:48:45 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] re: strange alliances Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20020726133712.00ab6c38@pop3.norton.antivirus> Dear Yazad, no name calling here. This is the issue; the problem I have had with your forwards is this. they set the a tone for Israel's current actions which is apologetic and insensitive to what is going on in the West bank. Within Isreali society itself there are real dissenters who do not agree with Sharon's policy, (Yeshuv Gul is a clear example), and quite often I find better reporting in Haretz from Israel than in the US press.Take the terrible bombing in Gaza. Haretz in Jerusalem called it a tragedy and attacked the Israeli government, while that horrible article you posted from the hysterical New York Post, simply blamed the Palestinians for it! Among Palestinians internal debate remains strong on the bombings and there have been front page appeals in the Israeli press by Palestinian intellectuals criticizing the suicide bombings. The Fisk article actually points to something I have personally been appalled by: attacks on dissenting Jewish opinion in the US (calling them Jew-haters) and opportunist alliances by Isreal's supporters with the far-right. We cannot clinch the tragedy in Palestine on the reader list, but surely we cannot set up crude models of "Israel" and the Palestinians - to defend one and attack another.... There must be some ethical solidarity with the dead, and no apologies for the taking of human life, wherever it comes from. Ravi From yazadjal at vsnl.net Fri Jul 26 10:08:00 2002 From: yazadjal at vsnl.net (Yazad Jal) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 10:08:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Civilian Casualties: No Apology Needed Message-ID: <005501c2347f$e575f8c0$363fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> Civilian Casualties: No Apology Needed By RALPH PETERS (Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2002) Earlier this week, Israel succeeded in killing Salah Shehada, a savage Hamas mastermind, and one of his top aides. A dozen Palestinian civilians died in the attack, including members of Shehada's family. The civilian deaths may be lamentable, but they also were justifiable. A terrorist leader used his relatives and neighbors as shields, and they died with him. Their deaths were Shehada's fault, not Israel's. Once again, much of the world has applied a double standard, accusing Israel of barbarity for inflicting civilian casualties as part of a legitimate military operation, while overlooking the hundreds of Israeli civilians killed intentionally by Shehada and his subordinates. For Europeans, especially, Jewish lives count no more today than they did in 1944. Why are Palestinian terrorists allowed to target civilians without exciting an international outcry, while every accidental civilian death inflicted by Israel is a crime against humanity? Europe's reflexive anti-Semitism doesn't really matter much, since today's Europeans lack the power, will and courage to act upon their bigotry. But the Bush administration needs to stop pandering to corrupt Arab regimes and to recognize that Israel is fighting for its life; that Israel is fighting with great restraint; and that Israel's pursuit of terrorists is every bit as legitimate as our own. Instead of criticizing Israeli policy, we should be studying it. Recently, our own forces were demonized for causing civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Some Afghan factions, with their intricate agendas, claimed we had attacked an innocent wedding party. Of course, the global media were only too willing to deplore American evil (despite the fact that we overthrew a monstrous regime and conquered an "unconquerable" country while causing, at most, a few hundred civilian casualties). Though combat videos proved that our aircraft was fired upon first, we nonetheless stumbled through witless apologies and promised to impose greater safeguards in the future. As with the Israelis, our military response was justified. It is the apologies that make no sense. The war against terrorism must be prosecuted judiciously, but the terrorists themselves must be pursued without remorse. When terrorists attempt to hide amid the civilian population, we must pursue them without hesitation. They cannot be allowed a single safe haven. If they use their neighbors as shields, it is the terrorists who are to blame should civilians die. If they attempt to use their families as cover, they will be responsible for the deaths of their own loved ones. The world must learn that, when civilians allow terrorists to use them, the civilians become legitimate military targets. This is not about diplomatic table manners. It is a fight to exterminate human monsters. Earlier this month, the Israelis were attacked for a plan to deport the families of terrorists from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. Of course, the Europeans and our own tattered left began comparing the plan to death trains bound for Auschwitz. While Europe's incurable nostalgia for the Wannsee Conference makes their hatred of Israel understandable on some level, the enthusiasm American leftists show for equating the Holocaust's survivors with the Holocaust's perpetrators is as dishonest as it is tasteless. The fact is that the Israelis have begun to make a crucial link in dealing with terrorists: their families. In the Middle East, Arab armies fight ineptly because the soldiers feel no deep loyalty to their states. In the Arab world and in related cultures, earthly loyalties are, above all, to family. If left with no useful alternative, the Israelis -- and we Americans -- must be willing to pursue the terrorists through their relatives. Of course, our outdated conventions make this proposition anathema to us. Thus, when dealing with a culture in which only faith and family matter to our enemies, we insist on making war on governments and negotiating with political organizations that are no more than mobs with diplomatic representation. We are punching thin air. Meanwhile, few of Israel's critics complain when Palestinian mothers and fathers praise the gruesome suicides of their children or accept blood money from Riyadh and Baghdad. If you want a stark indicator of the power of family in the Middle East, consider that of the many suicide bombers to date, none has been a close relative of a Hamas leader or of the leadership of any other Palestinian faction. Suicide bombers employed to inflict mass murder on Israel are always drawn from marginal families. The terrorist leaders would no more send their own sons and daughters out as suicide bombers than they would go themselves. If you cannot kill your enemy, threaten what he holds dear. Force him to come out and confront you in desperation. Today, we do not have the stomach for this. Tomorrow, we may find it a necessity. In the meantime, as the U.S. slowly learns the real meaning of a war on terror, the Israelis continue to struggle against the Arab vision of Jewish annihilation. Israel will do what must be done, as humanely as possible. And Israel must accept that no matter what it does or fails to do, no matter how much success it achieves and how few civilian casualties it inflicts among its enemies, it will be hated by those who cheer on the enemies of mankind from the safety of Strasbourg, Stockholm or Harvard Yard. Critics persist in claiming that attacks upon terrorists do not work, since results are not instantaneous. But the war against terror is a war of attrition and can only be won over decades. We may not know the real effects of Israel's current efforts for several years. But there is no course worse than cowardice and inaction. The same critics will tell you that by killing civilians in their attacks, the Israelis -- or the Americans -- simply turn other civilians against them. This is nonsense. Civilians who shield the enemies of Israel or the U.S. are already anti-Israel or anti-American. But if our strikes against the masters of terror come to seem inevitable, those same civilians will turn against terrorists who try to use them as living shields -- as villagers in Afghanistan already have done. Terrorists and their supporters must learn that they will be allowed no hiding places. Not in their homes, not in churches or mosques, and not in foreign countries to which they might flee. This is a war that must be fought without compromise. It is, above all, a contest of wills. Every apology is a surrender. Mr. Peters, a retired Army officer, is the author of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World" (Stackpole, 2002). URL for this article: http://wsj.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailT oID=186497927 (Unfortunately, this URL only works if you are a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal's online edition -yazad) From yazadjal at vsnl.net Fri Jul 26 10:40:25 2002 From: yazadjal at vsnl.net (Yazad Jal) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 10:40:25 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Hamas Kills Its Own References: <02bf01c233d4$af804e60$223fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <005601c2347f$e62572a0$363fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> > I've been quietly reading and learning from this list, but this post > calls for a riposte. > > If Podhoretz's argument holds any water, then it applies to Israel as well. Podhoretz is trying to say that whatever currently applies to Israel should apply to the Palestinians / Hamas as well. Here are some views expressed on another email list: The only civilians killed by Israel are those killed in the course of pursuing a military target, as opposed to Hamas's *deliberate* targeting of civilians. It's the difference between, say, blowing up a room full of children for its own sake, versus blowing up a known command center which is using human shields. Why view Israel differently than one views Hamas? I think that's part of the reason for the double standard. Israel is a "state," Hamas are "freedom fighters". It's not OK for a state to target terrorists and get civilians in the "collateral damage" but it's OK for terrorists to target civilians in order to get to the state. But in the end a dead individual is a dead individual. If we view Israel as a collective, should we not view Hamas as a collective? If not, why not? -yazad From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Fri Jul 26 19:13:05 2002 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 06:43:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] re: strange alliances In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.2.20020726133712.00ab6c38@pop3.norton.antivirus> Message-ID: <20020726134305.56949.qmail@web14609.mail.yahoo.com> You know when you read an article (such as Ralph Peters' posted by Yazad) in which criticism of Israel is called 'reflexive anti-Semitism' (does this guy know what the word 'reflexive' means, by the way?) that the author is lost for arguments. the hurling of this particular term of abuse is one of the most annoying elements of the international defence of Israeli state violence. In the liberal press (which presumably includes the WSJ) it should be possible for criticism of an individual or state to be given the credit of not arising simply from raving, pathological prejudice towards the group of which they are a part. Of course the point of this kind of thing is to bifurcate opinion - if you are not with us, you are with them (Zizek's 'double blackmail'). As Ravi points out, it is impossible to address the legal, political and humanitarian issues involved if you are offered only one of two equally absurd and extreme positions to hold. Nearly seven months after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations issued a document called The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This expressed outrage for the "disregard and contempt for human rights [that] have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind" and looked to establish "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want [that] has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people". Needless to say, the two events were connected, both a reaction to Nazi violence that had disproportionately targeted Jews. And this shadow looms over the document: human rights are above all to be guaranteed by the protection of human beings against abuses of state power. There is another sort of threat to the security and happiness of individuals - criminal behaviour; but even criminals must be given extensive guarantees against arbitrary or unjust treatment. There is no separate mention of what Peters calls 'human monsters' ('This is not about diplomatic table manners. It is a fight to exterminate human monsters'), and there is no recommendation that states suspend their peaceful and lawful relationship with their own citizens in order to kill them. There are good reasons to fear the violence of states more than any other kind. Their resources and infrastructure are incomparably greater than anything civilians can martial. They have been responsible for all the worst horrors in living memory. (Someone is going to find an exception to that, I know...) And they are able to exert many kinds of power beyond simple violence - depriving people of access to resources, education, expression etc etc - all of which can in turn push a civilian population towards desperate behaviour. But we seem to have become astonishingly complacent about acts of war perpetrated by states on their citizens and to have lost the sense - enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights - that such acts can never have any justification. The looming category of 'the terrorist' has blown apart our normal understanding of the relationship of a state to its citizens and its criminals and made us rather used to things that should be impossible to believe. The acts of Hamas and the acts of the Israeli government are in fact, despite the rhetoric of retaliation, morally independent. (They are mutually dependent and defining in lots of other ways, but that is not the point.) Neither is a justification for the other. We cannot be pressured into excusing the state because of the reality of Palestinian violence - or vice versa. Let us then not enter into this blackmail where any criticism of a government that drops bombs on its own citizens is painted as collusion in terror. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com From so5 at nyu.edu Fri Jul 26 19:16:15 2002 From: so5 at nyu.edu (saul ostrow) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:46:15 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Hamas Kills Its Own References: <02bf01c233d4$af804e60$223fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> <005601c2347f$e62572a0$363fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <3D4152A7.D66CC2B3@nyu.edu> Yazad Jal All I can say is that Sharon's rational for the assinasion of militants and the occupation of the West Bank echoes Milosevic, the excuse for his attacks on the Albanians in Kossovo, Allende's dirty war in Chile and the Nazi's stated reason for the total destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto -- all of which was that they were fighting terrorism -- as you know many more palestinian civilians have died due to Israeli terror then due to that of hamas - So please let us stop repeating the mindless rhetoric of the oppressor and demand that they be judged by the same terms by which they judge others -- if Hamas- Fatah, et.al - are terrorist organization then so is the Israeli state -- As such the present state of affairs will not end until Sharon and his rightist cronies are removes from from power and the settlements are removed from palestinian lands -- I From so5 at nyu.edu Fri Jul 26 19:18:46 2002 From: so5 at nyu.edu (saul ostrow) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:48:46 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] Hamas Kills Its Own References: <02bf01c233d4$af804e60$223fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> <005601c2347f$e62572a0$363fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: <3D41533F.558DF4D9@nyu.edu> Yazad Jal All I can say is that Sharon's rationale for the murder of militants and the occupation of the West Bank echoes Milosevic's excuses for his attacks on the Albanians in Kossovo, those of Allende fo r his dirty war in Chile and the Nazi's stated reason for the total destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto -- all of which was that they were fighting terrorism -- as you know many more palestinian civilians have died due to Israeli terror then due to that of hamas - So please let us stop repeating the mindless rhetoric of the oppressor and demand that they be judged by the same terms by which they judge others -- if Hamas- Fatah, et.al - are terrorist organization then so is the Israeli state -- As such the present state of affairs will not end until Sharon and his rightist cronies are removes from from power and the settlements are removed from palestinian lands -- I From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Sat Jul 27 03:15:39 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 22:45:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Cross Over, can you? Message-ID: <20020726214539.89634.qmail@web8101.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, Some info on the No Border thing Shuddha informed us about. copy-paste follows: Manifesto of the Crossover Summer Camp Project What we want: Our starting point is the conviction that all the different relations of power and domination are inseparably bound up with one another, permeating and often stabilizing each other. We want to develop a practice that reflects this. Our aim is to contribute to the construction of a new constellation of political tendencies. A "new constellation" would be one where, finally, anti-sexist positions would not have to be fought through by (pro-)feminists against the passive or active resistance of the majority anymore, but be a matter of course; and where, finally, men would, of their own accord, become active in the field of pro feminist politics. We want an end to the dominance of a heterosexual culture within the radical left, for which gays are good for adding color and entertainment to the serious business of politics, in which lesbians are nearly invisible and for which hermaphrodites and transgender people are, at the most, objects of scientific curiosity. Such a new constellation would be one where the presence of migrant and jewish people, people of color (no matter where they've grown up) would be a matter of course; where the manners and the language of the majority would not constitute the norm and where white antiracists would deal with their own racisms and make their own motives transparent, instead of only speaking for and about the "oppressed". Last but not least, we want an alliance where middle class ways of talking and behaving are not the normal and taken-for-granted standard. This is not about idealizing or demonising any group, it's about questioning norms. We don't believe we can change social structures simply by making some individual behavior changes. But becoming conscious of our ways of acting and speaking, and working on changing them is an important first step. We want to get together people who want to change themselves AND external conditions; we aim to not only attack networks of power but strengthen networks of resistance and construct new ones. Who we are: The preparation group of the summer camp project was re-founded at the crossover conference, which took place in January in the northern German city Bremen. There are people in our network who joined at the conference, and also some people from the "old" summer camp project, who had originally planned an "anti-racist anti-sexist camp" for the summer of 2001 and later co-organized the crossover conference. Many of us know each other from radical left and feminist circles in Germany. Most of us possess a German passport. At the moment about 90% of us are womenlesbians. We are from different "political generations"; there are also differences among us regarding our social origins and current class position. But we are still not as mixed as we would like to be. "Crossover" - the new name of the summer camp project: At the conference in Bremen we agreed that the original name of the project ("antiracist antisexist summer camp") does not express what we want so well, because it names only two relations of domination. With the new name "crossover summer camp project" we want to emphasize that relations of power and domination (patriarchy, capitalism ) can never be understood separately, but are closely linked. We prefer a positive and content-related definition of what we want, and a description of our strategies, to terms of pure rejection (all those "antis"). For example, we prefer the positive concept of (pro) feminism to the term anti-sexism. How we organize: The old project, which started in august 2000, met about every month, in different locations, mostly in Berlin and Bremen and once in Warsaw. In this new phase of the project, with participants in the network spread out across Europe from Spain to Poland, we rely more on local meetings and e-mail communication. We are open to the idea of a separate, coordinated organization of migrants/people of colour within the project network; we are just as open to closer cooperation. That womenlesbians can organize separately in the project and at the camp also goes without saying. How we treat each other is an important issue, we think, and we definitely want something other than the activist-macho posturing so familiar to us from our experience in many left circles. We must hasten to add that this is not the only type of male dominance - or dominance of any kind - that we see as a problem. We are not so naïve to think we've found "the answer" to this; that is to say, we are open to new ideas and ways of dealing with one another. Language: We are aware that language can be the cause of distance and exclusion. We want to use language that is understandable for as many people as possible, to reduce difficulties of communication and to avoid language-related hierarchies of knowledge and power. That's why we feel it is really important to create an atmosphere where it is easy to ask questions, comment and criticize. Transnationality: Language understandable for as many people as possible means that we would like to have many workshops at the summer camp in English and that we want to organize translations for all languages represented. Age and "special needs": We want a mixed age structure. That could mean, for example, providing workshops "for beginners", and trying to find a place for the camp where other accommodation besides tents are available, for those who can't or don't want to sleep in tents for whatever reason. Best would be a seminar house with a big field or meadow next to it. What is it going to be about? We are striving for a great diversity in the issues addressed. For us, this means dealing with nation, patriarchy, antisemitism, heterosexism, capitalism and racism, among other issues. We think it's essential to draw structural links between different relations of power and domination from the very beginning. For example, by bringing the intrinsic interrelatedness of masculinity, heterosexism and whiteness into focus. Which ones of the countless possible interconnections we will focus on at the camp crucially depends on your input. What all these catchwords refer to - in our understanding - is simply impossible to unfold in a short text such as this one. But we intend to put together a kind of reader with different types of texts. We don't want a summer university, nor a purely action-oriented camp, but a crossover between 'theory' and 'practice' - after all, in the long run, our aim is the abolition of the distinction between intellectual and manual labor. We want a combinition of theory and practice of all kinds: from dance, self-defence training/wendo and creative writing to direct action. Camp Culture?!? We hope the summercamp will be a venue for performances (film, music, acrobatics, for example), subversive culture and cultural subversion. Not just because it's fun - which would be reason enough - but because we see culture as a space in which society, in many different ways, some fraught with conflict, (re)produces its stocks of knowledge, its norms and values, its structures of thought and feeling. Therefore, part of radical resistance is engaging in one's own cultural production - that the dominant modes of seeing, hearing and feeling may be subverted! By now at the very latest, some will say that our program is definitely not realizable. We agree with this assessment insofar as we don't assume at all we will be able to realize everything we envision at the first summer camp already. We understand our undertaking to be a long-term project requiring some staying power, ample capacity to tolerate frustration and great persistence. Up to now, though, it's been fun, too. What does it mean to be part of the preparation network? Stress, hard work, providing services for participants who are just consumers ? We are not workaholics and that's not what we want to become, either. We want what we do to be satisfying for us. We will share the work according to our different areas of interest and time capacities. Self organisation: At the camp we will count on the self-responsibility and self-organisation of the participants. That means that we (the preparation group) will disband on the second day of the camp. From then on we will turn the organisational work in as many areas as possible over into the hands of the participants. We will support the new groups who take over the organisational tasks at the camp with our knowledge and experience. All of us will shape the camp and contribute to its success. Participate in the preparation network! With our current capacities we will only be able to realise a fraction of what we want. Also, we are still not as transnational and transethnic as we would wish. So, we hope for lively transnational radical participation in the camp preparations. (It's never too late to join!) See you! The organizers PS: There is an e-mail discussion group in English, and an e-mail list for those who just want to get the latest news and information about the project. Send us an e-mail and we will subscribe you. Most of the minutes of the meetings of the old project are accessible on our web site in German and English. The address of our web site is: www.summercamp.squat.net. Our e-mail address is: summercamp at squat.net. Our postal address is: summer camp c/o a6-laden, Adalbertstrasse 6, 10999 Berlin LINK 1 What do we mean when we say "radical left"? Here's our provisional statement, a work in progress: (This link text under construction) LINK 2 What do we mean when we say "feminism"? Here's our provisional statement, a work in progress: Our feminism is always linked with a critique of domination, of the existing social relations (capitalism, racism, ), of oppression on the basis of skin color, origin, appearance, age It is neither possible nor is it our goal to abolish only one form of oppression while leaving the totality of systems of oppression intact. There are x different strands of feminism. What unites them is the goal of getting rid ot the relations of domination between genders. We think the abolition of just one relation of domination wouldn't change the social conditions under which we are living. The feminism we subscribe to doesn't raise one sex over an other ("women are better than men".) This would be only a kind of reversal of current circumstances. It also doesn't want a assimilation of women to so-called male standards. Sex and gender categories are socially constructed. In the long run, they should be abolished. Because patriarchal sex and gender categories have dominated the lives of humans for a very long time, they can't be gotten rid of from one day to the next. This is why we see "strategic affirmation" of gender identity, in appropriate contexts, as important in making existing sexist power structures visible and tangible, thus opening them to attack. Radical changes of a (pro) feminist nature won't happen without groups that make gender an issue, in gender-separated as well as in mixed groups. LINK 3 What do we mean when we say "identity politics"? Here's our provisional statement, a work in progress: Just as there are different constructions of identity, there are different politics of identity. That is why we distinguish "essentialist" politics of identity, which, in most cases, function to gain or retain privileges or come to an arrangement with the given social conditions, from "strategic" politics of identity that function to sabotage relations of power and domination. By essentialist identity politics we mean politics that derive a common identity from a shared essence, for example, being female (understood as a "natural fact"). By strategic identity politics we mean politics that conceptualize common identity in a pragmatic way, as a constructed reality, as, for example, many women's/lesbian groups do. We don't want to reduce the complex discussions around identity politics to this distinction, though. At the summer camp, strategic identity politics will be a major issue. Within this problematic, the question that concerns us most is if and how it is possible to create political alliances across major differences of experience. Finding this out is first and foremost a social question. The question of whether it is possible to bridge differences - bound up with relations of power and domination - in thinking, physicality, feeling and acting only gets answered in actual encounters: Is it possible to establish a truly respectful and equitable way of dealing with one another (which requires a lot of sensitivity for different experiences, realities and vulnerabilities) or not? http://www.summercamp.squat.net/1stpage-en.html crossover summer camp cottbus, germany , 03.-11. august 2002 the program of the camp will include direct action, performances, discussions, theory workshops, cutting veggies, dancing, music, cleaning up and much more. issues of the camp: - orientalism, racism and sexism - genderkiller: queer, transgender and intersex issues - gender, work and migration - eastern and western europe - antisemitism - anticapitalism and globalisation - internationalism and solidarity - feminist movements and histories - power, domination, violence and the law - pornography and representation - critiques of science, technology and reason - body norms and body politics - the social nature of nature - reproductive technologies and population politics one basic idea of our project is that all relations of power and domination are interconnected and that the struggle against them needs new alliances and new forms. the crossover camp strives to break the dominance of white, heterosexist culture within the radical left. through international profeminist alliances, we wish to to subvert the norms of majority society, and to build up and strengthen networks of resistance. the crossover camp will take place in cottbus. there will be womenlesbian, womenlesbiantransinter and other areas, as well as groups offering assistance for disabled people, childcare and translations. good food - vegan and vegetarian - will be provided by a camp kitchen. the preparation group will disband at the beginning of the camp. from day two on, it will be your turn to organize all necessary work self-responsibly. costs: 2 (superconcession price) to 5 (solidarity price) per day, 20 (superconcession price) to 50 (solidarity price) for the whole camp. no one turned away for lack of funds. please register for the camp! --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020726/c80438a2/attachment.html From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Sat Jul 27 10:30:25 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 06:00:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] A Daily Interactive TV Programme (Meri Baat) of Children and Youth on DD Bharati Message-ID: <20020727050025.25821.qmail@web20304.mail.yahoo.com> Dear Friends at sarai, I wish to inform you that on DD Bharati, an hour-long programme of children and youth "Meri Baat" is telecast live from EMPC-IGNOU from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm from Wednesday to Sunday in which the participants are schoolchildren and youth alongwith their parents and teachers. Also there is a special panel of experts on the show. Everyday they discuss a specific issue related to childhood, adolescence. The show is anchored by Tunvy Gogia. Children and young people are given chance to express their opinion and ask any questions freely. Also there is a facility of phone-in which could be used by any viewer from any part of India to ask any questions or express views. Viewers of this programme can use toll-free numbers - 1600-1-12345 to interact live via phone-in to this show. However, I find that MERI BAAT show though has as its objective children from all over India interacting, but in reality children from elite schools of the capital are invited to the show to interact. This reflects a certain elitism inherent in the minds of the producers of the programme. Children from Delhi Public School, Modern School are usually invited. This is a serious violation of the objective of giving opportunities to all children irrespective of class,caste, region to participate in such programmes. I suggest that Meri Baat programme can truly reflect the real problems of children from all over India if children belonging to the oppressed, marginalised, sections of Indian society are also invited. Besides, this would also bring in the principle of fair play into the picture. The Meri Baat programme is broadcast live from the most modern studios in the capital that is the EMPC-IGNOU studios situated in the Sanchar Kendra of IGNOU. Schoolchildren from govt. schools, Central schools, municipal schools should also be encouraged to participate in such programmes. This would give them a certain confidence in airing their problems and grievances in such programmes. Besides they would be delighted to see the ultra-modern studios of EMPC-IGNOU. The panelists would be able to understand the stress, trauma and hardship which children belonging to the economically less marginalised sections of society face as they live in slums and in poor hygienic areas. The Meri Baat programme should have a healthy mix of children belonging to all economic classes. Only bringing such changes in the programme can make it truly based on the concern, aspirations and well-being of all children and not just elite children of the capital. Also efforts should be made by DD-Bharati to invite children from remote parts of India like Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep and north-east and Ladakh to the show. This would give the show a truly Indian identity that would reflect the varied diversity, plurality of issues concerning children. Such a mix of young people from such regions would reflect the plural cultural heritage of India. However, whatever comments I have made should not discourage my young friends at sarai to view such a show as this show is also of the youth. A day is earmarked for the young people studying in colleges to participate in Meri Baat and discuss career opportunities of a particular discipline. The comments are my personal views concerning this programme. I feel that improvements in terms of composition of audience would help the programme to be trendsetter in the realm of public broadcasting. Do watch Meri Baat -- Bye- Yours truly, Sagnik Chakravartty MA Student of Broadcast Journalism Makhanlal Chaturvedi Rashtriya Patrakarita Vishwavidyalaya,Bhopal's Noida Campus ------------------------------------------------------ ________________________________________________________________________ Want to sell your car? advertise on Yahoo Autos Classifieds. It's Free!! visit http://in.autos.yahoo.com From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Sat Jul 27 10:42:47 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 06:12:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] TMG-E SAMVAAD BAAT TAKNIK KI on DD Bharati Message-ID: <20020727051247.42664.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> Dear friends, Apologies for mentioning the timing of Meri-Baat in my earlier posting as between 5-oo pm to 6-00 pm . This is actually telecast live from 6-00 pm to 7-00 pm from Wednesday to Sunday. TMG-E SAMVAAD is a hour long programme from 5-00 pm to 6-00 pm on DD Bharati which deals with issues of Information Technology and talks about interesting sites on specific aspects of life. Also it addresses problems of viewers relating to any aspect of I-T like downloading, LINUX, floppy-viruses. It is a must watch for Sarai friends who are campaigning for FREE-SOFTWARE. Also you can email to TMG-E Samvaad at click at tmgpower.com and give your valuable suggestions. I find that this is a very good programme produced by Technology Management Group (TMG) for DD-Bharati. Do watch this and share your experiences with other sarai friends or write to TMG at the email just mentioned earlier. Bye- Cheers Sagnik Chakravartty ________________________________________________________________________ Want to sell your car? advertise on Yahoo Autos Classifieds. It's Free!! visit http://in.autos.yahoo.com From rainaajay at hotmail.com Sun Jul 28 11:04:43 2002 From: rainaajay at hotmail.com (Ajay Raina) Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 11:04:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Kites For Azadi DIVAS Message-ID: Dear Friends, hi, we are planning to get about 10,000 kites made by the people of Kasai ki Chali. We are spending on the raw cost of material and labour costs from a portion of our selection. Do you think you and your friends can persuade certain organisations or certain people in your city to buy these kites in bulk of 100 / 500 / 1000 to fly on AZADI DIVAS with certain messages for communal harmony. The profit we make from the kites will be recycled into the rehab work at chali. Best regards Ajay -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020728/6b48bc3e/attachment.html From coolzanny at hotmail.com Mon Jul 29 12:03:03 2002 From: coolzanny at hotmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 12:03:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Globalization and Spaces for Expression Message-ID: Dear Readers, Hello! I needed your comments, views and opinions on the following: (I am currently doing my 1st year of MA in Political Science.) I have a paper to present for our upcoming seminar on Globalization and Human Rights. I am doing a paper on "Globalization: Spaces for Expression with reference to identity." I was curious to know your perspective. The idea is to examine whether Globalization gives us the freedom to be and live our identities whether in terms of religion, tribe, nationality or sexual orientation. I am examining this to understand whether our right to express our identities is being violated or furthered, whether the struggles we are facing due to our identities are being facilitated or debilitated because of globalization. I am trying to link human rights in terms of our basic freedom of expression. Through this paper, I am hoping to narrate stories rather than be an academician who receives applauds at the end of the presentation. To me, this is a critical issue because at least, I am feeling confused in terms of expressing my identity as a woman (in the wake of the atrocities committed on women in the Gujrat violence) and as a Muslim (who now feels herself fearsome whenever she sees a procession with orange flags and truckloads of mobs). I wonder what you feel about the issue. I would appreciate your comments on this topic as soon as possible and suggestions for reference too. Awaiting your responses. Best regards, Zainab _________________________________________________________________ Join the world�s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From rainaajay at hotmail.com Mon Jul 29 10:15:41 2002 From: rainaajay at hotmail.com (Ajay Raina) Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 10:15:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Kites For Azadi DIVAS Message-ID: Dear Friends, We have already started work on 10,000 kites because time is too short. The kites will carry a message from Kasai ki Chali people for all countrymen. Can you speak to people you know and confirm some orders. Price of each kite will be Rs 5/ only. The manufacturing cost per kite comes to Rs 1 only. The profit of Rs 4/kite will be used to start re-employment work in the two Chalis (Kasai ki Chali and Gasiram ki chali) Regards Ajay Raina ----- Original Message ----- From: Ajay Raina To: gjvprasad at yahoo.com ; insaniyat_ngo at yahoo.com ; jabeenmerchant at yahoo.com ; magiclf at vsnl.com ; majlis at vsnl.com ; mhj at riotinfo.com ; notointolerance at hotmail.com ; peopleforpeace at rediffmail.com ; reader-list at sarai.net ; shohini at nda.vsnl.net.in ; shveta at sarai.net ; sohail_hashmi at yahoo.com ; vinshuk at hotmail.com ; wisdomtree at yahoogroups.com ; womcentr at vsnl.com Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 11:04 AM Subject: Kites For Azadi DIVAS Dear Friends, hi, we are planning to get about 10,000 kites made by the people of Kasai ki Chali. We are spending on the raw cost of material and labour costs from a portion of our selection. Do you think you and your friends can persuade certain organisations or certain people in your city to buy these kites in bulk of 100 / 500 / 1000 to fly on AZADI DIVAS with certain messages for communal harmony. The profit we make from the kites will be recycled into the rehab work at chali. Best regards Ajay -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020729/ba7ff4b0/attachment.html From safar1957 at yahoo.com Mon Jul 29 11:21:15 2002 From: safar1957 at yahoo.com (Mukul Mangalik) Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 22:51:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] inside gujarat's 'heart of darkness Message-ID: <20020729055115.70290.qmail@web14106.mail.yahoo.com> this is the unedited original of my 2-part article published in the hindustan times recently Inside Gujarat's 'heart of darkness'--mukul mangalik > More and more people, young and old, of different > skin > colours and cuts of face, believers and > non-believers, > speaking as many different languages as this country > has to offer, need to get on to trains heading for > Gujarat. We should go alone or in groups, whenever > we > can, for as little or great a while as possible, > again > and again, over at least the next one year. > > > No matter how much we may already know about the > systematic savaging of the lives of our Muslim > co-citizens, it is when you step into the theatres > of > destruction, the arenas for the obscene celebration > of > barbarism, into the worlds of victims and > survivors, most with nothing but their lives left to > protect, the sun screaming murder, no water to > drink, > flies and the stench of urine and shit all around, > it > is then that the hugeness of the tragedy that > Narendra > Modi, the BJP, the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal > have wrought in Gujarat, blows a hole in the solar > plexus and hell into your being. > > > Rage, at every bit of this horror having been > scripted > and conducted by the states in Gujarat and at the > centre in deliberate, open violation of equal civil > and democratic rights guaranteed every citizen by > our > Constitution, engulfs you. It becomes very clear > that > this time round the successful, unrepented onslaught > on Muslims is also the definitive beginning of the > guillotining of the ideas of citizenship and > democratic freedoms that are the life-breath of > modern > India. > > > Relentless journeys into Gujarat by lots of us, > confidently carrying on ourselves all our glorious > differences, a refusal to talk, behave and 'be' in > Gujarat as the hegemons there may want us to be, is > one urgent small way of our saying 'no', to Gujarat > or > any other part of this land doing whatever and going > any which way they like. Destruction of Muslim lives > and work has been so severe in Gujarat, the > abandonment of Muslims by the state and civil > society > so near complete that there is no end to the amount > of > work that needs to be done among the > victims. Volunteers need to get to Gujarat, make > their > own assessments and buckle down to the tasks at > hand, > or simply plug into the work already being done by a > handful of overstretched NGO's, individuals, Muslim > leaders and philanthropists. > > > =================== > > > Udit, Ditee, Nakul and Arindam, students from Delhi > University, threw in their lot with Anandi and > worked > in the relief camps at Halol and Godhra. They played > with kids, helped them paint, took classes with > them, > conducted need-assessment surveys for adults and > children and helped organise marriages between men > and > women from different camps, marriages which could > wait > no more for the return of an ever elusive > 'normalcy'. > They travelled to the neighbouring village, Boru and > listened to stories from the people of Delol, where > 37 > Muslims were massacred. > > > The camps at Halol and Godhra were sheltering > hundreds > of people from villages such as these in the > Panchmahals, where death had ruled, homes, crops and > livestock had been plundered and devastated, and the > air was thick with threats of more murder and mayhem > should Muslim survivors attempt a return. In some > cases they were being invited back provided they > forget and forgive and surrender their iman, their > Muslimness. Arindam too, escaped the potential wrath > of young Bajrang Dal goons lurking in the alleys of > Godhra one night, whereupon Udit, a god-fearing, > spirit-scared, janeyu -wearing Brahmin lad from > Assam, > sick of it all, freed his torso of the sacred thread > and chucked it in the garbage. It was his way of > "registering a resounding silent protest". It was > great seeing the four of them at work, and the > affection and regard that they had come to command > among camp inmates without themselves resorting to > convenient populism. Arindam spoke of how he gently > and successfully challenged ideas of vengeful, > retaliatory communalism which he encountered among > some young male Muslim survivors of this pogrom. > > > Talking, discussing issues threadbare, is difficult > and dangerous work that is being undertaken by > concerned citizens and activists all over Gujarat. > Anandi in the Panchmahals and Action-Aid's > aman-pathiks in Ahmedabad are trying, among other > things, to encourage Hindus and Muslims to re-invent > their neighbourhoods by dialoging with each other > and > crossing communal 'borders' that have come to divide > Ahmedabad, for instance, since the late '60s. Drops > in the ocean, stray strands of hope, these efforts > need > huge shots of imaginative and energetic help, if > Ahmedabad, Gujarat and, I daresay, large parts of > the > rest of this country are not to go the way of > Northern > Ireland, Beirut and Palestine. > > > ==================== > > > Seven of us, six students and I, stayed in Ahmedabad > between May 5 and 12 while the other four were in > the > Panchmahals. After four days of calm, the dhamaal > kept > its date with the city, breaking out on Sunday the > 5th > like it had on every other Sunday during the past > few > weeks since the toofaan got going, at exactly 2pm, > "after people had had a good night's rest, an easy > morning, a good lunch and then set out for > 'time-pass', looting, burning and killing." A > 3-wheeler > driver, a Hindu, stated the last bit rather > matter-of-factly about some of his co-religionists. > > > 3-wheeler drivers in Ahmedabad are rather stingy > when > it comes to indicating which way they wish to go -- > a > mere twitch of the relevant toe suffices -- but > their > tongues wag generously. stumped by the argument that > Krishna may have tutored Arjun to war with members > of > his own family, but only with warriors, not with > non-combatants, another driver who had been singing > praises of Modi, the BJP and all that they had been > doing, suddenly did a somersault and said, "Yeh > Gujarati log gaandi chhe." > > > During the week that we were in Ahmedabad, people, > mainly Muslim labourers, venturing out fearfully to > try and earn a day's wages, were being burnt alive, > hacked to death, their skulls smashed to bloody > pulp. > Muslim bastis on the periphery of the old city were > torched and firemen had struck work for a couple of > days because some of them had been beaten up in > Khaadia, a den of the Hindu right-wing in the heart > of > the old city. The RAF was present everywhere except > where it was most needed. No one with any sense of > old > and industrial Ahmedabad, both lying east of the > Sabarmati, could be sure about what might happen > where > and when. > > > "Jaan rahi to kal milenge," is how Rais Khan would > say > good-bye each time we parted. Raisbhai was a godsend > for us, our guide and companion through the charged > and unpredictable world of Ahmedabad. He showed us > huge and ugly gouged-out, blackened and broken-up > swathes within the city which had been 'finished' > simply because they belonged to, or had something to > do > with, Muslims. We saw ruins at the Ambika Mills > basti, > Mariam ki chaali and Sundaramnagar that spoke of > irreparable wounds inflicted by cylinders exploding > on > a deadly double charge of LPG mixed with massive > doses > of virulent anti-Muslim venom that in this country > only the RSS can spew, and so effectively spread. > > Inside a shell that must have been a house in the > Gulbarg Society, we backed away in shocked silence > from > the remains of a schoolgirl's notebook that > fluttered > open to a page on which she'd written of the pride > she > felt being Indian. The light breeze stirred up > ashes. I > shuddered remembering a Muslim friend in Delhi > telling > his wife, "Ab kafan ki kya zaroorat, Musalmanon ko > bhi > jalaa rahein hain." Death hung heavy in the air. > > > Nobody who has ever stepped by and paused to look at > these and so many other cadavers of Muslim life and > work in Ahmedabad, is likely to disbelieve stories > about Kausar bano and Naroda Patiya, Ehsan Jafri and > the Gulbarg Society, the enormous trishul and > sword-wielding, lust-filled tolas of Bajrang Dal and > VHP men ruling the streets of Ahmedabad, out to > rape, > maim and teach Muslims the lesson of their lives, > put > them in their place as unequal beings in Gujarat's > 'Hindu Rashtra'. To be in Gujarat now is to be face > to > face with the nightmarish will of the RSS-BJP > unsheathed, to see with blinding clarity the > enactment > of their terrifying visions and dreams for state and > society; to resolve to do all that is possible to > fracture these visions, and instead imagine worlds > in > which everyone may enjoy life to the full. > > > The week we were in Gujarat, Muslim refugees were > dealt the umpteenth body blow in less than three > months. Robbed of almost everything but their lives, > forced to take shelter even in graveyards, unsafe in > huddles bursting at the seams called relief camps, > salt was rubbed deliberately into wounds as > compensation cheques, some as low as 300 rupees > started coming in. The little camp in the shadow of > the Jhulta Minar, the long and narrow overcrowded > general railway compartment-like Pathri Masjid camp, > the living among the dead Chartoda Kabristan camp, > open to the elements and to attacks by fascist > thugs, > most depressing of them all, the Sundaramnagar camp > -- > everywhere we went people would latch on to us and > talk, flood us with stories, each one dying to be > heard even when they knew that we'd come just to be > with them, to meet them, to share with them a few > moments of their devastated lives. > > > I was really glad Divya and Emma were there because > the women mobbed them and spoke. In the midst of it > all Emma would steal a grimace at some children, and > invariably, before they knew it, children were > coming > out of the woodwork as it were, had displaced the > women, and were at play with Emma and Divya, > squealing > and laughing with abandon. Alberuni who has a way of > attracting kids to himself, remained in supporting > role while Banajit, thin and tall, would look on, > rubbing > his chin, flashing the odd smile, the loss of his > spectacles hardly seeming to matter. During > playtime, > the simple impromptu games that were played were > watched and enjoyed by almost all camp inmates. > Divya > and Emma would suddenly become like performers of > old, > the madaari or the jaadugar enchanting children not > with the khel they performed for them, but with the > khel they played with them. For that precious slice > of > time when everyone played, I think everyone forgot > where we were, forgot all that can never really be > forgotten, all that must never be forgotten. It was > a > moment of lightness, of refreshing collective > amnesia, > 'Jaise beemar ko bevajah karar aa jaaye.' I feel we > need to go, all of us, 'Jinhe naaz thhaa Hind pe,' > wherever they may be, if not to help out with all > that > the state has reneged on, then for a little while, > to > lend people a ear, and give children our time, to > simply listen and play, hold a hand or give a hug. > The > vast majority of non-Muslim, largely Hindu Gujaratis > couldn't give a damn, at least right now, for the > fate > of Gujarati Muslims. > > ================================= > > > In Ahmedabad, west of the Sabarmati, modern and > largely Hindu, with only a pocketful of prosperous > Muslim households and businesses, most of which had > been successfully targeted and burnt to skeletons, > life carried on with gusto. The young on 2-wheelers > were loud, fast and cocky. Law Gardens was the cool > evening hang-out after the torrid heat of the day. > Rose-faluda and kesar lassi with ice-cream were > always > irresistible, the sidewalks very charming, late into > the night. All very well, but for our growing > realisation that most west-side Ahmedabadis, tacitly > or openly, approved of the beating that Muslims were > getting. Large-scale nonchalance or even a feigned > ignorance may have been acceptable, but this open > glee > over bestial Muslim bashing was sickening and > terrifying. > > > With each passing day we felt increasingly unsafe > and > oppressed living and walking in 'safe Hindu' > Ahmedabad, simply because we were not 'Hindu' enough > for the Navrangpura-Naranpura Ahmedabadis. We were > visiting relief camps for Muslims and meeting with > non-camp Muslims, labouring people, Hindus too [not > that this would redeem us in the eyes of the > west-side > Ahmedabadis], many of them migrants from eastern UP > and Rajasthan, whose work and lives had spun down > black holes. We were meeting with families such as > the > Jawhers, who were living in Paldi, professional and > secular to the core, dazed, shocked and sad at > feeling > forced to take refuge among people as different to > them as heaven from hell, but people who happened to > be of their religious kind. > > > Rizwan's face flashes by as I write. "Mukul bhai," > he'd said in Delhi, handing me a copy of his > 'Alienated in one's homeland', as does Saleem's when > he had wondered aloud, for the first time ever, in > early March, whether he needed to think seriously > about where he should live in Lucknow! I'd stood > there > as if struck by lightning, 'Lucknow' echoing in my > head with the force of a thunderclap, but let me get > back to Ahmedabad. We were going in for hearings of > the concerned citizen's tribunal and were sometimes > in > the company of people like Father Cedric Prakash and > 'maulana' Girishbhai Patel. All this, it became > rapidly clear to us could invite retribution, as > could > the language that some of us spoke, liberally laced > with janab, aadaab, khuda-hafiz, shukriya, farmaaen > and all that poetry which consciously Sanskritised > Hindi, simply kills. Throw in the men's long hair, > Divya's laughter and our couldn't-care-less > dressing, > and by the fifth day we just didn't feel free to be > the way we were. Fifteen minutes before we boarded > the > Ashram Express for Delhi on May 12, I remember > bursting the dam, showering unstoppable, intense > verbiage on Danny, letting off steam, and feeling > much > better. The insecurity must have persisted like a > bad > hang-over because I was actually relieved to see men > of the Rajasthan Police board our compartment once > we'd crossed the border out of Gujarat. I felt we > were > in 'safe' hands, perhaps one of the few times I've > felt safe with the police. > > > In January 2000, a few months after the Kargil war > and > immediately after the Kandahar hijack, when > relations > between India and Pakistan were at their worst in > many > years, I travelled with students into Pakistan. > Despite the paranoia before the trip, all of us felt > at ease there. This is certainly not something that > any > of us can say about our trip to Gujarat. > > > > > ===================================== > > > The Godhra burning, communal, repulsive and > criminally > punishable was not the reason why the rest of > Gujarat > went up in flames; nor was it the reason why > Muslims, > especially women and children have been hunted down, > humiliated, forced to look on as family and friends > were gang-raped, cut up into pieces, blown apart > like > bombs, the survivors castaway to fend for > themselves, > being dared to re-build their lives, their work. > Godhra was simply an occasion, the excuse for what > has > been happening in Gujarat for four months now, just > as > Sept. 11 was not the reason but the occasion for the > launching of the 'international war against terror', > the projected threats from Pakistan and China were > not > the reasons why we had Pokhran-II, Dec. 13 and May > 14, > are not the reasons, but excuses for beating the > drums > of war against Pakistan. Godhra was an excuse for a > butchery binge against Muslims just as faltering > secular practices and the only partially attained > goals for education and democracy, have become > excuses > in recent years for launching into a slaughter of > secularism, democracy and education themselves. > > > The only way we can begin to make sense of Gujarat, > as > of the rest of the filth that we in this > subcontinent > are being thrown into, including possibly the > nuclear > abyss, is to look hard, long and clearly at the RSS > family. All other explanatory variables -- the > longterm worldwide economic slowdown, the collapse > of > Ahmedabad's 64 textile mills, disrupting 1,60,000 > working lives, the expansion in Gujarat as also on a > world-scale of informal labouring practices, > 'footloose labour', as Jan Bremen calls it, with all > its attendant everyday insecurities, the class, > caste > and patriarchal anxieties of the privileged (the > Brahmins, Patidars and Banias, for instance) > perceived > to be stemming from KHAM alliance politics and the > spread of reservation, their desire to stay on top > and > be seen and heard within India and internationally, > the historical absence in modern Gujarat of strong > anti-caste or autonomous lower caste movements, > emancipatory women's movements, as also a > significantly powerful and autonomous labour > movement > -- all these arguments are absolutely necessary, but > not sufficient for understanding what we are > confronted with in Gujarat today. It is not even > enough to argue that Gujarat happened the way it > did, > because the state collapsed or allowed it to happen. > > > The dangerous singularity of Gujarat 2002 lies in > the > shameless self-righteous abandon with which the > anti-Muslim pogrom has been unleashed and justified > by > the state, right to this date. This, to a large > extent, explains the scale and the extreme > viciousness > of the continuing violence as also the cold terror > that is gripping Muslims in Gujarat and in other > parts > of the country. The state, not just through the > practise of its partisanship, but through a > rationalisation of this practise, is saying, more > loudly and clearly than ever before since 1947,that > everyone is not equal before the law. It is saying > openly and blatantly, that it is for the state, not > for our republican constitution to decide who shall > live and how in this country, if necessary by > hounding > and savaging the people of this land. Today it is > the > Muslims and other religious minorities who are at > the > receiving end of the state's arbitrary brutality, > tomorrow it can be anyone who is seen to be a thorn > in > the flesh of the wilful exercise of power by the > Indian state. The danger lurks not just for Muslims, > shameful and impoverishing as this itself is for all > of us. The terror that Muslims are living today, > their > deep everyday fears, can become the terror that all > of > us may face tomorrow, a threat to our collective > democratic existence as citizens of this land. > > > This dangerous singularity of Gujarat, with all its > grave implications, may not have come to pass had > the > RSS not been in command politically and > ideologically. > No other organised force in this country hates > Muslims > as deeply and pathologically as the RSS. No other > force could have demonised Muslims, projected them > as > being less than human and deserving of unimagined > cruelties, the 'enemy' that must be exorcised from > 'our' midst if 'we' are to live in peace and > harmony, > as effectively as the RSS. No other force could have > so shamelessly raided our past, abused and twisted > it > beyond recognition, played, untiringly over many > years, on popular prejudices about 'minorityism', > and > shaken up all this and more into a potent, > anti-Muslim > potion. No other force could have revelled in > offering > up this poison as a simple 'solution' for all kinds > of > problems facing all manner of people in these times > of > multiple crises. Only the RSS with its single-minded > hellish hatred of Muslims could plunge itself into > the > lives of Adivasis and Dalits, OBC's and Brahmins, > Patidars and Banias, scratch their multi-sourced and > differentially complex insecurities and get them to > come together as the 'Hindutva' god's army straining > to go to war, fangs bared, eyes dripping blood, and > mouth poison against the 'enemy Muslim outsider', > imagining this to be the final battle for the > deliverance of the Hindu religion and nation. Only > the > RSS with its relentless vilification of the Muslim > as > enemy, could have forged this alliance between the > dispossessed and the propertied, hurling them in a > violent offensive against the imagined 'other', > looting, plundering, and in the process subverting > challenges to existing social hierarchies, steering > minds and energies away from battles concerned with > making our earth a better place to live on for all. > > > The poor, the wretched of the earth, are armed > against > each other, as the first move in arming the state to > disarm all citizens of this country of our political > rights. Gujarat 2002 comes straight out of the RSS' > 'heart of darkness', as clear a warning as we may > want > about what it means to 'Hinduise India and > militarise > Hinduism', the foundational, and still the core > desire > of the RSS, its supreme dream. Take the RSS family > away and the Gujarat carnage 2002, the Ayodhya > movement, Pokhran-II, and the rapid downward slide > in > relations with Pakistan, a second war, possibly > nuclear, within 3 years staring us in the face, may > have all remained faraway fascist dreams, not our > immediate nightmares. > > MUKUL MANGALIK > > 33 Anand Lok, New Delhi - 49 > > safar1957 at yahoo.com > > > > > > > > > > > ATTACHMENT part 2 application/msword name=Gujarat.doc __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com From zamrooda at sarai.net Mon Jul 29 12:49:07 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 12:49:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Proposal for Blocking Yahoo and Hotmail by Indian ISPs Message-ID: <200207291249.07333.zamrooda@sarai.net> Proposal for Blocking Yahoo and Hotmail by Indian ISPs (http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial/edit_10jul_28_1.html) Yesterday's brief comment on the proposal mooted by some ISP is in India to block popular sites such as Yahoo and Hotmail has evoked wide spread comments. Most of the respondents have found it hard to believe such a proposal could be existing because they see no valid reason for the same. Frankly, I also see no valid reason for such a move which is an anti customer move and could be a PR disaster. It could also attract consumer action and threaten the ISP license itself without necessarily being a wise move commercially. In order to remove the doubts about the origin of the news report, I give more details of the proposal and how it seems to have originated. The news item was picked from the Hindustan Times Net Edition of July 27, 2002, where an article by Mr Soumendra Sahu reported the proceedings of the executive committee meeting of ISAPI (Internet Service Providers Association of India). It was stated that the proposal was mooted by a Rajastan based ISP by name Data Infosys and is supported by Satyam and Data Access. Caltiger and Net4India appear to have opposed the move while MTNL and VSNL have at present not taken a view. The secretary of the ISP is however quoted as saying that "The association will resolve the issue through mutual discussion before going ahead with the blocking". The reason quoted by ISAPI is that portals like Yahoo, Hotmail and E-Bay are accessed through the services of the ISP s and should therefore contribute part of their earnings to the ISPs. In order to make this possible, ISP s should first stop access to these services. Comments: The proposal of ISAPI to demand money from the portals which are visited by their customers is down right silly. It is hard to believe that a Company like Satyam who runs its own portal should ever be even considering such a move. The officer of Satyam who has attended the meeting and let this view pass has done a great disservice to the image of Satyam both from the point of view of exhibiting lack of sensitivity to consumer's views as well as the self defeating nature of the proposal itself. Self Defeating Nature of the Proposal: Imagine VSNL and Dishnet stating that Sify should pay a part of the portal's ad revenue to them since a part of the visitors come through VSNL and Dishnet access accounts. If Satyam can expect revenue from Yahoo and Hotmail, there is no reason why VSNL and Dishnet cannot expect a similar revenue from Satyam. Secondly, if some customers of an ISP are visiting a popular website repeatedly, the time they spend there is directly bringing benefit to the ISP. Like the proverbial dog Vs Tail, who wags whom, ISP s seem to be thinking that it is because of them that Content providers exist on the Internet. It is essential for them to first understand the medium of Internet and appreciate that it is the attractive content or service that makes people access Internet and provides bread and butter to ISPs. If a client goes to Yahoo and plays a game of Chess for 30 minutes, the ISP which has provided the access gets a direct benefit of the usage of access hours. It simply defies my logic that the ISP s are unable to understand this simple truth. If this argument has any value, then there can also be a demand from the ISP s that sites which post heavy files such as "Images" have to pay more than sites that post text data. If however, ISP s feel that the charges they are now levying for bandwidth usage is not sufficient, it is for them to increase their service charges or change over the pattern of charging from "Hours of Usage" to "Bandwidth Used". Trying to discriminate the users based on the sites they visit is foolish to say the least. ISP s should however remember that today they are making fraudulent gain by various means including "Choking the bandwidth deliberately so as to increase the hours of usage". For example, if an ISP offers 33.6 KB or 64 KB bandwidth, they actually shrink the bandwidth available to the consumer by sharing the pipe with too many customers. The actual data transfer speed on an average is perhaps less than 50 %. More over, the uptime of most of the Indian ISP s is below acceptable international standards and the consumers pay for frequent disconnections or malfunctioning of the servers at the ISP end. ISP s are also indulging in many anti consumer activities such as "Eating E-Mails" of the customers and if Consumers have not so far brought legal action on the ISPs for these sub optimal services that they are rendering, it is only because the Consumer organizations in India are not focusing on the requirements of Netizens and informed consumers also understand the technical problems in an emerging high tech service. If ISP s think that the Consumers can be taken for a ride and charged for the inefficiencies of the ISPs, the faults of the telephone systems and also for visiting sites of their choice, they are taking on the Net Community is a losing battle and will invite the wrath of the community. Licensing Terms: I am not able to comment on the ISP licensing terms at this point of time and leave it to some of the other experts. One view of the industry is that the ISP has the discretion to determine what service he provides and he cannot be compelled to allow access to any website. In the past, ISP s have fought for their right to allow access to any website against objections of regulatory agencies. There are some ISPs who have refused to block anti Indian sites when demanded by the regulatory authorities taking refuge under "Freedom to Information Access". Similarly, many ISP s are not willing to block porno sites stating various technical reasons. When they seem to oppose regulation of their activities in these cases which is in public interest, it is strange that they now want to regulate the content that the customer can view, for commercial considerations. Without further detailed analysis of the ISP guidelines, I can only say that if the regulatory authorities think that ISP's action of blocking Yahoo or Hotmail are arbitrary restrictions placed on the fair use of the medium, they should have the right to cancel the license. Such powers will anyway be available to the regulators under the next piece of legislation that is likely to become a law soon. Implications of ITA-2000 By trying to exercise their right to regulate what the users of ISP can view, ISP s are also admitting that they will be technically capable of blocking certain sites at their pleasure. This will remove the defense they so far had to oppose regulator's instructions for "Interception" of communication or blocking of websites. ITA-2000 had provided section 79 to keep the ISP s free from liabilities for the content that passes through them by creating a separate status as an "Intermediary" of a communication message. It was under this status that they could absolve themselves of any liability for the content accessed by the users. If ISP s now express their desire to take control of the content, they will also be expressing their willingness to be held accountable for the content. If then, any ISP receives a notice about either a porno site or a terrorist site and they do not block them, they can be charged for Distribution of Obscene electronic documents, Abetment in Terrorist activities etc and can be punished under IPC, ITA-2000 as well as POTA. I wish the ISP s think carefully before shedding the protecting veil of "The status of a Neutral Data Carriage Intermediary" and assuming the role of "Selective Content Distribution Service". The responsibilities cast on them in such changed role are far too many for them to digest. As a PR Exercise, companies like Satyam will do well to clarify if they are advocating this change. Their silence will be construed as endorsing the position that they consider themselves not as "Intermediary" under Section 79 and Section 2 of ITA-2000 but as a "Content Distributor To a Closed list of Members". This may be used against them in any legal action where they express inability to block objectionable content. Naavi July 28, 2002 From shuddha at sarai.net Mon Jul 29 13:51:35 2002 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 13:51:35 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] No Border Camp Strasbourg : A Report Message-ID: <02072913513500.01305@sweety.sarai.kit> No Border Camp Strasbourg : A Report Dear friends on the Reader List, I had promised a few days ago to file a report on the "No Border" Camp at the Parc du Rhin, on the banks of the Rhine, between Kehl in Germany and Strasbourg in France, where I spent a very stimulating two days last week. What follows is a sketchy, incomplete and personal report of what I experienced, and some of the thoughts that have occurred to me, arising from these expereiences.I apologize in advance for the length of this posting. The posting is in eight parts. I. A Backgrounder The "No Border" camps (like the one at Strasbourg) are events that grow out of the activities of the No Border Network, (www.noborder.org) an alliance of activists and organizations engaged in campaigning against tightening border controls, increasing persecution of emigrants and border crossers, and the buidling up of what can be best described as the "Fortress Europe/Australia/America" phenomenon. The campaign consists of anti -deportation activities like the by now well known "Lufthansa Deportation Class" campaign by 'Kein Mensch Ist Illegal' (No One is Illegal) in Germany, the 'Sans Papiers' (Without Papers) movement in France and the more recent D.Sec as well as a host of other initiatives by, activist groups, civil liberty organizations, and individuals. The political cultures and traditions that the No Border Network embodies, are as diverse as the 'multitudes' that inhabit it, but they visibly include anarchists, radical feminist, liberterian communists, greens, immigrant organizations, civil liberties groups, tactical media initiative like some Indymedia groups as well as un-affiliated, even a-political, individual dissidents. The network does not describe itself as a movement, it has no central committee or caucus, and is marked by a very alive tradition of internal debate, disagreement and a refusal to abide by any demands for what in left circles worldwide, is known as "Unity in Struggle", and which, in reality is the subordination of all opinions to the demands of the central party line. The No Border camp at Strasbourg is the largest even of its kind so far, and housed approximately 3000 people in a very hospitable and convivial atmosphere. Previous camps have occurred at the German-Polish border, the German-Ukrainian border, the Spain-Morocco border, and the US-Mexican border. The recent campaings against the detention of immigrants at Woomera in Australia is also inspired in many ways by the No Border Camps. This much by way of a bare context to the camp. I arrived on the late afternoon of the 21st of July along with Florian Scheider, Geert Lovink and Manse Jacobi at the Strasbourg border camp. And I was in the camp till late on the night of the 23rd of July. Florian and Geert had been actively involved in several no border camps before, and it was good to get a sense from them about how the No Border Camps have evolved, from a gathering of two to three hundred German acitvists in the late nineties, into a temporary autonomous zone that brought together two to three thousand people from all over Europe, and some from Australia, North America and Asia. Florian spoke of both the excitement of seeing the whole phenomenon of the No Border camp grow, as a dynamic, organic entitiy, and also of the frustrations of having to re-invent the process of discussion and organization, as people new to the network arrived at the camp and brought with them their varied energies, momentums and proclivities. While there was a sense of a loss of the intimacy of the earlier gatherings, it was more than made up for by the enormous energy that this camp was clearly able to mobilize and sustain. In Geert's posting (which I had forwarded earlier to this list), the vital role that a new sensibility of the politics of communication, and its role in building this network is evident. He traced, with some pride, the expansion of the communicative capacity of the network, from one laptop computer, to a well kitted out wireless internet infrastructure, an independent transmitter and a camp radio, and the expanding base of the Indymedia and open publishing tendencies that broadcast the camp to the world. I saw Geert at his happiest in the radio tent, a hive of transmissions, where radical techies from all over would congregate to record, transmit and inscribe the camp on the airwaves. Manse, who has been actively involved in the setting up of aspects of the Indymedia system, had interesting things to say about the possibilities opened up by the open publishing protocol,and how the networking possibilities popularized by it was one of the factors that went into the making of the organizational infrastructure that made events like the No Border camp possible. All this made for interesting discussions as preparation for our arrival into the camp itself. In a sense, the background to the No Border Camp events lie in the mass participation in the anti capialist actions of the late nineties, starting from the June 18th 'reclaimation of London' in 1999, moving on to the mass protests of Prague, Gothenburg, Seattle and Genoa which had effectively radicalized a new generation of people, who were no longer content with reforms of the system, or 'greater democracy' or 'green' Capitalism, but were expressing their total sense of alienation from the institutions of the state and the market. Their protests were also not so much on 'behalf' of the oppressed in other spaces, say in that fictional space called the 'Third World', as about their own lives and oppressions. (Where is the Third World, I have often wondered, in the HLM suburbs (banlieus) of Paris, where second generation unemployed white kids and newly proletarianized Maghrebians live the good life of contemporary capitalism in decrepit housing estates, or in the slums and shanty towns of Delhi, or in both, and if it is in both, then what sense does it make to speak of a "third" world, as opposed to 'one' world and nothing else to win, and nothing to lose). In identifying the system of borders and border controls, and the 'frontierization' of all urban spaces in Europe, these protesters were turning the terms of debate around into a territory in which they were themsevles visible as 'outsiders' in fortress Europe. As objects in the database, who could be legal or illegal depending on the terms that the state system employed to characterize the notions of legality in physical space. This meant that potentially, this culture of dissent was one of the first to postulate a unity not based on sympathy with the oppressed 'other' , but on the actual possibility of solidarity based on the conditions that acted in uniform ways across the globe as Capital consolidated itself globally. In other words, or as one of the favourite slogans of the no border activists put it, "Our resistance is as transnational as Capital". Combined with this was a new energy of communicative practices and tactical media actions that originated in and around the Hybrid Media Lounge at Documenta X in 1997. It is important to recognize, for instance, that the Kein Mensch Ist Illegal campaign, was born in that environment, and was one of the most significant energies that fed into the anti border mobilizations of the later years. II. The Camp The first sight that greets you as you cross the Pont d'Europe bridge, between France and Germany, is a colourful array of tent on the right (French) bank of the Rhine. This was the campsite. As you entered, there were a series of improvised but elegant Geodesic Dome frames made out of cheap and easily awailable wooden rods and pegs. These Domes housed, information centres, a welcome point (where you were given basic directions, and orientations), and spaces where people could put up posters, banners etc. There was also a tent for a round the clock legal team (in case of arrests or legal problems) and a full time medical team. The camp itself was organized in "Barrios", or 'neighbourhoods' each housing approximately 400-500 people. Thus, there was a Marburg Barrio, Barcelona Barrio, a Brandenburg Barrio and so on. There was also a 'Womens Only' quarter, for women who wanted to live in a space where there were no men around. Elsewhere in the camp, women and men, and children of all ages, and of assorted nationalities, mingled and lived together in an atmosphere that seemed easy, non threatening, and refreshingly free of any rancour. Though some women stayed in the women only zone, the majority of women stayed in the mixed barrios. There was also a special area for children and their friends and parents to play in, and several people volunteered to play and organize a series of fun activities, with the kids. I chose to stay with friends I knew, in the Brandenburg Barrio, which also called itself the "Black-Silver" Barrio, although it carried a big nice red flag, with a black star in the centre. Everywhere, black and red flags (the striking colours of the anarchist tradition) fluttered over cheerful pink, blue, purple, green and mauve tents - giving the whole camp the happily hybrid atmosphere of a cross between a political gathering and a carnival. (And that is the best kind of political gathering, imho !) The Barrios were organized around kitchens, which offered free, wholesome but simple (mainly vegetarian, except for the Maghrebian kitchen of the French Sans Papiers, which also offered delicious north african meat dishes) food, for which you had to queue up. Dinner, was a time that you could run into old friends, or make new ones, in the queue. Each day, there were a series of planned actions, (demonstrations in the city centre, events in the depressed suburbs of Strasbourg, mainly populated by migrants) and meetings, discussions and workshops. At night, after dinner, there were usually lectures, or public discussions, or screenings in one of the two big workshop tents. For a detailed description of how life on an everyday level at the camp was organized see the camp manual at http://www.noborder.org/strasbourg/guide_en.html (it makes for fascinating reading on how 'organized' an well designed a space with an anarchist space has to be if it has to be functional, free and friendly !) I have already mentioned the Indymedia Tent (with public internet access) and he Radio Tent, which were the communciative hubs of the camp. There was also the Publix Theatre Caravan bus, which was a mobile tactical media double decker bus, that had come all the way from Vienna, and which was like a tactical media centre on the move, with facilities for video screenings, intenet access and streaming, and which would tour the neighbourhoods and suburbs of Strasbourg, and during demonstrations, as a very active outreach arm of the campaign. The presense of the media and technology at the camp remained a subject of much debate within the camp itself. From the very beginning, there was an active "Anti-Technology" cafe, which was the focus of anti media, anti techie, currents in the camp. There was a great deal of debate on whether the mainstream media and the alternative media were the one and the same thing, whether media personnel should at all be allowed into the camp or not, and how the media spaces shoud be (self) governed. An interesting instance of the kinds of conflicts that these debates generated, was the unilateral decision by some people within the radical/lesbian feminist sorority at the camp that the radio tent be a "Women Only" space, during the hours that they would be broadcasting their radio programme on the camp radio station. This naturally led to some tensions, with techies (both men and women) insisting that this was a violation of their rights to be and work in a space that they were primarily responsible for. After a few days of what seemed like an impossible standoff, a compromise was reached, the (male) techies decided to observe the radical/lesbian feminist radio programme transmission hour as a 'time for silence ', meaning they agreed to remain absolutely silent in the tent, while the radical lesbian feminists were present for their radio programme. This solution worked out perfectly. The radical lesbian feminists got their radio programme on the camp radio, and the (male) techies, stayed on in the radio tent. I point to this little tussle, because it seems to me a very interesting example of how a non hierarchical political culture can deal with the fact of internal differences. Of course, it took a few days, and a lot of energy was spent discussing things, but a solution was found in the end. Similar disputes, even on day to day matters like whehter or not a group could or could not set up a non profit beer bar on the camp grounds, or how to deal with instances of sexism on the camp were arrived at on a daily basis at inter barrio meetings, which were daily instances of the everyday political culture of grassroots anarchism. The overall security of the camp was the responsbility of the 'Big Bertha' node, which consisted of rotating personnel who basically moved around the camp making sure that everybody felt safe and secure in a non coercive way, they were armed only with torches and walkie talkies, and were trained in the practical aspects of non violent conflict resolution. It was also their job to alert the camp in the event of any police presence. The Big Bertha team, like the medical, legal, techie, media and kitchen teams, were composed of volunteers, and had to report the inter barrio assembl. None of these teams acted as power centres, in fact they coud not do so, as they were made up of rotating members. Apart form these there were 'Affinity Groups' - the radical lesbian feminists were one such group, the techies were another informal affinity group and so on. The inter barrio assembly met each morning after local barrio meetings. Barrios sent delegates selected to the inter barrio meetings (these could be recalled, and were not 'representatives' in the sense in which we normally understand 'political representation') all disputes, were discussed openly and at great length, and there was no attempt to force majority decisions, or forced consensus. All decisions were publicly posted at info points in each barrio and in public spaces in the camp. The camp was not chaotic, not a series of random meetings, not made up of vague drifters who had nothing else to do. Just to give you an instance of how organized it actually was - the diversity of languages spoken at the camp was transformed from being a problem into an advantage by sheer organization and co ordinated effort. At the radio and info tents, there were charts outlining peoples (volunteers) names, the languages they spoke and the times that they would be avaiable each day for interpreting and translations. This menat that no text, no communique, no interview, no discussion need remain untranslated. Working translations were arrived at , expeditiously, and no group felt left out because it did not speak a particular language. I found this particularly remarkable, as I am used to the linguistic tyranny of Hindi and English in a great deal of the alternative political culture in India. As far as i could get a sense of what is going on, it was my distinct impression that a similar level of co ordination was also visible in the voluntary distribution of kitchen and cleaning up duties, construction, maintainance, public relations and technical infrastructure maintaniance. If anything, this microcosmic model of a 'functioning anarchy' was an instance of how the actions and energies of the 'multitudes' might translate into concrete realities on a day to day basis in a possible future away from Capitalism. Of course there were matters of serious disputes, like one on the presence and persistence of an anti semitic thread in the European left that took advantage of the condemnation of the Israeli states' actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. This was a theme on which I heard many conflicting points of view. There were also practical issues of great concern and gravity, that were the subject of endless debate and discussion - how not to succumb to police provocation, how to interface more actively with the people of Strasbourg, and how to plan an effective action agaist the Schengen Information System, which was the key action planned for the end of the week. III. Information and Politics : The SIS system and the No Border Camp The Schengen Information System (SIS) is the central database that tracks migrants, refugees, travellers, asylum seekers and others who come to Europe. It s electronic monitoing apparatus, has turned all of the towns, cities and country side of the Schengen states (France, Germany, Italy, the Benelux states) into one vast border zone that carries with it the illusion of the 'vanishing border'. It is true, that once you enter, say, France, you can pass seemingly effortlessly into any other Schengen state. But what lies behind this apparent ease of movement (if you have the right papers) is the fact that the entire area is now one big networked border check post, and you can be tracked, traced, and checked, anywhere. In Germany, for instance, severely repressive laws, that restrict the movements of those who have sought asylum are in existence, and the German government (SPD and Greens) is arguing for making this a Europe wide system. The UK is calling for punitive actions against those parts of the world where illegal emigrants originate from. The databases at the heart of fortress Europe are the neural network which will make these measures possible. One of the most interesting groups of people that I came across at the no border camp at strasbourg, was the group that called itself D.Sec (http://dsec.info) IV. D.SEC D.Sec or 'Database System to Enforce Control' can also be understood as "Deformed Security" Here I would like to give you an extended quote from the d.sec website. "...d.sec is about reflecting the mechanisms of repression/control in the fields of free movement and free communication, the experiences of electronic and physical bordercrossing. An attempt to integrate cyber-activism and taking the streets, and find the relations between social and technical skills. The wider objective is to give momentum to an ongoing exploration of technical potentials in the resistance against the border regime. d.sec relies on the diversity of people who will be present at the Strasbourg border camp. Some of the activists will be web designers and editors, sys-ads, videomakers, code-writers, translators. Some earn a living with this "immaterial labour", some just use it in their political work. Others focus on the streets. Others have experience with borders and migration. d.sec is meant to become an open structure where activists, anti-racists, migrants, hackers, teccies, artists and many more put their knowledges and practices into self-organised interaction. A space to discuss and network, for skill sharing and and collaborative knowledge production. A laboratory to try out ways to hack the streets and reclaim cyberspace with crowds in pink and silver; experiment with virtual identities, linux and open-source products; explore the embodyment of technology, learn about the meanings of physical and virtual bordercrossing." In conversations with some of the people of this group, what I found most interesting was their very concrete understanding of the fact that the freedom of movement and freedom of information are related things. That the immigration systems databse was a border control system, and hacking the database was as much about freeing information as it was about helping people move by letting them know how much they were being watched, how and where.to my mind, this is one of the cleares instances of political hacking that I know, and it is not about a "Denial of Service"attack, or about some kind of cyber graffiti or website defacement. It is far more fundamental than these kinds of actions that are basically designed as being more or less effective spectacles in cyberspace. d.Sec is about getting to the core of the "politics" of information systems, and that is why I think it breaks significant new ground in the tactical media milieu. Althoug I was not present for the d.sec groups action at the SIS headquarters in the suburbs of Strasbourg, (it happenned after I left) I think it bears some reflection, and I quote again from the diary entry of this action on one of the Indymedia sites allied with the Strasbourg No Border Camp. Shutting Down the SIS ; Researchers Hack the SIS system http://event.indymedia.de/2002/07/122.shtml "...On friday 26th a team of researchers from strasbourg nsv research(noborder sillicon valley) came to Strasbourg Neuhof, where the Schengen Information System (SiS) is located. It was the aim of a working group to develope a system to make the data stored in the Schengen Information System accessable for everybody. Accompanied by a french television team and several journalist, the team dig a hole next to the street which is going to the SIS. The work of the group soon got the attention of the police, obviously not understanding what was going on and suprised by the massive gathering of press people. Based on information of a resaerchers group who visited the SIS location some days before, a cable was taken out of the ground and connected to a notebook. After booting the system and logging in on the SIS system, the user rights of the schengen data were changed (chmod 777*) so from now on everybody is able to access his/her own data stored in the schengen system, of course also change or delete data as needed. After that then the noborder plugin was installed (apt-get install noborder) to enable access from everywhere whitout limitation. The communication protokoll was changed to TCP/IP for easy internet (webbased-)access. A easy to use webportal will be installed soon. Now the system was shutdown for a complete reboot and made ready for a free-communication compiling..." Here was an event complete with its own dramaturgy and theatre, 'researchers' dressed in orange and white lab technicians garb, complete with accessible high tech, but easy to use, and inexpensive tools (laptops, digi cams and mobile phones) technical competence of a high order, a clear political objective - (freeing the database) and an utterly confused police which could make no sense of a group of silent, serious looking technicians who seemed to raise no slogans, make no disturbance, speak in no "language of protest" that they could recognize. V. Maps of Power Another interesting project that I saw was a take away print broadsheet called "Refuse the Biopolice : A Cartography of Contemporary Control Systems a fascinating diagrammic representation of the links between corporate and financial power, state interests, military apparatuses, foundations, wealthy families, and networks of surviellance that spanned the globe. This was a project conceived by a Strasbourg based group called the Universite Tangente (Tangential University?) in collaboration with http://utangente.free.fr/, which is a collective of artists and researchers who produce a variety of imaginative interpretations through texts, maps and diagrams of the realities of contemporary life. Information, both as an aesthetic category, and as a subject of politics is central to their work. The boradsheet was produced by them in collaboration with Syndicat Potentiel and Bureau d'Etudes (Strasbourg) VI. Freedom of Movement, Freedom for Information It was in some ways quite fitting that this recognition of the very political fact of information, of the drawing of links between the freeing of information, and the breaking of borders was taking place at Strasbourg. Strasbourg was the place where Gutenberg pioneered the printing press. And there is a statue commemorating his "freeing of information"close to the city centre. In an earlier visit to Strasbourg some years ago, I was pleased to discover, at the base of this memorial to Gutenberg, a series of bronze plaques, other pioneers of free speech, the printed word and the freedom of expression and information. Amongst this is depicted (Along with the thinkers of the enlightenment, the statesmen of the American revolution, and anti slavery activists) a figure of Ram Mohan Roy (misspelt as Rah Mohan Roy), radical theologian, an early enthusiast of the printing press, liberal thinker and founder of the reformist sect called the Brahmo Samaj in nineteenth century India. Ram Mohan Roy, in the last phase of his life, spent some years in Europe, in England. During this time, he expressed a desire to vist France, to facilitate the people of France on the occasion of an anniversary of the revolution of 1789. He was however, asked to procure a visa by the French authorities. Much incensed by this, "uncivilised" demand, he wrote an eloquent and furious letter, in which he implied that the visa, was a violation of the principles of liberty (of movement), of equality (amongst peoples) and the possibility of fraternity (because it effectively prevented people from fraternizing). I am not sure about this, but my hunch is that this is probably the first recorded protest against visas and border controls in the world. By a strange (or not so strange) twist of history. The demonstration that passed the tiny, barely noticable bas relief figure of Ram Mohan Roy in Strasbourg, was echoing his anger, almost two centuries later. What was remarkable was the fact that they like him, (and perhaps like Gutenberg before him) were equally aware of the fact that the control over information is one of the keys to the hold that power has over people, and that their protest was as much against border controls in physical space as it was against borders in virtual space. This again made me think that it is meaningless to single out the internet as 'New Media'. In its own time, the Printing Press was as much 'new' or 'tactical' media as the internet and computers are today. And just as the explosion of 'illicit', subversive, dissident, anti clerical or even ribald literature that accompanied the proliferation of printing presses in the late eighteenth century prior to and during the revolution of 1789, creating a critical mass of free thinking, so too, the tactical media initiatives of our times could be contributing to a new critical mass of the freedom of thought in our times. The fact that the database was at the heart of power, makes it impossible to think of a technological articulation of info politics as being always radical. It is as central to power as it is to those who oppose power. To either romanticize new technologies of information and communication as being the standard bearers of the coming revolution, or to paint them in the dystopic colours of state and political control is to forget the fact that it is what we 'do' with information that makes it political, this way or that. The computer can be the appliance of the border guard, and it can be the instrument of the border crosser, a lot depends on who uses, which software to which end, how, and why. For me, the border camp at Strasbourg was about this reality in action, of the hacker, the border crosser, the police man and the guardian of the database stading and facing each other, inaugurating a new moment (amongs many other such moments) in the struggle for freedom in the world today. VII. On the Streets, in Cyberspace It was this combination of the strength of tactical media actions, along with highly charged street protests - like the march to the European Palace of Justice and the Council of Europe Buildings, or in the central square of Strasbourg, which combined radical giant puppets, cheerleaders, spray painters, a mobile poster and sticker pasting unit, a very enthusiastic Samba band, flag bearers and camera wielding people who did counter surveillance videos of polic presence, that lent the whole camp and its activities a decided edge. Of course, the police waited and watched in the first few days, and then got into a heavily reprssive mode later, with arrests, raids, tear gas sprays and baton charges (all these happenned in the last few days, after I left) but I think that camp was able to make its presence felt in many significant ways. It was the intersection of a new information and tactical media presence with a street smart culture of political presence. By focusing on the Schengen Information System it was able to develop a sophisticated response to the necessity of treating information as one of the key questions of political power in the contemporary world. And on the sidelines of the camp, just before I left to catch a train in the middle of the night, in a discussion on tactical media and politics, that brought together people from Central, Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Australia, the Middle East (both Arab and Israeli), and South Asia, the proposal for the 'Last International' was quietly mooted, and slipped easily into discussion. I like this phrase, it has an irony (based on its reference to all the previous internationals and their tragic destinies) and a certain urgency. This phrase, which some of us at Sarai have used casually in conversation, which re-appeared again at the Make World Conference in Munich last year, and which made its presence felt in a quiet way at the Strasbourg No Border Camp, is an idea whose time has come. Increasingly, I think that the time we inhabit is indeed the moment of the 'Last International'. Of making the resistance to capital as agile, as transnational and as mobile as capital itself. As I left Strasbourg, crossing borders, physically and metaphorically, I could not but help carrying with me the slogan that I often heard at demonstrations, or saw pasted on leaflets all over Strasbourg - "No Borders, No Nations, Stop Deportations". VII. Flying Home On the flight back home, I saw a line of light on the ground as the airplane that I was in flew into the airspace of the Republic of India. This line of light was the electrified, fortified fence that marked the western borders of the Republic of India. On either siders of this border were arrayed the men who constitiuted the single largest military mobilization since the second world war.As we crossed this pretty line of light, the captain announced that it was forbidden to take pictures or make videos as we crossed into the airspace of the Republic of India. Once again, the border control and the control over informations seemed to intersect with uncanny precision. I thought of the possibility of a No Border Camp somewhere on this electrified, illuminated fault line, and quietly put that thought away, at least for the moment, as I began filling in the dis-embarkation card, spelling out my name, date of birth, and that thing which I have never understood called 'nationality' in block letters, in preparation for the immigration control officer at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. The chant, "No Borders, No Nations, Stop Deportations", still rang in my head, persistently. LINKS (If you want to probe some of these issues further, you might like to visit some of these links) No Border Network www.noborder.org Strasbourg No Border Camp http://www.noborder.org/strasbourg/index.php Publix Theatre Caravan, "http://zone.noborder.org" (vienna) Indymedia Centers http://indymedia.org" Deportation Alliance (Anti Airline Deportation Campaign) http://deportation-alliance.com/ BorderXing Guide http://irational.org/cgi-bin/border/clients/list.pl :: xborder ::Border policy and related issues, with particular focus on Australia. http://www.antimedia.net/xborder/index.html D.Sec www.dsec.info Universite Tangente http://utangente.free.fr/ Syndicat Potentiel http://syndicatpotentiel.free.fr/ From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Tue Jul 30 00:14:44 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 19:44:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Globalization and Spaces for Expression In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020729184444.38390.qmail@web8103.in.yahoo.com> Dear Zainab, I recieved your message on the Sarai Reader List. This is my reply. I think you have to get into the philosophy that underpins a "politics of identity". It is post-colonialism that has let loose a kind of knowledge, and knowledge-production, that traces the whole question of Identity to "religion, tribe, nationality or sexual orientation." You must trace the development of this field of knowledge, and then question its basis (ontological/ethical). But there is a prior problem. Is post-colonial theory not an epistemology? That is to say, does post-colonial theory produce a theory of knowledge of the present that contests concurrent theories? Why is it that, in the realm of political science, post-colonial theory has nothing to say? What is it that post-colonialism, transposed to the realm of political theory, achieved? When I think of intelligent human beings putting money into HIndu temples (run by the RSS), the question that comes to me always is: should we, or should we not differentiate between the "locational politics" of an act? What is the purpose of a philosophy that fails to distinguish between "acts" and "consequences"? When does a "politics of identity" become a "politics of difference"? Are the two, in terms of political theory, inseparable, or are they different? How does the "fact" of globalisation (there is also a theory, and an economics, that backs it up) help in introducing, between a "politics of identity" and a "politics of difference", a profound ambiguity where one can be mistaken for the other? What is the "fantasy" of globalisation? Who, or what forces, have invested in this fantasy? Why? For what purposes (economic and cultural?) What is the relation between political theory and fantasy? At what point does a realm of knowledge become a space of projection? To what extent does political philosophy support a "politics of identity"? To what extent can political philosophy support a "politics of difference"? Is it possible that political philosophy can support a "desire-politics"? Do we need to reconsider the notion of a "body-politic" and push it towards a "universal politics of the body?" What would that entail, in the realm of knowledge, and knowledge-production? Think. pp Zainab Bawa wrote: Dear Readers, Hello! I needed your comments, views and opinions on the following: (I am currently doing my 1st year of MA in Political Science.) I have a paper to present for our upcoming seminar on Globalization and Human Rights. I am doing a paper on "Globalization: Spaces for Expression with reference to identity." I was curious to know your perspective. The idea is to examine whether Globalization gives us the freedom to be and live our identities whether in terms of religion, tribe, nationality or sexual orientation. I am examining this to understand whether our right to express our identities is being violated or furthered, whether the struggles we are facing due to our identities are being facilitated or debilitated because of globalization. I am trying to link human rights in terms of our basic freedom of expression. Through this paper, I am hoping to narrate stories rather than be an academician who receives applauds at the end of the presentation. To me, this is a critical issue because at least, I am feeling confused in terms of expressing my identity as a woman (in the wake of the atrocities committed on women in the Gujrat violence) and as a Muslim (who now feels herself fearsome whenever she sees a procession with orange flags and truckloads of mobs). I wonder what you feel about the issue. I would appreciate your comments on this topic as soon as possible and suggestions for reference too. Awaiting your responses. Best regards, Zainab _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. List archive: --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020729/589802f7/attachment.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Tue Jul 30 00:28:05 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 19:58:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: [thingist] No Border Repression in Strasbourg Message-ID: <20020729185805.12465.qmail@web8107.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear all, This is athwart Shuddha's (as usual) informed report on the No Border camp. Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . 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From: "ricardo dominguez" Subject: [thingist] No Border Repression in Strasbourg Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 07:04:26 -0400 Size: 3255 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020729/93fae0f4/attachment.mht From announcements-request at sarai.net Tue Jul 30 09:55:45 2002 From: announcements-request at sarai.net (announcements-request at sarai.net) Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 06:25:45 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcements digest, Vol 1 #72 - 1 msg Message-ID: <20020730042545.30006.36431.Mailman@mail.sarai.net> Send Announcements mailing list submissions to announcements at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announcements-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at announcements-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announcements digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Film Festival at Agartala from August 9 (Sagnik Chakravartty) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: 29 Jul 2002 12:10:46 -0000 From: "Sagnik Chakravartty" Reply-To: "Sagnik Chakravartty" To: announcements at sarai.net Subject: [Announcements] Film Festival at Agartala from August 9 Film festival from August 9 (Courtesy: www.tripurainfo.com) By Our Correspondent Agartala, July 29: A weeklong film festival is being organised from August 9 to 15 by the state�s leading NGO �Genesis� in order to mobilise funds for its social welfare programmes. The festival will come off in the �Rupasi� auditorium and feature sixteen Hindi and Bengali films . Disclosing this the secretary of �Genesis� Mr Shanit Debroy said that leading film personalities of west Bengal Mr Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Mr Ashok Vishwanathan will attend the inaugural programme on August. Mr Debroy said that a day of the festival will be exclusively devoted to children and three films meant for them will be screened that day . The sale proceeds of the festival will go to �Genesis� fund for social welfare. --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announcements mailing list Announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements End of Announcements Digest From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Wed Jul 31 10:55:17 2002 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 22:25:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] buttocks Message-ID: <20020731052517.24617.qmail@web14601.mail.yahoo.com> greek 'puge' = buttocks. leads to many interesting words in english: chromopygous - having painted buttocks hypopygous - having a deficiency of buttocks apygous - having no buttocks hypothermopygous - having cold buttocks triplopygous - having three buttocks monolithopygous - having one hard mass of buttocks quesopygous - having buttocks that smell like cheese cryptopygous - having mysterious buttocks nebulopygous - having vaguely defined buttocks andropygous - having manly buttocks hippopygous - having horselike buttocks megalomanipygous - having delusions of grand buttocks sinopygous - having Chinese buttocks rhinopygous - having a nose between your buttocks aeropygous - having streamlined buttocks orthopygous - having well-toned buttocks harmonipygous - having well-tempered buttocks jellopygous - having gelatinous buttocks gelatopygous - having deliciously desserty buttocks oratopygous - speaking through one's buttocks calcipygous - having bony buttocks lithopygous - having buttocks of stone "Callipygia," by the way, using the Greek prefix kale = "good" (as in calligraphy), means "having shapely buttocks." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com From zamrooda at sarai.net Wed Jul 31 18:21:17 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 18:21:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] after a long time, me myself and irrate Message-ID: <200207311821.17338.zamrooda@sarai.net> From: nitin sethi I watch the two rats frolic around in my room, making merry. There used to be only one of them till a week back. Now they are a happy twosome. Earlier the lone ranger used to just hunt around the corners or scamper from one end of the room to another. Could be for a morsel of grain, I presume though, chasing a non-existing dream. Now has he found it? Or for the politically correct, has she or he found the other opposite? Is either happy. How does the rat define happiness? Running after each other from one corner of the room to another, at times stealing a jump over some human hand and at times eating into a biscuit left exposed. We are all rats are we? I am scampering too. From one post to another.