ജയ് ഭീം കോംറെയിഡ് ഹോം കോംഗ് അന്താരാഷ്ട്ര ചലച്ചിത്ര മേളയില്‍ ഏറ്റവും മികച്ച ഡോക്യുമെന്ററി ആയി തെരഞ്ഞെടുക്കപ്പെട്ടു .

Posted by Venu K.M

 വിഖ്യാത ഇന്ത്യന്‍ ഡോക്യുമെന്ററി ചലച്ചിത്ര സംവിധായകനും നിര്‍മ്മാതാവും ആയ ആനന്ദ് പട്വര്ധന്‍ 14 വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍ എടുത്ത് 2011 അവസാനത്തില്‍ പൂര്‍ത്തിയാക്കിയ ജയ് ഭീം കോംറെയിഡ് 36 -) മത് ഹോം കോംഗ് അന്താരാഷ്ട്ര  ചലച്ചിത്ര മേളയില്‍ മത്സര വിഭാഗത്തില്‍ പ്രദര്‍ശിപ്പിക്കപ്പെട്ട  ഡോക്യുമെന്ററി കളില്‍ ഏറ്റവും മികച്ചതായി തെരഞ്ഞെടുക്കപെട്ടു .

2000 ത്തില്‍ പരം വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍ ആയി അനേകം തലമുറകളോളം  ജാതീയ പീഡനങ്ങള്‍ ഏറ്റുവാങ്ങുന്ന ഒരു ജനതയുടെ പിന്‍ഗാമികള്‍  വിമോചകന്‍ ആയി കാണുന്ന അംബേദ്‌കര്‍ ഇന്റെ   പ്രതിമ 1997 ഇല്‍ സാമൂഹ്യ വിരുദ്ധര്‍ ആക്രമിച് വികൃതപ്പെടുത്ത്തിയ ഒരു സംഭവത്തില്‍ പ്രതിഷേധിക്കാന്‍ ദളിതര്‍ ആയിരക്കണക്കായി ഒത്തുകൂടിയപ്പോള്‍, സ്വതന്ത്ര ഭാരതത്തിലെ പോലീസ് അവര്‍ക്കെതിരെ നിറയൊഴിച്ചു.  ഏതാനും ദിവസങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് ശേഷം, ഈ സംഭവത്തില്‍ തന്റെ പ്രതിഷേധം ലോകത്തെ അറിയിക്കാന്‍ ദളിത്‌ പുരോഗമന ഗായകനും  കലാകാരനും  ആയിരുന്ന ബല്ലാ ധീര്‍ വിലാസ് ഘോഗരെ ഒരു തുണ്ട് കയറില്‍ തന്റെ ജീവിതം ഒടുക്കുന്നു. ജാതീയതയ്ക്കെതിരായ ദളിത്‌ ഉണര്‍വ്വിന്റെ യും മുന്നേറ്റങ്ങളുടെയും സംഗീത മുഖരിതവും സര്‍ഗ്ഗാത്മകവും ആയ ഒരു ധാരയെയാണ് ഘോഗരെ ജീവിതത്തില്‍ പ്രതിനിധീകരിച്ചിരുന്നത് .പട് വര്‍ദ്ധന്‍ തന്റെ ചലച്ചിത്രത്തിന്റെ ആരംഭ ബിന്ദു വാക്കുന്നതും, 198 മിനുട്ട് ദൈഘ്യം ഉള്ള ചിത്രത്തിന്റെ മോട്ടിഫ്  എന്നോണം ഉടനീളം വിന്യസിപ്പിചിരിക്കുന്നതും ഇനിയും  പൊതു ബോധത്തില്‍ വേണ്ടത്ര ഇടം നേടിയിട്ടില്ലാത്ത പുരോഗമന സംഗീത കലാ സാംസ്കാരിക പ്രവര്‍ത്തനത്തിന്റെ ഊര്‍ജ്ജം സ്ഥിതി ചെയ്യുന്നത് ഏത് തരം മനുഷ്യരില്‍ എന്ന അന്വേഷണവുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട യഥാതത ബിംബങ്ങള്‍  ആണ്.
ഇന്ത്യയില്‍ പുരോഗമന രാഷ്ട്രീയ സാംസ്കാരിക പ്രവര്‍ത്തകരുടെ ഗൌരവമായ ശ്രദ്ധ ഇനിയും വേണ്ട വിധത്തില്‍ പതിഞ്ഞിട്ടില്ലാത്ത മറ്റൊരു പ്രശ്നവും പട് വര്‍ദ്ധന്‍   ഈ സിനിമയില്‍  സജീവമായി ഉന്നയിക്കുന്നുണ്ട്‌ . ഇടതു പക്ഷവും ദളിത്‌ പക്ഷവും തമ്മില്‍ എന്നാണ് നേര്‍ക്ക്‌ നേര്‍ കാണുക ? ജാതീയവും വര്ര്ഗ്ഗപരവും ആയ അടിച്ചമര്ത്തലുകള്‍ക്ക് ഒരേ സമയം വിധേയരാവുന്ന ഇന്ത്യയിലെ  ദളിത്‌ ജനതയെ  അടിസ്ഥാനവര്‍ഗ്ഗമായി വാക്കിലും പ്രവൃത്തിയിലും ഒരു പോലെ അംഗീകരിക്കാന്‍  ഇടതു പക്ഷത്തിന് എന്നാണ് കഴിയുക? 'സ്വത്ത്വം' രാഷ്ട്രീയത്തിന്റെ ആധാര ശിലയായി എന്ന്  പ്രഖ്യാപിക്കുന്ന ചില പ്രസ്ഥാനങ്ങളും ബുദ്ധി ജീവികളും  പറയുന്നത്  പോലെ ,  മിക്കവാറും സവര്‍ണ്ണര്‍  നേതൃത്വത്തില്‍ ഉള്ള ഇടതു പ്രസ്ഥാനങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് ദളിത്‌ മോചനത്തെ പറ്റി ഒരക്ഷരം പോലും മിണ്ടാന്‍ അര്‍ഹതയില്ല  എന്ന പ്രമാണം ദളിത്‌ മുന്നേറ്റങ്ങളുടെ സൂത്ര വാക്യം ആയി  ജാതിവ്യവസ്ഥയ്ക്ക് സമാന്തരം എന്ന പോലെ  തുടരണമോ?

IDENITY POLITICS WILL TAKE YOU TO THE RIGHT

Posted by Venu K.M


Identity Politics

ad nauseum,  you come across versions of identity politics with just these things as motto, though less stated than implied :

I t is great to be selfish as you only assert your 'self'

Damn the truth of history

Engage yourself in reading, believing and spreading sort of stories how the 'others' conspire against your people

Never care for your neighbours  if they are  the 'others'

Think and act within the structures of your Parrish

I t is unfashionable to get united against hate and wars

Take a sympathetic stance on all preachings of bigotry

You are the truth, and capital plays no  part in defining it.


-In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
Karl Marx

WHAT IS MARXISM? [Alan Woods' Audio]

Posted by Venu K.M

 The Relevance of Socialism in the 21st Century

http://www.marxist.com/audio-what-is-marxism.htm

                                                Alan Woods with Hugo Chavez

"Manufacturing Dissent": the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites The People's Movement has been Hijacked ( Michel Chossudovsky)

Posted by Venu K.M

മൈക്കല്‍ ചോസ്യുടൊവ്സ്കിയുടെ അഭിപ്രായത്തില്‍, കോര്‍പ്പറേറ്റ് സ്ഥാപങ്ങള്‍  ധനസഹായം നല്‍കി പടച്ചുണ്ടാക്കുന്ന 'സിവില്‍ സൊസൈറ്റി' പ്രസ്ഥാനങ്ങള്‍ക്ക്‌ നിയോ ലിബറല്‍ സാമ്പത്തിക ക്രമത്തെ താങ്ങിനിര്‍ത്താന്‍  ഭീകരമായ യുദ്ധങ്ങള്‍ പോലും നടത്തുന്ന ആഗോള മുതലാളിത്ത വ്യവസ്ഥയോട് ആത്യന്തികം ആയി ഏറ്റുമുട്ടാന്‍ കഴിയില്ല.. വ്യവസ്ഥയോട്  ഉള്ള മൌലികം  ആയ വിയോജിപ്പുകളെയും,  കാതലായ  ബഹുജന പ്രക്ഷോഭങ്ങളെയും  തടയാന്‍ ഏറ്റവും എളുപ്പ മാര്‍ഗം എന്ന  നിലക്ക് ആണ് 'എതിര്‍പ്പുകള്‍ നിര്‍മ്മിക്കല്‍'

( Manufacturing Dissent ) ഒരു തന്ത്രം ആയി കോര്‍പ്പറേറ്റ്കള്‍ അവലംബിച്ച്ചത്.  പ്രത്യേക ഗ്രാമങ്ങളെയോ പ്രടെശങ്ങളെയോ 'പ്രശ്നങ്ങളെയോ' പ്രവര്‍ത്തന  മേഖലയാക്കുന്ന , എന്നാല്‍   പ്രശ്നങ്ങള്‍ സൃഷ്ടിച്ചതിലോ അവയുടെ പരിഹാരത്തിലോ  രാഷ്ട്രീയത്തിന് ഒരു പങ്കും ഇല്ലെന്നു വരുത്തുന്ന എന്‍ ജീ ഓ ശൈലി  issue -based  ആക്ടിവിസം എന്ന ഓമനപ്പേരില്‍ ആണ് അറിയപ്പെടുന്നത്. ഉദാഹരണത്തിന്,  കോത്താഴം എന്ന ഗ്രാമത്തില്‍  എക്സ് എന്ന സ്ത്രീക്കെതിരെ വൈ , ഇസെഡ് എന്നീ പുരുഷന്‍മാര്‍  നടത്തിയ ആക്രമണത്തെ അപലപിക്കുന്ന
വാഹനജാഥയ്ക്കിടയില്‍  ഗ്രാമത്തിലെ  എല്ലാ പുരുഷന്മാര്‍ക്കും എതിരെ എല്ലാ സ്ത്രീകളും രംഗത്തുവരാന്‍ ആഹ്വാനം  ഉണ്ടായെന്നുവരും. പക്ഷെ, കുടുംബം, ലൈംഗികത, ആണ്കൊയ്മ, മുതലാളിത്ത  വ്യവസ്ഥ തുടങ്ങിയ സ്ഥാപനങ്ങളുടെ രാഷ്ട്രീയം  തുറന്നുകാട്ടുന്നതും മറ്റുള്ളവരുമായി ചര്‍ച്ച  ചെയ്യുന്നതും പോലെയുള്ള കൂടുതല്‍ ഉയര്‍ന്ന  നിലവാരത്തില്‍ ഉള്ള പങ്കാളിത്തം ആരെങ്കിലും ആഗ്രഹിച്ചാല്‍   പെട്ടെന്നുതന്നെ അത്  തടയാന്‍ 'issue -based activism ' ഔല്‍സുക്യം കാട്ടും. പ്രശ്നം  കൂടുതല്‍ ആഴത്തില്‍ കൈകാര്യം  ചെയ്യുന്നത് ജങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് മനസ്സിലാവില്ല എന്നതാവും പറയുന്ന ന്യായമെങ്കിലും,   ഒരു പരിധിക്കപ്പുറം  പ്രശ്നത്തെ രാഷ്ട്രീയവല്‍ക്കരിച്ച്ചാല്‍ ഫണ്ട് മുടങ്ങിപ്പോകും എന്നതാണ് അവരുടെ പ്രശ്നം. വാസ്തവത്തില്‍,  ഇത്തരം പല 'activist 'കളെക്കാളും രാഷ്ട്രീയ ബോധം  ഉള്ളവര്‍  ആണ് അവര്‍  'ബോധവല്‍ക്കരിക്കാന്‍' ശ്രമിക്കുന്ന ജനം!

While the "Globalizers" may adopt a few progressive phrases to demonstrate they have good intentions, their fundamental goals are not challenged. And what this "civil society mingling" does is to reinforce the clutch of the corporate establishment while weakening and dividing the protest movement. An understanding of this process of co-optation is important, because tens of thousands of the most principled young people in Seattle, Prague and Quebec City [1999-2001] are involved in the anti-globalization protests because they reject the notion that money is everything, because they reject the impoverishment of millions and the destruction of fragile Earth so that a few may get richer.
This rank and file and some of their leaders as well, are to be applauded. But we need to go further. We need to challenge the right of the "Globalizers" to rule. This requires that we rethink the strategy of protest. Can we move to a higher plane, by launching mass movements in our respective countries, movements that bring the message of what globalization is doing, to ordinary people? For they are the force that must be mobilized to challenge those who plunder the Globe." (Michel Chossudovsky,  The Quebec Wall, April  2001)

"...Piecemeal Activism

The objective of the corporate elites has been to fragment the people's movement into a vast "do it yourself" mosaic. War and globalization are no longer in the forefront of civil society activism. Activism tends to be piecemeal. There is no integrated anti-globalization anti-war movement. The economic crisis is not seen as having a relationship to the US led war.
Dissent has been compartmentalized. Separate "issue oriented" protest movements (e.g. environment, anti-globalization, peace, women's rights, climate change) are encouraged and generously funded as opposed to a cohesive mass movement. This mosaic was already prevalent in the counter G7 summits and People's Summits of the 1990s.."

"..This apparent disorganized structure is deliberate. While favoring debate on a number of individual topics, the WSF framework is not conducive to the articulation of a cohesive common platform and plan of action directed global capitalism. Moreover, the US led war in the Middle East and Central Asia, which broke out a few months after the inaugural WSF venue in Porto Alegre in January 2001, has not been a central issue in forum discussions.
What prevails is a vast and intricate network of organizations. The recipient grassroots organizations in developing countries are invariably unaware that their partner NGOs in the United States or the European Union, which are providing them with financial support, are themselves funded by major foundations. The money trickles down, setting constraints on grassroots actions. Many of these NGO leaders are committed and well meaning individuals acting within a framework which sets the boundaries of dissent..".

Global capitalism finances anti-capitalism: an absurd and contradictory relationship.

"Another World is Possible", but it cannot be meaningfully achieved under the present arrangement.
A shake-up of the World Social Forum, of its organizational structure, its funding arrangements and leadership is required.   
There can be no meaningful mass movement when dissent is generously funded by those same corporate interests which are the target of the protest movement. In the words of McGeorge Bundy, president of the Ford Foundation (1966-1979),"Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as 'making the World safe for capitalism'".

Richard Wolff and Harriet Fraad on Family and the Capitalist Crisis

Posted by Venu K.M





 കഴിഞ്ഞ സഹസ്രാബ്ദത്തിലെ എഴുപതുകളില്‍ ഫ്രഞ്ച് ചിന്തകന്‍ ആയ ലൂയി ആല്ത്യൂസ്സര്‍,  ഭരണകൂടത്തിന്റെ   പ്രത്യയശാശ്ത്രം തുടര്‍ച്ചയായി പുനരുല്‍പ്പാടിപ്പിക്കുന്ന ചില സ്ഥാപനങ്ങലെക്കുരിച്ചു നടത്തിയ നിരീക്ഷണങ്ങള്‍ ശ്രധ്ധേയമായി ഇപ്പോഴും തുടരുന്നു. പ്രത്യക്ഷത്തില്‍ ബലപ്രയോഗം ഒന്നും നടത്താതെ ആളുകളെ അനുസരിപ്പിക്കുന്ന ഈ സ്ഥാപനങ്ങളെ, നേരിട്ട് മര്‍ദനം നടത്തുന്ന പോലീസ്,ജയില്‍, പട്ടാളം തുടങ്ങിയ ഭരണകൂട ഉപകരണങ്ങളില്‍ നിന്നും ആല്ത്യൂസ്സര്‍ വേര്തിരിച്ച്ച്ചുനിര്ത്തുകയും അവയെ 'പ്രത്യയശാസ്ത്ര ഭരണകൂട ഉപാധികള്‍' (Ideological State Apparatus ) എന്ന് വിളിക്കുകയും ചെയ്തു.
സാമ്പത്തിക അടിത്തരയായായി വര്‍ത്തിക്കുന്ന   മുതലാളിത്തത്തിന്റെ  വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ- കുടുംബ വ്യവസ്ഥകളുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട മൂല്യങ്ങള്‍,  ആ വ്യവസ്ഥയുടെ ദുരിതങ്ങള്‍ അനുഭവിക്കുന്ന സാധാരണ ജനങ്ങള്‍ പോലും എന്തുകൊണ്ട്   ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ സമസ്ത മേഖലകളിലും ഏറെക്കുറെ   സ്വീകാര്യം ആയി കരുതുന്നു?  ഇത്തരം ഒരു വൈരുദ്ധ്യത്തെ മനസ്സിലാക്കുന്നതിന്  ആള്ത്യൂസ്സരിന്റെ നിരീക്ഷണങ്ങള്‍ സഹായിക്കുന്നു.  അടിത്തറയും ഉപരിഘടനയും ( യഥാക്രമം സാമ്പത്തികവും, സാംസ്കാരികവും ആയ മണ്ഡലങ്ങള്‍) തമ്മില്‍ ഉള്ളതായി സങ്കല്പ്പിക്കപ്പെടുന്ന യാന്ത്രികമായ ബന്ധങ്ങളെ നമുക്ക് പൊളിച്ചു എഴുതേണ്ടിവരുന്നു.  രണ്ടാമത്തേത് ആദ്യത്തേതിന്റെ  ഉല്‍പ്പന്നം, നേര്‍ പ്രതിഫലനം  എന്നൊക്കെ കാണുന്നതിനു പകരം  അവ  രണ്ടും  തമ്മില്‍ ആപേക്ഷികമായി സ്വതന്ത്ര സ്വഭാവത്തോടെ സഹവര്ത്ത്തിക്കുന്നു എന്നത് , പ്രത്യയശാസ്ത്രരംഗത്തെ അധീശവര്‍ഗ്ഗ ആധിപത്യത്തെ കൂടുതല്‍ ഫലപ്രദം ആയി നേരിടാന്‍ പുരോഗമന പ്രസ്ഥാനങ്ങളെ ഒരു വേള സഹായിക്കുന്നു.


 

    

"The family powerfully influences the larger economy and society. We introduce (and apply) Louis Althusser's analysis of the contradictions between family and economy in the US today. On the one hand, families are an "ideological state apparatus" shaping people in ways as important for sustaining capitalism as the police, courts and the military are (Althusser's "repressive state apparatuses"). Yet families also challenge and undermine capitalism. We explore these family-economy tensions."

-Prof Richard Wolff
  


        




        

      




http://rdwolff.com/content/family-and-economy-part-five      

  


  

  

    

      
        
      
      


        
Professor Wolff's Podcasts


      


    


    
Economic and Personal Effects of the Crisis: Part Two
Monday, September 13, 2010 11:50 PM




    Beyond the direct effects of the economic crisis, its impact on government affects us indirectly. Unemployment, home foreclosures, and business cutbacks have reduced tax revenues collected by the federal, state and local governments in the US. They react by cutting government programs and borrowing more. Both actions add indirect costs (immediately and long into the future) to the direct social costs of the crisis considered in Part One of this series.These costs raise major questions about the economic system.


Media files
 Economy and Psychology - 8 - Economic and Personal Effects of the Crisis Pt 2.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 72.7 MB)
Economic and Personal Effects of the Crisis: Part One
Monday, August 30, 2010 12:44 PM




    An economic crisis so deep and long-lasting as this one has profound impacts on society now and into the future. Capitalism’s crises impose massive social costs. Unemployment, home foreclosures, job insecurity and falling wages and benefits change the economy, politics, and culture, but they also transform our personal lives. This podcast – the first of three - explores these interacting direct effects of today’s global economic meltdown


Media files
 Economy and Psychology - 7 - Economic and Personal Effects of the Crisis Pt 1.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 87.8 MB)
Family and Economy: Part Five
Monday, July 26, 2010 8:28 PM




    The family powerfully influences the larger economy and society. We introduce (and apply) Louis Althusser's analysis of the contradictions between family and economy in the US today. On the one hand, families are an "ideological state apparatus" shaping people in ways as important for sustaining capitalism as the police, courts and the military are (Althusser's "repressive state apparatuses"). Yet families also challenge and undermine capitalism. We explore these family-economy tensions.


Media files
 Economy and Psychology - 6 - Family and Economy Pt 5.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 75.7 MB)
Family and Economy:  Part Four
Friday, May 07, 2010 3:07 AM






A kind of labor goes largely unrecognized and unrewarded in our society. It is emotional labor: using our brains and muscles to support or improve the emotional well-being of ourselves and/or others. We examine its differences from and similarities to the labor that produces physical goods and services. Tragic social consequences flow from denying or minimizing the importance of emotional labor at home and on the job. We challenge the lack of attention to emotional labor and analyze why that lack exists. Respect for emotional labor is a profound political issue.






Media files
 Economy and Psychology - 5 - Family and Economy Pt 4.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 55.8 MB)
Family and Economy:  Part Three
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 11:41 PM


The current forms of organization of both households and workplaces in the US are very particular; they are neither natural, inevitable, or the only kinds of organization. Human beings have organized their family lives, for example, in social ways very differently from the small, isolated, nuclear family organization typical in the US. The same applies to workplaces. The capitalist organization that pits employers against employees is neither inevitable nor natural nor all that exists today. Here we explore the very different possible forms of organizing our lives at home and at work.


Media files
 Economy and Psychology - 4 - Family and Economy Pt 3.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 49.6 MB)
Family and Economy:  Part Two
Monday, March 01, 2010 4:13 AM


Today’s discussion focuses on class and class struggles in the two places where we live most of our lives: in the larger wage economy and inside the family economy. By class we mean the particular ways in which the work process (production) is organized wherever it occurs. Class issues concern who does the work, whether workers produce more - a "surplus" - than they themselves get to consume, who gets such surpluses and what they do with them. We explore how production and class organizations of production occur in both the wage economy and the household economy. We then begin to ask and answer questions about what happens to people's lives as a result of participating in two different class structures at work and at home.


Media files
 Economy and Psychology - 3 - Family and Economy Pt 2.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 54.0 MB)
Family and Economy:  Part One
Monday, February 15, 2010 4:35 AM


Introduction: This series of podcasts explores the two economic systems we all live in and with: the family or household economy and the larger wage economy. Each of them shapes and is shaped by the other. Their interaction influences us deeply but also in a contradictory way. Families both support yet also undermine the larger wage economy and vice versa. Today, that contradictory relationship provokes acute tensions and conflicts in both economic systems. The results are transforming everything from our world’s political struggles to the intimacies of our personal lives


Media files
 Economy and Psychology - 2 - Family and Economy Pt 1.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 61.3 MB)
US Working Class Passivity?
Sunday, January 31, 2010 1:29 AM


The US working classes have suffered extraordinary economic reverses for the last thirty years: stagnant real wages, increasing individual work loads, rising household debt levels before 2008 and then record levels of unemployment and home foreclosures since. Yet, unlike workers in other advanced industrial economies, they have shown remarkable passivity in terms of social or collective efforts to end these conditions. We begin a conversation about why this is the case, whether it will continue, and what its social and individual effects may be.


Media files
 Economy and Psychology - 1 - Introduction.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 45.2 MB)

The Grim Picture Of Obama's Middle East By Noam Chomsky

The Grim Picture Of Obama's Middle East

By Noam Chomsky

05 June, 2009
CommonDreams.org

A CNN headline, reporting Obama's plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads 'Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.' Perhaps that captures his intent, but more significant is the content hidden in the rhetorical stance, or more accurately, omitted.

Keeping just to Israel-Palestine -- there was nothing substantive about anything else -- Obama called on Arabs and Israelis not to 'point fingers' at each other or to 'see this conflict only from one side or the other.' There is, however, a third side, that of the United States, which has played a decisive role in sustaining the current conflict. Obama gave no indication that its role should change or even be considered.

Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral U.S. rejectionism.

Obama once again praised the Arab Peace Initiative, saying only that Arabs should see it as 'an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.' How should the Obama administration see it? Obama and his advisers are surely aware that the Initiative reiterates the long-standing international consensus calling for a two-state settlement on the international (pre-June '67) border, perhaps with 'minor and mutual modifications,' to borrow U.S. government usage before it departed sharply from world opinion in the 1970s, vetoing a Security Council resolution backed by the Arab 'confrontation states' (Egypt, Iran, Syria), and tacitly by the PLO, with the same essential content as the Arab Peace Initiative except that the latter goes beyond by calling on Arab states to normalize relations with Israel in the context of this political settlement. Obama has called on the Arab states to proceed with normalization, studiously ignoring, however, the crucial political settlement that is its precondition. The Initiative cannot be a 'beginning' if the U.S. continues to refuse to accept its core principles, even to acknowledge them.

In the background is the Obama administration's goal, enunciated most clearly by Senator John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to forge an alliance of Israel and the 'moderate' Arab states against Iran. The term 'moderate' has nothing to do with the character of the state, but rather signals its willingness to conform to U.S. demands.

What is Israel to do in return for Arab steps to normalize relations? The strongest position so far enunciated by the Obama administration is that Israel should conform to Phase I of the 2003 Road Map, which states: 'Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).' All sides claim to accept the Road Map, overlooking the fact that Israel instantly added 14 reservations that render it inoperable.

Overlooked in the debate over settlements is that even if Israel were to accept Phase I of the Road Map, that would leave in place the entire settlement project that has already been developed, with decisive U.S. support, to ensure that Israel will take over the valuable land within the illegal 'separation wall' (including the primary water supplies of the region) as well as the Jordan Valley, thus imprisoning what is left, which is being broken up into cantons by settlement/infrastructure salients extending far to the East. Unmentioned as well is that Israel is taking over Greater Jerusalem, the site of its major current development programs, displacing many Arabs, so that what remains to Palestinians will be separated from the center of their cultural, economic, and sociopolitical life. Also unmentioned is that all of this is in violation of international law, as conceded by the government of Israel after the 1967 conquest, and reaffirmed by Security Council resolutions and the International Court of Justice. Also unmentioned are Israel's successful operations since 1991 to separate the West Bank from Gaza, since turned into a prison where survival is barely possible, further undermining the hopes for a viable Palestinian state.

It is worth remembering that there has been one break in U.S.-Israeli rejectionism. President Clinton recognized that the terms he had offered at the failed 2000 Camp David meetings were not acceptable to any Palestinians, and in December, proposed his 'parameters,' vague but more forthcoming. He then announced that both sides had accepted the parameters, though both had reservations. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt to iron out the differences, and made considerable progress. A full resolution could have been reached in a few more days, they announced in their final joint press conference. But Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, and they have not been formally resumed. The single exception indicates that if an American president is willing to tolerate a meaningful diplomatic settlement, it can very likely be reached.

It is also worth remembering that the Bush I administration went a bit beyond words in objecting to illegal Israeli settlement projects, namely, by withholding U.S. economic support for them. In contrast, Obama administration officials stated that such measures are 'not under discussion' and that any pressures on Israel to conform to the Road Map will be 'largely symbolic,' so the New York Times reported (Helene Cooper, June 1).

There is more to say, but it does not relieve the grim picture that Obama has been painting, with a few extra touches in his widely-heralded address to the Muslim World in Cairo on June 4.

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (retired) at MIT. He is the author of many books and articles on international affairs and social-political issues, and a long-time participant in activist movements. His most recent books include: Failed States, What We Say Goes(with David Barsamian), Hegemony or Survival, and the Essential Chomsky.

Marxism and Identity Politics- a Video Speech by Sharon Smith

Posted by
Venu K.M
Dear Friends,
Please have a listening of this video (37 minutes) which discusses certain serious faultlines in Identity Politics(part of supposedly 'post-Marxist', postmodern line of thinking, which many an academic and intellectual in India and the Third World holds as gospel truth)as premised by the fierce contest between an Afro American male and a White woman for the Presidential candidature representing the Democratic Party in the last US Presidential elections 2008;
this debate seems to be much relevant for us in evaluating the merits of dalit politics sans genuinely left concerns about the society.
Ms Sharon Smith points out that despite both Obama and Hilary being owners of fabulous capital, the election campaign as a whole, was seeking ways to thrust Identity Politics to the voters and thereby keep hidden the worst aspects of global capitalism and its telling impact on the present and on the future of all people, world over.


http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=1194981561430335369&hl=en&fs=true

IDENTITY AND VIOLENCE by Amartya Sen

Posted by
Venu K.M
(created by another blogger)

Review : Identity and Violence by Amartya Sen

Posted: 11 Mar 2009 11:28 PM PDT

Amartya Sen’s book, “Identity and Violence’ examines the unfortunate connection between violence and our tendency to identify with one key trait — our ethnicity, or religion, for example — to the exclusion of all others. Sen argues that we can combat this tendency by rejecting this narrowly defined, limited sense of identity, and embracing a broader, richer and more complex understanding of ourselves.

Speaking of his own identities, he says:

” I can be, at the same time, an Asian, a British citizen, a Bengali with Bangladeshi ancestry, an American or British resident, an economist, a dabbler in philosophy, an author, a Sanskritist, a strong believer in secularism and democracy, a man, a feminist, a heterosexual, a defender of gay and lesbian rights, with a nonreligious lifestyle, from a Hindu background, a non-Brahmin…This is just a small sample of diverse categories to each of which I may simultaneously belong. “

He bemoans our predisposition to separate human kind into many different boxes – he cites Samuel Huntington and his Clash of Civilizations stereo types. Huntington of course contrasts Western civilization with “Islamic civilization,” “Hindu civilization,” “Buddhist civilization,” and so on. The supposed conflicts of religious differences are incorporated into a sharply fractured vision of hard-boiled divisiveness. In fact, of course, the people of the world can be pigeonholed according to many other subsets, each of which has some—often far-reaching— importance in our lives: nationalities, locations, classes, occupations, social status, languages, politics, and many others. While religious groupings have received much expression in recent years, they cannot be supposed to eliminate other characteristics. Amartya Sen contends that our society is driven as much by confusion as by hatred. Challenging the division of people by race, religion, and class, he presents an alternate understanding of a world that can be made to move toward peace as firmly as it has spiralled in recent years toward brutality and war.

Sen also notes the inclination to create a random -often historically inaccurate- identity of the self in order to distinguish it from the other. Here he criticizes the idea of the Western mind whereby certain ideas (e.g., democracy) are claimed to be the sole property of the Occident. Citing examples of Buddhist councils during the reign of Emperor Ashoka (3rd Century BC) and tracts on religious freedom during that of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (16th Century AD), Sen attempts to demonstrate how such an identity can be quickly disputed.

A lot of the book is preoccupied with the Muslim identity because much of the attention is directed towards the perception and understanding of this identity in the world. Moreover, much that is valuable in the Western civilisation is a legacy of Muslim as well of other, such as the ancient Hindu, civilisations. In other words, watertight compartments between civilisations are historically unsustainable. And, of course, people themselves are blends of several civilisations so that it is not correct to assume that there is such a thing as a uniform, homogenous, monolithic Muslim civilisation.

But is it really possible to fix the responsibility for all the violence that we witness today on the failure of people to recognize the various identities of others? Would that not be as naive an attitude to take towards the occurrence of violence as the perpetrators of aggression take towards identity? How are identities really shaped and very importantly how are they correlated to more concrete, real-life processes that go on in the world? Again, while it is true that everyone has multiple identities what compels one person to prioritize one of these many identities over all others? That is for us, the readers to figure.