malayaalavedi1.blogspot.com

Posted by
Venu K.M
Malayalam - a language spoken by 30-35 million people (about 0.5- 0.6
percent of all living humans!)- certainly needs to be "protected"!
At the same time, it also needs to be unshackled of its narcissistic
fetishism; you will certainly and most naturally like to communicate
with other Malayalees ; but your editor is more likely to decide that
"this kind of stuff(often a translation, or any original text
comprising a particular political theme or an idea rarely discussed in
the mainstream Malayam socio-political and cultural space)will not
suit the taste of our readers".
I am afraid dearth of creativity itself, or language per se is not
the problem rather than the extremely debilitating habit of not
looking around and relocating ourselves vis a vis the rest of humans.
As we prepare to fight against newer forms of onslaughts on our
language, we owe a concurrent commitment to radicalize it by attempts
in democratizing, de-gendering,
de-patriarchalizing , de-casting /de-brahmanizing the language.
For example, we are still able to cling on to cliches like
"agolavalkkaranathinte chathikkuzhikal"as evidenced by the Women's
Commission's advertisement on March 08 suggesting women and girls ways
to defend themselves against "peedanam" : virtually to shun public
places, keep out of the range of hostile mobile phones (as they would
be photographed and ultimately end up as victims of some sex racket)
keeping out of the range of cyber crimes by avoiding chats,etc through
the internet and so on. Surprisingly but quite understandably from the
Malayalee/Kerala background of common sense, it invokes hardly any
idea of resistence by the women either collectively or as ndividuals.
We look as though more than complacent with our language and culture
and apparently don't want to instil dynamism in the language..why else
we continue to buy the drab stories and features of these mainstream
Malayalam newspapers and journals without any questions? Don't we
realize that by employing a feudal,patriarchal and brahmanical
vocabulary ostensibly catering to the peoples' tastes they often
literally "cover" events, rather than speak truth? It is probable that
many of us no longer want to move ahead of the little circles of
professions,peculiar ways of realpolitik-ing , family gatherings,so on and so forth.

Arundhati on the Double Standards on the World Health Day

Posted by
Venu K.M

http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2009/04/2825


"Tomorrow is World Health Day. Dr Binayak Sen spent the best part of
his life working among the poorest people in India, who live far away
from the government's attentions, with no access to clinics,
hospitals, doctors or medicines. He has saved thousands from certain
death from malaria, diarrhea, and other easily treatable illnesses.
And yet, he is the one in jail, while those who boast openly about
mass murder are free to go about their business, and even stand for
elections.
What does this say about us? About who we are and where we're going?"
--

Posted by
Venu K.M



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

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

Politically Apathetic Indian by Ruchi Gupta

Posted by
Venu K.M
http://bourgeoisinspirations.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/the-politically-apathetic-indian/ " Political status-quo: Politics in India is opaque, nepotistic and highly centralized. Entire political parties are identified by their leader (this encourages coalition politics, making the vote “transferable” with the leader and not the party’s ideology). The top-down corruption and bureaucracy is so entrenched that political action seems too daunting, and often futile. For instance, to start a company in India, one needs multiple permissions from various departments. Each of these permissions will require onerous procedures, and the absence/delay of any can stall the entire company. Given the enormous investment required to start a company, how many people are likely to take on the “babu” who wants a bribe for an approval despite all the correct paperwork? Government bureaucracy and corruption has spawned an entire industry in the intermediaries between the state and citizen. Hidden in their lumpsum fees are the many “greased palms”. Domestic social structure: India propagates itself on the family structure. Gender inequality, lack of opportunities, and absent state safety nets necessitates that one person financially support multiple people. This is most easily enforced via the family unit. Family is hence actively cultivated, and conformity zealously enforced - as soon as the middle-class individual starts work, the parental units declare progeny marriageable. Further imposition of caste and class ensures propagation of common ideals. This domestic structure limits the ability to take risk, both in terms of agitation against the status quo and as the opportunity cost of time/money that will have to be spent in political activity. "

BEWARE OF PHISHING..

Posted by
Venu K.M

Friends, I got invitations purportedly from a films forum fridaythadka (my spelling doubtful). It is suspected sent from concocted ids in the name of friend/poeople who may be already in your contacts. Sensing some thing bad in inviting others to join even before myself seeing the home page in full ,I had to delete my contacts displayed with tick marks there.(the option to deselect the ids of the invitees were hidden, in an automated set up);I had to spend as much as 15 minutes to delete the tick marks one by one,prevent the messages from going to all my contacts.

Please beware of this fraud. Please send no id or pass word of yours, or others' ids through the automatic invitations message mode there.

If you happen to be trapped, immediately change your pass words already submitted to these thugs.

Thanks,

Venu

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.