Listening To Grasshoppers - Arundhati Roy

[Bholanath]

I just returned home from an 8-month cultural research trip in India during which time I kept up a 'blog' for friends (e-mail list) describing throughout the changes taking place over the last 10 years since I last visited the country. As I continuously described the increasing levels of fascism and ponerization of secular society taking place, I endured some projections by the 'love & light'-influenced crowd who felt I was too focused on the 'negative', seeing what my 'personal negativity' wanted to see, etc. etc. about the beloved fabled land of Gandhi, tantra, yogis, ahimsa, holy cows, etc. In recent years 3 new states were created - Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand - which are governed by BJP (Hindu fundies) (as are Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka). All of these states are rich in minerals and/or power necessary for corporate high-tech/military development. It seems that the pro-corporate fundies exploited the tribal and outcaste citizens' desire for self-determination and civil rights, after they assisted their secession. Now that they have "autonomy" from the larger states from which they were carved, they face an onslaught of dispossession and genocide coming from the corporate "New India" and its govt. enablers.

As a scholar and artist of South Asian culture I was assumed by many Hindu Indians to be sympathetic to the growing trends of Hindutva (Hindu renaissance/ethnic cleansing), and was even taken one day, by a local politician in the Himalayas, to an RSS compound where young boys are raised as young warriors for the future 'Ram Raj' (heaven-on-earth); I also met the 'leader' (who reminded me of Stromm Thurman -gag!). Couldn't wait to take a shower! In both West Bengal and Orissa armed tribals/villages have been barricading their territories against political troops and gangs for several years to keep out international corporations and to stave off 'relocation'. On the day I left India the entire state of West Bengal was completely shut down after a goon mercenary army of the 'Communist Party' (now turned capitalist!) had stormed a village and killed many locals and ignited the rage of the common people in the state.

Now I am looking very closely at these recent quarantines and govt. raids, etc in West Bengal over the BIRD FLU. Gee, a potential 'pandemic' gives an excuse for all kinds of mischief. And, of course, what is the SOURCE of this H1N5 (or whatever) 'bird flu' that appears to be killing lots of wild and domestic birds and even GOATS! Get my drift?

Just adding my own comments as an introduction to a somewhat lengthy speech given a week ago by the celebrated author/activist ARUNDHATI ROY in Istanbul on the occasion of honoring a martyr of the Armenian genocide-recognition community of descendants. She speaks at length on the genocide phenomenon historically, how India is currently rushing towards a ponerized genocidal society, and the psychological 'fashion' of the modern Indians' state of denial and obliviousness. Not mentioned, though, is the vastly increased Israeli ties on all levels with India.

As always, very articulate and insightful in her own dark-humor style -

Of course today, when genocide politics meets the Free Market, official recognition-or denial-of holocausts and genocides is a multinational business enterprise. It rarely has anything to do to with historical fact or forensic evidence. Morality certainly does not enter the picture. It is an aggressive process of high-end bargaining, that belongs more to the World Trade Organisation than to the United Nations.

Here is the counterfeit universe laid bare.
It tells us that the rich don't have a choice (There Is No Alternative), but the poor do. They can choose to become rich. If they don't, it's because they are choosing pessimism over optimism, hesitation over confidence, want over hope. In other words, they're choosing to be poor. It's their fault. They are weak. (And we know what the seekers of lebensraum think of the weak.) They are the 'Constraining Ghost of the Past'. They're already ghosts.

[I never knew that Lord Amherst (college, city) was the dude who thought up the small-pox blanket, argh!]

LISTENING TO GRASSHOPPERS - Genocide, Denial, and Celebration
by Arundhati Roy
http://www.countercurrents.org/roy260108.htm

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The history of genocide tells us that it's not an aberration, an anomaly, a glitch in the human system. - Arundhati Roy

 

[Mr. Premise]

Bholanath, you should write this up and submit it as a possible SOTT Focus piece. Or if your blog is published as a Best of the Web piece. Sounds like some valuable information.

 

[Bholanath]

Bholanath, you should write this up and submit it as a possible SOTT Focus piece. Or if your blog is published as a Best of the Web piece. Sounds like some valuable information.

Ah yes, please tell me/direct me to how/where one might submit such an article. (My "blog" is not published, so it may take a week or so to compose a project such as this, but I am willing.) Thanks for the present and future feedback.

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Sit down, shut up and ask yourself, "What's true?" until you know. -Jed McKenna

 

[Mr. Premise]

At the bottom of the Signs page is an email address, sott@sott.net. Just send it there and the editors will look at it.

Don

Bholanath, you should write this up and submit it as a possible SOTT Focus piece. Or if your blog is published as a Best of the Web piece. Sounds like some valuable information.

Ah yes, please tell me/direct me to how/where one might submit such an article. (My "blog" is not published, so it may take a week or so to compose a project such as this, but I am willing.) Thanks for the present and future feedback.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Sit down, shut up and ask yourself, "What's true?" until you know. -Jed McKenna