On Clothes and Modernity

On clothes and 'modernity'

(click above for article)

"For example, I prefer to wear jeans and T-shirt too. Because I need easily to use my legs and arms." My 'modern' Turkish friend pleads efficiency for her attire; oddly, though, efficient farm girls in Turkey wear the shalwar, as they do in Bangladesh, along with the saree. 'Modernity' comes in many covers, and this one conceals less of its sinister side than most.

In The Beginning Was The Word (fiction)

In The Beginning Was The Word

(click above for fiction)

I have argued elsewhere that 'freedom' is an empty word without meaning in Asia because Asia lacks the experience of large-scale slavery. Zafar Shah tries to teach that words have meaning only in context but doesn't stand a chance against the tide of media indoctrination, historical defeat and the flood of dosh from the west.

Excerpt:

General Haroon-ur-Rashid came to my flat, all pips and gongs.

"Well, Zafar, do you think the students will overthrow me?"

"No, not the students." I put my cold mango juice down. "The donors. By means of the students."

"And why’s that?"

"They don’t need any anti-communist bulwark, anymore."

"But I’m popular."

"I know. They know that, too. But they want free and fair elections. Something they call freedom."

"What can I do?"

"If we had had enough time, we could have fought one idea with another idea. Rather, one word with an idea."

"What are you going on about, Zafar?"

"The idea of freedom has gripped the students: they don’t understand the word, but they like the sound. And who can blame them? The entire western media have indoctrinated them. A few years ago, we could have countered the word with a Perso-Arabic expression: zel Allah."

"Eh?"

Cowboy Nation

Bin Laden (dead or alive) has effectively - once and for all - exposed the nature of American democracy. It is a brutal system that does not believe in the rule of law, does not care about human life, tears up international treaties when they don't suit, tortures innocent people, kills a man without proving him guilty, is still the nation that killed the Native Americans (they call it Thanksgiving) and imported the black slaves.

This is American democracy, and no one can ever again look up to it because these events - unlike the other crimes - are recent and still unfolding.

Cowboy nation.

Ambrose Bierce on slavery in east and west

Online Reader - Project Gutenberg: "Because the brutality of the civilized slave owners and dealers created a conquering sentiment against slavery it is not intelligent to assume that slavery is a maleficent thing amongst Oriental peoples (for example) where the slave is not oppressed.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

I wish I had had the benefit of the above observation several years ago. In one pithy sentence, Ambrose Bierce, in his essay 'Civilisation' (collected in 'A Cynic Looks At Life') has summed up what took me years of study and reflection. Doubtless living in a slaving economy helped his perspective no end.

Slavery has been universal, but not significant. Only 1 per cent of China's population were slaves, as opposed to a third of Athens's. Indeed, it has been recognised by scholars that slavery created Greek democracy. The latter rested on the former, like a rose on a dung-heap. In Egypt, slavery was practically unknown. Some people point to the pyramids and ask, "Who built those", as one gentleman indeed asked me. Good question. Recent research has established that the pyramids had not been built by slaves.

Biblical narrative of the Jews' captivity in Egypt is interesting. It seems that the so-called 'slaves' had houses and could afford to offer sacrifices. Indeed,experts believe that the narrative prior to the taking of Canaan to be largely myth, in both senses of the word.

Slavery was a western product: after the Greeks, it disappeared under the Hellenistic monarchies, reappeared with the Roman Republic with a vengeance, disappeared under the Roman Empire, then reemerged with the Renaissance....This is western civilisation.

Interestingly, slavery coexisted with political freedom, and never arose under Empires.

Muslim Women Gain Higher Profile in U.S. - NYTimes.com

Muslim Women Gain Higher Profile in U.S. - NYTimes.com: "we will have some communities in the future that have female imams

- Sent using Google Toolbar"


These women praise the 'freedom' that American society gives them: the freedom to form associations, for instance. As I have argued elsewhere, freedom is an unimportant issue outside western civilisation because of the lack of large-scale slavery. But these women have become Americanised - indeed one of them is an American, and she longs to have a 'female imam'. Doesn't she know that innovation in religion is strictly forbidden in Islam?

“Muslims coming to North America are often seeking an egalitarian version of Islam,” says Ebrahim Moosa of Duke University. Implication: Islam outside America is inegalitarian. But egalitarianism is itself a western concept born out of slavery. Our societies are not equal/unequal but hierarchic. Every man has a superior in his mother and aunts, just as every woman has a superior. The notion of 'equality' is a non-concept: it can have meaning only for western Muslims or westernized Muslims.

If you wish to live in a slavery-infected society, go ahead, but keep the resulting ideological garbage to yourself.

Lincoln, the mass murderer

The Lincoln Memorial shows how Americans honour their murderers and warmongers. Lincoln has been guilty of war crimes: The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, (Three Rivers Press/Random House)

He did not start the civil war to end slavery, but to prevent southern states from exercising their right to secession. If the European Union today bludgeoned member states into similar submission, would we accept it?

The barbarity of the Unionists under Lincoln is brought out in this line quoted from Sir John Keegan's recent book on the Civil War: "Even during the world wars, the British and French buried the German dead, the Germans buried their enemies…The Union treated those who died in rebellion against it as non-people." They just dumped the Confederate dead into mass graves.

In proportion to casualties to population, the Civil War “bears comparison only with the European losses in the Great War and Russia’s in the Second World War.”

By preserving the Union, Lincoln helped create a monster across North America, from one ocean to the other. Today, most of us are slaves to this monster.

The Flames of Freedom (short story)

The Flames of Freedom

(click on title for short story)

Opening paragraph:

"I shall always feel affection and respect for the man who wanted to destroy western civilisation. I remember clearly how we met – that was an adventure in itself. We met through Faria, and I met her at Hotel Poshur at Mongla."


This is a story of how western foreign policy affects the lives of distant people: it begins by the Poshur River at Mongla and ends at Teknaf. The themes are an insatiable longing for peace and the inevitability of violence.

The Racial Climbers

Most of my acquaintances are racial, not social, climbers.

That is because socially they are well-established and don't have much of a climbing to do. But racially, they perceive themselves to be untermensch.

They leave Bangladesh for the west, not because they are driven by pecuniary considerations, but because they wish to promote themselves up the racial ladder. They bring up their children to resemble the ubermensch as much as possible.

I am all for migration, but who are the people who should be migrating? Not these fat indoctrinated fellows, but the lean, uneducated, even illiterate ones. They are the ones who should be picking oranges in California or gutting cattle in Chicago. We don't need men and women with master's degrees and doctors leaving the country.

I have a friend who felt such respect for the untermensch that he used to describe America as 'heaven'. He is now ensconced there and very happy to be serving under the ubermensch when, in fact, he could live here like a lord. He even tries to speak English like the ubermensch (on the other side of the Atlantic) : he curls his lips around the vowels so that he takes on a positively simian appearance: ooooh ooooh ooooh!

They say slavery is illegal now, but what need is there for physical slaves when you have psychological ones? These don't even have to be policed for they'll never run away. They don't need to be branded because they are spiritually branded.

The recent recession has hurt these untermensch a little: the are losing jobs, tuition fees are going up, loans are disappearing....How can one feel sorry for them?

I know a driver of a three-wheeler here who is a credit to his faith: absolutely honest, totally reliable, and dirt poor, he was planning to sell his meager house for his father's prostate surgery. Well, that fate was finally avoided by the generosity of those who know him well. He bows before none but God, and does not know what an ubermensch is. He's the kind who should emigrate to escape poverty, and he's the kind the west will never accept.

The gall of a Gaul

"In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for one another; but they display general compassion for the members of the human race. They inflict no useless ills; and they are happy to relieve the griefs of others, when they can do so without much hurting themselves; they are not disinterested, but they are humane."

I came across this piece of garbage, not in my rubbish can, but in the second volume of Democracy in America. Humane?

The author seems to have forgotten what he wrote about Native Americans and negro slaves in Book I: he noted the treachery, inhumanity, illegality, and indifference towards these people on the part of the 'democratic' white Anglo-Americans, as he called them.

Perhaps he means that the misery inflicted on Indians and Negroes were 'useful ills': certainly useful to the white people, and certainly not useful to the victims.

In Chapter 18 of Book 1, he makes the following observation:

"None of the Indian tribes which formerly inhabited the territory of New England--the Naragansetts, the Mohicans, the Pecots--have any existence but in the recollection of man. The Lenapes, who received William Penn, a hundred and fifty years ago, upon the banks of the Delaware, have disappeared; and I myself met with the last of the Iroquois, who were begging alms. The nations I have mentioned formerly covered the country to the sea-coast; but a traveller at the present day must penetrate more than a hundred leagues into the interior of the continent to find an Indian. Not only have these wild tribes receded, but they are destroyed; and as they give way or perish, an immense and increasing people fills their place. There is no instance upon record of so prodigious a growth, or so rapid a destruction: the manner in which the latter change takes place is not difficult to describe."


To cap it all, this (by no means feeble-minded) Frenchman, has the idiocy to observe that the Spaniards were able to assimilate themselves to the Indians because South American Indians practiced agriculture - it doesn't occur to him that it was precisely the absence of democracy - the citizen-versus-non-citizen antithesis - that enabled the Iberians both to assimilate the Indians as well as the Negro slaves (I have touched on these subjects elsewhere).

thoughts on de Tocqueville on slavery

"The negro, who is plunged in this abyss of evils, scarcely feels his own calamitous situation. Violence made him a slave, and the habit of servitude gives him the thoughts and desires of a slave; he admires his tyrants more than he hates them, and finds his joy and his pride in the servile imitation of those who oppress him: his understanding is degraded to the level of his soul.

"The negro enters upon slavery as soon as he is born: nay, he may have been purchased in the womb, and have begun his slavery before he began his existence. Equally devoid of wants and of enjoyment, and useless to himself, he learns, with his first notions of existence, that he is the property of another, who has an interest in preserving his life, and that the care of it does not devolve upon himself; even the power of thought appears to him a useless gift of Providence, and he quietly enjoys the privileges of his debasement. If he becomes free, independence is often felt by him to be a heavier burden than slavery; for having learned, in the course of his life, to submit to everything except reason, he is too much unacquainted with her dictates to obey them. A thousand new desires beset him, and he is destitute of the knowledge and energy necessary to resist them: these are masters which it is necessary to contend with, and he has learnt only to submit and obey. In short, he sinks to such a depth of wretchedness, that while servitude brutalizes, liberty destroys him."


Thus observed Alexis de Tocqueville during his stay in America. Yet reading the lines, I felt myself inserted into the pathetic tale of mental servitude.

Since infancy, I have been brought up on the notion of the absolute and unqualified superiority of the White Race. This deep impression – like all impressions made upon the childish intellect – remained with me; and I am ashamed to admit, remained with me till my thirtieth year.

I was woken from this dream of inferiority by the study of comparative history. I recoiled with horror at the object of my prolonged infatuation. Was this the beast that I had embraced as a beauty?

Looking around, I found a nation incapable of reason, unable and unwilling to govern itself, incapable of original thought, and without a pulse of authentic emotion. And the more I studied this animal, the more I discovered the rot to lie in the head rather than in the body. In short, I refer to the thinking part of our society – the so-called intellectuals ("Have you heard? Jihadis blew off the head of a Bangladeshi intellectual, and spattered the place with faeces. What a pong! They've sworn never to go for the head again.")

It has been observed that a slave has only one master, but that a man of ambition has many. This is true of our intelligentsia, who fawn before their European masters as well as their domestic ones – for since their careers straddle two realms, the local and the foreign, they needs must keep two sorts of masters happy.

I have never yet met any educated person in this country: experts, yes, but not men or women of education, what the Persians would call 'elm'. This is not surprising: the profound disgust for knowledge that carries no reward comes naturally to those used to calculating their whole lives on the benefits to be derived or the losses to be sustained from certain courses of action. It is always the main chance, the master's blessing for a job 'well done'. That something can be a good-in-itself is beyond the imagination of a servant.

Naturally, from this parochial view of knowledge arises the other vices: the indifference to immorality ('what's in it for me?'), the apathy towards the suffering of others, the lack of indignation at evil done or goodness withheld.

When was the last time that we were shocked by a murder in this country? Imagine: the premature and unnatural death of a human being solicits no interest simply because 'there's nothing in it for me', because the victim was not related to me in any way.

Another Reformation? Off your rocker, are you?

"SIR – The right to examine and disagree with any institution, especially the church or state, benefits the object of inspection. The UN Human Rights Council's decision to forbid "defamation" of religion fails to recognise the benefits of scrutiny in evaluating the integrity of a religion.
Islam is strong enough to withstand criticism. If the countries that lobbied for the UN vote believe this, the resolution would not have passed.
Stephen Wong
Germantown, Maryland"

Take this letter to the editor: a superb example of bad logic and unexamined premises.

"The right to examine and disagree with any institution, especially the church or state, benefits the object of inspection."

Did the right to examine the RC Church benefit the object of examination? It turned it into a cruel inquisitor and ingniter of bonfires. The Wars of Religion started and Christianity itself became abhorrent to many: it was one of the forces for secularization in the west. Finally, the Thirty Years' War gave complete power to princes in religious matters. No doubt, in some spiritual way, those who were burnt at the stake or who set fire to the fagots were improved, but certainly not in any corporeal sense.

Islam has only on major division: the Shia-Sunni split. What these people who cry for a Muslim Reformation seem to want is a internal civil war within the Muslim polity: sorry, no can do. As R.A.Nicholson observed: "It must be admitted for the credit of the Ulama, that they seldom resorted to violence. Islam was happily spared the horrors of an organised Inquisition." Let's keep it that way, shall we?


Moreover, these 2estern attitudes reveal an essential western value: the love of conflict over concord.


Western history over the last 500 years reads like a B-grade action movie, if you'll forgive the mixed metaphor: hostility towards each other, and towards the world, marks western civilization.


After two world wars, Europe discovered itself and stopped shooting. "Halt! Who goes there?" "You!"


Of course, western bellicosity has gained it entrée to every nook of the world, but what it really craves is to enter every niche of the vanquished mind. Sheer physical domination has not been enough. They want the enchained to love their chains.
Mental domination is a unique aspect of the west: totalitarianism is a purely western phenomenon. Its founder was Plato, who deplored the "privatization of thoughts and feelings". It is not enough to control your actions; your thoughts must also be controlled. And in this the west succeeds admirably. http://www.unlikelystories.org/sayeed0706.shtml


So many have come to love their chains! So many intellectuals try to think the way their masters do: it's not just a question of competence with cutlery, but with psychic manipulation.


Isn't it enough to control Saudi Arabia: why do you have to control the mind of the average Saudi? So long as the oil flows, and Israel is protected, why mess with the religion?


A struggle against the west therefore means a struggle for mastery over one's own mind: a nation of mental slaves, such as Bangladesh, can never resist the west. Pakistan is more to be admired: in pretending to carry out its master's instructions, it pursues its own interests (this is only true of the army and the intelligence branch, of course, the ISI). It keeps its focus on its main adversary, India, and meanwhile spreads weapons of mass destruction worldwide, selling secrets to Iran and North Korea. As George Orwell observed, the atom bomb will be the great equalizer – pitting small states against big, the individual against the state (
http://writethis.com/z39.html) .

Carthago delenda est (article)

Carthago delenda est

(click above for article)


"Carthago Delenda Est" – these were the words uttered by Cato repeatedly to persuade his peers to destroy Carthage. The Third Punic War gives the lie to the thesis, touted by McCain and Tony Blair, that "democracies never go to war against each other". The League of Democracies is just an idea for the democracies to remove all checks on their powers.

Excerpt:


Now, why is it that democracies want to spread democracy, but autocracies don't want to spread autocracy?

It's something in the DNA, of course. I have argued that the flipside of "freedom" has been "slavery", which was widely practiced in the west, but not elsewhere . Western civilisation has been a civilisation of domination. Another Englishman made statements similar to Messrs Skidelsky, Blair and McCain. He said: "Surrounded by congregated multitudes, I now imagine that . . . I behold the nations of the earth recovering that liberty which they so long had lost; and that the people of this island are . . . disseminating the blessings of civilization and freedom among cities, kingdoms and nations. " Now, who could have uttered such an unholy wish, so redolent of George Bush, Tony Blair, the neo-cons, and other assorted ruffians?

Lessons from the River Kwai

Lessons from the River Kwai

Iftekhar Sayeed at Unlikely 2.0


(essay at link above)


For me, the film "Bridge on the River Kwai" urges dignity despite the fact of being a prisoner. Merely because we are in hock to western countries doesn't mean we are slaves – we can live like dignified human beings. This is the central message of the film: the distinction between master and slave endures, not because the master has you in his power, but because you sink into passivity and lassitude.




Excerpt:


"The subsequent scene in the botanical garden records the undoing of Commander Shears as the giant hand of Destiny assumes the guise of Major Warden. A very light-hearted, almost comical, scene in which the Major inveigles, and finally, entraps, Shears into joining an expedition to blow up the bridge, conceals profound insight into the nature of slavery. The essence of slavery lies in denial of the ego, in trying to be what your master wants you to be, and not affirming your true self. Commander Shears turns out to be an impostor!"

what the fraulein said

A German diplomatic team was here in Bangladesh the other day. Their spokeswoman, Fraulein Nina Zuring, said: "We are friends of Bangladesh. Actually, we are masters – we give aid to Bangladesh, and we have ruled the country for the last thirty years. Of course, not we alone, but the other European nations and especially America."

She was praised for her frankness, and received a standing ovation. This was at the German Cultural Centre on the 31st of March.

When asked why the Germans (along with the other masters) had decided to impose democracy on Bangladesh after 1989, she said: "Dummkopf! Don't you know the Berlin Wall had come down and I could visit my communist cousins again? Dummkopf!"

the perils of civil society

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your reasoned response: I agree with many of the things you say.

America is plural, no doubt: otherwise, how could someone like Finkelstein or Chomsky have ever written what they have.

I have nothing against America per se: there are aspects of the western civilisation that are disquieting.

I'm sure many Americans dislike the Israel lobby: but that doesn't help the Palestinians or the Iraqis at all.

In fact, I don't blame the Israel lobby one iota, either. The problem is deeper than that: the problem is pluralism itself.

I'm sure you're familiar with the theory of civil society: I have written quite a lot on the subject, and if you visit my web page, you will come across most of them (http://www.geocities.com/if6065/farvardin).

A plural society is characterised by a constant struggle among interest/lobby groups: it's a Darwinian struggle: some lobby groups prosper at the expense of others. Take farmers: US and European farmers have lobbied to make sure third world farmers remain in poverty, and also that US and European consumers pay eight times the world price of sugar, for instance. As you'll find in Finkelstein's book, the Israel lobby has made gains, not only at the expense of the Palestinians, but also at the expense of black Americans. This is normal in a pluralist society.

It took the Israel lobby years (decades) to assert itself in America (during the first Arab-Israeli war, the US didn't lift a finger to help Israel; it was Stalin who supplied Czech
weapons and saved the infant state from destruction.)

Finkelstein observes that it was the Israeli success in the 1967 war that clinched America's support for Israel – this is wrong.

In the book, THE AMERICANISATION OF HE HOLOCAUST, the firs chapter observes how Jewish writers in the early 20th century downplayed their Jewishness. Saul Bellow, in Dangling Man, makes a passing remark on Jewishness; later, however, in What Kind of A Day Did You Have (good story!), Jewishness is prominent. Moral: it takes years for civil society to assert itself. Incremental measures, such as, notably, the radio broadcast of the Eichman trial, led to the lodgement of the Israeli identity (not Jewish identity) in the American psyche. I avoid "Jewish identity" because many devout Jews, such as Rabbi Goldstein and Jews Against Zionism, are against Israel: this is a problem that stems from the French revolution: nationalism (http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2607.shtml)

The parallel with trade unions will make it very clearer. Trade unions were banned in 19th century Britain on competition grounds. Then they were legalised, workers got the vote and prominent writers (the Fabian society being the most famous), took up their case, and they became a sacred coy.

Forward tot he 1960s and 1970s. The stranglehold of the unions on Britain was obvious (I was thee during the coal-miners strike in the 70s). Britain "was not working" but government were powerless to do anything. This is a superb example of the tail wagging the dog, how a civic group can control the state itself. What about the business lobby? They were powerless.

Then came Mrs. Thatcher – and she used devious and ruthless measures to crush the inions (hence, Iron Lady). I've nothing against British trade unions – this is merely an example of hoe pluralism can be dangerous.

I have written a great deal: I'm sorry about that. But please bear with me. There are two things I wish to say further.

First, the word 'freedom' is so important in western civilisation because it was the only civilisation to practice slavery on a large scale (I know what you're thinking: who built those pyramids!). Pleas see my article: http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~acsrrrm/entertext/5_3/ET53SayeedEd.doc

The only noble exceptions were the Roman Empire (NOT the Republic) and the Hellenistic world – precisely because they were monarchies.

Secondly, there is a widespread perception among westerners, and especially Americans, that the Muslim world hates them. Now, I live in a country of 140 million Muslims (the second largest after Indonesia). Among my friends, all are passionately in love with the west (especially America). Despite all the evidence I have tried to garner and share, not one person has ever evinced any displeasure with the west. I know you will find this incredible: but it is a fact. Most Muslims LOVE America.

I was once planning to go and live in the UAE: I was told by friends there that if I had an American passport, not only would I have better pay, but far greater prestige.

I don't know how this misconception has arisen that Muslims hate the west: SOME do; MOST love the west. Not only for financial reasons; most people I know think western civilisation (especially America) is the fountainhead of all that's good and great.

You can see my pathetic attempts to "enlighten" my compatriots in this essay: http://poeticdiversity.org/main/prose.php?recordID=1176&date=2007-12-01

I will end this overlong piece with a quote from a Palestinian who was resident in Dhaka: "Our biggest enemy is the ummah; I don't blame America."

The Interpreter (fiction)

http://unlikelystories.org/sayeed0308.shtml

article at link above)


The theme of master and slave runs like a leitmotif through western civilization. This is the story of a Bengali-English interpreter, who has a clear vision of the relationship possible between white and non-white people – a relationship based on nothing more, or less, than work. (Some of the events recounted here, such as the segregation of the living quarters, are drawn from actual events.)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_iftekhar_080222_in_the_prison_of_his.htm

(article at above URL)

In Bangladesh, we never identify with the African-American. Indeed, in South Asia, the middle class aspiration is to be like the white middle class: affluent. We forget that until recently, we were despised by our colonial masters, whose rule has proven so effective that we have become mental slaves – the only kind that endures "emancipation".

Eternal Vigilance

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2811.shtml

(click above for article)

“Eternal vigilance is the price of chastity” conveys far better than Thomas Jefferson’s line (quoted ad nauseam) the anxiety his female slaves must have felt at the constant prospect of being raped by their freedom-loving, concupiscent master.

Reflections on Democracy and Violence

Reflections on Democracy and Violence


http://unlikelystories.org/sayeed0207.shtml



The second section of this article establishes a correlation, witnessed by evidence and the testimony of S. E. Finer and Stanley J. Tambiah, between democracy and violence, a correlation that is strengthened in the third section by John Keane and Robin Blackburn's observation that civil society tends towards violence; but correlation is not causation, and section three is dedicated to establishing a causal link between the Forum-type polity and violence.

Freedom and FREEDOM

http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~acsrrrm/entertext/5_3/ET53SayeedEd.doc

FREEDOM AND FREEDOM (Article)

Individual freedom has been a recurring theme in western literature and society. The essay argues that the word freedom connotes individual freedom in western culture and literature because of the experience of slavery. Since Asia lacked this experience, freedom in the sense of individual freedom has no meaning here. In Asia the word freedom connotes collective freedom in keeping with its colonial experience. Present day implications for the cultural and political transmissions taking place are profound.