ACHA Peace Bulletin 12.15.01 – Page 1
ACHA PEACE BULLETIN
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A publication of Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA) http://www.asiapeace.org
Editors: Pritam K. Rohila & Azam Saeed
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ACHA PEACE BULLETIN (Volume III, No. 12, December 15,2001 (Next issue, January 02.2002)
CONTENTS
Peace & Harmony New
Peace & Harmony Organizations
Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC) & Mouvement de la Paix
Announcements
Crosses, Cows, and Crescents: Religion in South Asia and the Diaspora
Transculturation and Globalisation, in conjunction with Asian Identities & the Location of Culture
Books & Journals
Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century, By N Welton & L Wolf
The Peacebook: 108 Simple Ways to Create a More Peaceful World, By Louise Diamond
Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, By Michael T. Klare
Unlocking Horns: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Burundi, By D Niyonzima & L Fendall
Understanding Sarkar: The Indian Episteme, Macrohistory and Transformative Knowledge, By S Inayatullah
India's Emerging Nuclear Posture, By Ashley Tellis
The Unfinished Twentieth Century, By Jonathan Schell
Out of the Nuclear Shadow, Edited by Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian
Children
Courses
February 18-22, New York, NY: Designing & Implementing Interventions for Global Change
Environment
Events
January 16, 2002, Seattle, WA: The Face Of Pakistan
Human Rights
Women
Co-Existence Resources: Call for Papers, Courses, Conferences, Fellowships, Grants, Jobs, & Practical Resources
(For a copy send a blank email to pritamr@open.org with its subject as the word CO-EXISTENCE as its Subject)
REPORTS & ANALYSES
(For a copy of an article listed below, please send a blank email to pritamr@open.org with its subject as the UPPERCASE word in the article title. Please limit your request to 3 articles)
Kashmir
Terrorist or a Freedom FIGHTER, By Shabir Choudhry, London, October 19, 2001
Nuclearization of South Asia
South Asia's Unsafe NUKES: Nuclear Apocalypse Now? By Praful Bidwai
India, Pakistan And The BOMB, By M. V. Ramana & A. H. Nayyar, Scientific American, December 2001
A NUCLEAR wedge, M.V. Ramana, Frontline, Volume 18 - Issue 25, Dec. 08 -21, 2001
Religion
A WORLD Not Neatly Divided, By Amartya Sen, The New York Times, November 23, 2001
On The Multilayered Concept Of JIHAD, By Asghar Ali Engineer, Islam and Modern Age December, 2001
MUSLIMS And The West After 11 September, By Pervez Hoodbhoy, December 7, 2001
OSAMA's interpretation of Shariat, By Ahmad Khalid, Dawn, November 14, 2001
Islam the BEAST within, By Mohammed Wakil
US War on Terrorism & Afghanistan
A Long, Strange TRIP to the Taliban (John Walker Lindh story), By Colin Soloway, Evan Thomas, Karen Breslau, and Ron Moreau, Newsweek, December 17, 2001
For the love of LIBERTY, By Dr Manzur Ejaz, The News,(Pakistan) December 2, 2001
PROPAGANDA: Then And Now, By Gilles D'aymery, November 12, 2001
Women
The RIFLE and the Veil, By Jan Goodwin and Jessica Neuwirth, The New York Times, October 19, 2001
Where Are the WOMEN?: Subject to Debate, By Katha Pollitt, Tha Nation Magazine, October 22, 2001
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PEACE & HARMONY NEWS
Pak supports India on implementation issue, development agenda http://www.rediff.com/money/2001/nov/10wto4.htm
Hurriyat proposes ceasefire, fresh talks
The All Parties Hurriyat Conference on Monday proposed a ceasefire between all parties involved in the Kashmir conflict and urged India and Pakistan to resume talks to reduce tension in the Valley. http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/nov/12jk.htm
Musharraf proposes treaty with India on n-test ban
New York, Nov. 11. (PTI): Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has proposed a "bilateral treaty" with India for a mutual ban on nuclear tests, even as the US and Pakistan supported enhanced non-proliferation measures even at the regional level. "We are ready to formalise a bilateral treaty with India for mutual test ban. We are ready to discuss nuclear and missile restraints as well as nuclear risk reduction measures with India in a structured, comprehensive and integrated dialogue," Musharraf said addressing the UN General Assembly here yesterday. (The Hindu News Update Service November 11, 2001)
Hizb for peaceful resolution of K-issue
The pro-Pakistan militant outfit also did not deny the presence foreign militants in Kashmir. http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/nov/20jk1.htm
US envoy to Pakistan observes Ramzan fast
Wendy Chamberlin said she was so impressed with the spirit of Ramzan that she decided to give up eating and drinking during the day for the entire month. http://www.rediff.com/us/2001/nov/20ny2.htm
'Jihad' in Kashmir unjustified: Pak media
Complicity with the insertion of militants into Kashmir makes Pakistan accountable for their actions, The News said in an article. http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/nov/20pak.htm
Govt to examine Hizb's Kashmir proposal
Home Minister Advani said that the government was willing to discuss the Kashmir issue with any organisation that was prepared to put down arms. http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/nov/21jk1.htm
Vajpayee, Musharraf talk of meeting in Nepal http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/nov/24vaj.htm
Hindus, Sikhs in Afghanistan can practise their faith
The Taleban regime had imposed a number of restrictions on the minorities, and even asked them to attire in a manner, which would make it easy to identify them. http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/dec/01afg.htm
Peaceful solution to Naga dispute: PM, NSCN http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/dec/08pm1.htm
RSS- church dialogue
Members of the RSS and Church leaders held talks at Aluva near Kochi. RSS chief K.S Sudarshan and Catholic Bishops Council of India President Cyril Mar Baselios, said that the talks were satisfactory. In all, 28 Christian Churches were represented at the talks with the Syro- Malabar Church and the Orthodox Syrian Church staying away. (Deccan Herald, Nov.30, Via India News – 12/05/01)
Business with a dash of cross-border diplomacy
Craftsmen from Agra and merchants from Pakistan's port city of Karachi have joined hands to produce idols of Lord Ganesha -- the elephant god. http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/nov/28indpak.htm
Crackdown on Christian baiters
Madhya Pradesh Chief minister Digvijay Singh has ordered police to arrest anyone caught circulating posters and handouts in the Dhar-Jhabua tribal belt with messages branding Christians "anti-nationals". Slogans like "raise your voice against the anti-national Christian community" are already doing the rounds. The needle of suspicion points to the RSS , which has declared a Dharam Jagran Abhiyan in Dhar and Jhabua districts of Madhya Pradesh. According to reports, 11,000 Sangh Parivar workers have been given the job of preaching tribals the virtues of Hinduism. The seven week mission's prime objective will be taking Hanuman to every Bhil and Bhilala tribal home.( The Telegraph, Nov. 23, Via India News christianpatriot@mantraonline.com>)
PEACE & HARMONY ORGANIZATIONS
Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC) & Mouvement de la Paix - 139 avenue V. HUGO, F - 93400 ST-OUEN T : 33 1 40 12 09 12, F : 33 1 40 11 57 87, Email : ddurand@mvtpaix.org, Web : http://www.mvtpaix.org
A meeting between representatives of the Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC) and representatives of the French Peace Movement, was held on Tuesday 6th November. It was arranged by Freres des Hommes-France a citizens group and NGO in France.
The two organisations took note of their converging reactions regarding the horror of the 11th September attacks. They underlined the commitment they have towards eradication of terrorism in the world, a short and long term undertaking that has to be accomplished by the international community as a whole under the auspices of international Law and United Nations.
Since October 7th, with the start of American and British strike on Afghanistan, the regional situation raises issues of grave concern. The humanitarian disaster that has affected the Afghan people, the degradation of the political climate inside Pakistan, and tensions in Kashmir, cannot but seriously affect regional stability and aggravate the precarious situation of people economically as well as in terms of human rights and peace. Each day that passes brings new dangers.
In the light of this situation the two organisations demanded:
-that bombings and military intervention be stopped immediately-that the United Nations should take charge of the fight against terrorism, and take genuine means for its eradication
-that humanitarian aid be put in place for Afghan population and refugees
-that the Afghan population be involved in the political settlement of the crisis
-that the international community take into account the terrible consequences of the crisis and the entry of 2 million refugees on Pakistan’s economy, and agree to a cancellation of the debt ($ 38 billion, with a debt servicing of $3,8 billion per year) in order to satisfy the most urgent social needs.
Looking at the Indo-Pakistan tension in Kashmir, with the threat of another war escalating, they demanded:
-the resumption of peace negotiations between the two countries with all the necessary international aid
-the urgent continuation of negotiations for nuclear disarmament in the twocountries
-the total embargo on arms sale to these two countries.
Both organisations took note of their common resolve to alert public opinions on the dangers of any attempt to instrumentalise religion or ethnicity towards political ends, whether these attempts come from governments or from pressure groups. They insisted on the need to develop links and co-operation between movements and citizens of the world in order to contribute to world peace, nuclear disarmament, and demilitarisation of the world, and promote justice and human rights.
Paris, November 6th, 2001
Daniel Durand on behalf of the French Peace Movement (le Mouvement de la Paix)
Karamat Ali on behalf of the Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
CROSSES, COWS, AND CRESCENTS: RELIGION IN SOUTH ASIA AND THE DIASPORA
The South Asian Literature and Art Archive (Website: www.thesala.com), an open forum for discussion of any issues pertaining to South Asia and the experience of South Asians of all ages and on all continents, is looking for submissions (e.g. art, essays, poetry, and fiction) for the next issue. Possible questions to be addressed include: Where do Christians fit in South Asia or in the diaspora? What does it mean to hijack Islam? Do Sikhs have brotherhood with Muslims? Are there really any Jews in India? and what about the disappearing Parsis? Submit submissions to Nabarun Dasgupta, c/o South Asian Literature and Art Archive (SALA), 973 State Street, 3rd Floor; New Haven, CT 06511, USA, Fax 786-513-0662, Email: thoughts@thesala.com, arts@thesala.com.
TRANSCULTURATION AND GLOBALISATION, in conjunction with LOCATING ASIA" ASIAN IDENTITIES AND THE LOCATION OF CULTURE. The Vancouver Centre For Contemporary Asian Art of Vancouver, BC, and South Asian Visual Arts Collective of Toronto, ON (Canada) invite Canadian artists to submit a proposal to participate in a unique exhibition project, under the mentorship of Gu Xiong, one of Canada's premiere artists. Participants will develop an exhibition of media art works to be presented simultaneously in a gallery setting and on the Internet, “to provide Canadian artists an opportunity to work collectively on a project to develop an understanding of the issues of transculturation and globalisation in relation to their own individual media art practice”. In addition to working with a senior artist-mentor, participants will have the ability to interact and network with other artists from across Canada and gain insight into regional influences, differences and similarities.
Phase One: Artists will be invited to Vancouver to attend Centre A's "Locating Asia" symposium, May 2-5, 2002. Centre A and SAVAC will pay an artist fee as well as for travel. Immediately after the symposium, the participating artists will spend one day in a workshop with the senior mentor-artist discussing the ways in which the issues raised intersect with their own practice. "Locating Asia" is a year-long project undertaken to investigate the multivalent issues at play in contemporary constructions of "Asia". The symposium will address the complex ways in which contemporary aesthetic practice engages in the understanding of Asian identities.
Phase Two: Over the course of the following year, artists will be asked to develop new work with a primary focus on new media and delivery to the Internet. The group will keep in touch over this period.
Phase Three: An exhibition will be mounted at Centre A in May 2003 comprised of work created through the workshop. The exhibition will then travel to Toronto and possibly other cities.
Send to The Vancouver Centre For Contemporary Asian Art (849 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 2W2) curriculum vitae, slides, video, CD or URL of recent work and a statement indicating your interest in the issues of transculturation and globalisation, before January 15, 2002.More info from Center A (T: 604 683 8326 F: 604 683 8632, E: centrea@centrea.org W: www.centrea.org) or South Asian Visual Arts Collective (401 Richmond St. West, #450, Toronto, ON Canada M5V 3A8, T: 416.542.1661, E: savac@lefca.com)
BOOKS & JOURNALS
Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century, By Neva Welton and Linda Wolf, New Society Publishers, PO Box 189, Gabriola Island, B.C., V0R 1X0, Canada (T: 1-250-247 9737, F: 1-250-247 7471, Email: orders@newsociety.com, Website: www.newsociety.com), ISBN #: 0-86571-446-0, US$19.95
This book reflects the new global youth movement for peace and justice told through personal narratives, poster art, poetry, photographs, and interviews with new and seasoned activists. It captures the spirit of youth activism, honors young people's power to affect serious change, and highlights a critical international issues and actions.
The Peacebook: 108 Simple Ways to Create a More Peaceful World, By Louise Diamond, PeaceTech, PO Box 253, Bristol, VT 05443, USA (T: 1-802-453-7191/1-888-455-5355
Email: info@peace-tech.com, Website: www.peacebook.com), $3.00 plus $4.50 for shipping
This book examines how individuals can further peace within their communities and in the broader world. It is also meant to be a blueprint for building a revolutionary social structure founded in the Four Principles of Peace. It is meant as a guide to action and contains 108 practical suggestions that can help people build a new culture of peace.
Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, By Michael T. Klare, Von Holtzbrinck Publishing Services, 16365 James Madison Highway, Gordonsville, VA 22942, USA.
T: 1-888-330 8477 (toll free), F: 1-540-672 7540, 1-800-672 2054 (Order Department)
Email: sales@henryholt.com, Website: www.henryholt.com/2001s-hh/resourcewars.htm, ISBN: 0-8050-5575-4, $26.00
The author discusses natural resources such as oil but also discusses the river systems where human demands press against limited supplies (the Nile, Jordan, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus) as well as conflicts over timber rights and minerals in Africa and Southeast Asia. He forecasts increasing conflict in Africa. To reduce international engagement, the author proposes the creation of new international agencies focused on preventing conflict and allocating resources in periods of temporary scarcity, if necessary.
Unlocking Horns: Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Burundi, By David Niyonzima and Lon Fendall, Barclay Press, ISBN #: 0913342971, African Great Lakes Initiative, c/o David Zarembka (Coexistence Network Partner), 7785 Alicia Court, Maplewood, MO 63143, USA.Email: davidzarembka@juno.com, $12.95
This book gives a brief history of the conflict in Burundi from pre-colonial times to the present, the role of the Christian churches and particularly the Friends (Quaker) Church in working towards forgiveness and reconciliation.
Understanding Sarkar: The Indian Episteme, Macrohistory and Transformative Knowledge, By
Sohail Inayatullah s.inayatullah@qut.edu.au>, Brill Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 605, Herndon VA 20172, tel. 1-800-337-9255, fax 1-703-661-1501, email cs@brillusa.com, December 2001, ISBN 9004-121935, Price: EUR 42 - US$ 49.
Sohail Inayatullah takes us on a journey through Indian philosophy, grand theory and macrohistory. We understand and appreciate Indian cyclical and spiral theories of history, and their epistemological context. From other civilizations, we explore the stages and mechanisms of social change as developed by seminal thinkers such as Ssu-Ma Ch'ien, Ibn Khaldun,
Giambattista Vico, George Wilhelm Friedrick Hegel, Oswald Spengler, Pitirim Sorokin, Michel Foucault and many others. They are invited to a multi-civilizational dialog on the nature of agency and structure, and the escape ways from the patterns of history.
But the journey is centered on P.R. Sarkar, the controversial Indian philosopher, guru and activist. While Sarkar passed away in 1990, his work, his social movements, his vision of the future remains ever alive. Inayatullah brings us closer to the heart and head of this giant luminary. Through Understanding Sarkar, we gain insight into Indian philosophy, comparative social theory, and the ways in which knowledge can transform and liberate.
India's Emerging Nuclear Posture, By Ashley Tellis, Oxford, Pages 765, Rs. 895. From the review “The Pragmatic Bomb,” By Kanti Bajpai, India Today, November 26, 2001, Via Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
The events of September 11 have made most Indian strategic analysts forget the biggest security story of the past 10 years up to that point: India's nuclear programme and the tests at Pokhran inMay 1998. Ashley Tellis' new book should get us over this amnesia and rekindle the conversation on matters nuclear in this country.
This massive book on our nuclear posture is a fitting companion tome to George Perkovich's equally massive intervention, India's Nuclear Bomb, published in 1999. Dense, detailed, analytical, systematic and reasoned in its judgments and prescriptions, India's Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrence and Ready Arsenal is a classic of its kind and will adorn the shelves of strategic studies' libraries for many years. When you have read Perkovich and Tellis, you can probably sweep the rest of your library on India's nuclear programme into the dustbin. Tellis (not to be confused with the other Ashley Tellis, a Mumbai resident who, I believe, writes on literary issues) is an Indian-American at RAND, the US Air Force's think tank. After a brilliant academic career at the University of Chicago, he proceeded to build a reputation for fine strategic analysis and meticulous, hardnosed briefings for his demanding air force bosses. He is now senior advisor to the US Embassy in Delhi…
While Perkovich's book gave us a detailed history of the Indian nuclear programme, Tellis' book moves on to try and answer the vital logical questions that follow in the wake of the 1998 tests: how big should the nuclear weapons programme be? What kind of doctrine should guide the use and disposition of nuclear weapons? Where do things stand at present in terms of the construction of the deterrent and will the deterrent deliver?
Tellis' overall answer is that India is moving from a "recessed deterrent" to a "ready arsenal": it is proceeding, apparently unstoppably, from a fairly clandestine, fuzzy programme to something much more overt and defined. This posture will still be rather modest, but it will be much closer to full weaponisation. Tellis' analysis on the whole supports the case of nuclear pragmatists in India who have argued that a small, finite, relatively relaxed deterrent is adequate for our security needs.
This stone-cold, sober book is a must read for pro- and anti-nuclear groups in India. Pro-nuclear readers will find much here to clarify their thinking on the nature of India's posture and its adequacy. Anti-nuclear readers will get a better idea of what direction Indian military planners are likely to take in the years to come and how to structure a systematic assessment of the Indian programme in the future.
The Unfinished Twentieth Century, By Jonathan Schell; Verso Books, London and New York, 2001; pages xvi + 104, $19. From the review “Nuclear weapons and imperialism,” By Sukumar Muralidharan, Frontline, Volume 18 - Issue 25, Dec. 08 -21, 2001, Via South Asians Against Nukes Digest (SAND), http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/NoNukes.html
Jonathan Schell, a consistent voice of conscience for nuclear abolition, identifies the 20th century as an unfinished period of human history since it has thrown up a problem that yet remains unresolved. It has witnessed the build-up of nuclear arsenals that could exterminate all of humanity. And curiously, with the future of the human race hanging in the balance, there is little overt concern over this terrifying prospect. Indeed, when the political rivalry that had fuelled the nuclear arms race ceased with the demise of the Soviet Union, these weapons of mass destruction disappeared from human consciousness.
This did not mean that nuclear weapons disappeared, says Schell. They continue not merely to exist, but to multiply and proliferate. No adequate history of the 20th century can be written, he says, while mankind remains trapped in this moral hiatus, a unique creation of this epoch.
The First World War beginning in 1914 truly inaugurates the 20th century. It was, as the historian Eric Hobsbawm has pointed out, the first major conflict in a century and launched the concept of "total war", of throwing a nation's entire resources into an effort to subjugate and conquer an adversary. Rules of engagement learnt over centuries were jettisoned as civilian populations became fair game and belligerent nations ardently embraced techniques of warfare that had been earlier stigmatised for indiscriminate killing and maiming.
In the unstable equilibrium that followed the conclusion of hostilities in 1918, Schell argues, totalitarian regimes emerged in Russia and Germany, which enshrined mass slaughter as an integral element of state policy, targeting particular sections of the population. When the uneasy balance was ruptured with full-scale hostilities breaking out in 1939, new concepts of mass killing were put into practice by both the totalitarian regimes and the supposed liberal democracies they confronted: the concentration camp, "terror bombing", and in the memorable words of Britain's war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill, "exterminating" air attacks. In 1945, with the dawning of the nuclear age, extermination became the official policy of liberal democracy, ostensibly as a defence against the dangers of totalitarianism.
Depending upon how mankind responds collectively to the most momentous choice that it is today faced with, future generations could look at the 20th century in two different, markedly opposed, perspectives. If ethical concerns were to foster determined movements for nuclear abolition, which were then to secure their objective through moral suasion and propaganda, then the policy of extermination - a defining attribute of the 20th century - would be understood as a way-station for liberal democratic politics as it charted a course towards a truly enlightened idiom of mass engagement.
As Schell puts it: "The rise and fall of totalitarianism from start to finish will wear an altered aspect. It will turn out to have been a ghastly, protracted detour from the progress (the word itself might even gain new credit) and enlightenment offered by liberal civilisation, which, although capsized in 1914 by the First World War, will have righted itself in 1991, bringing on an era of prosperity and peace. Then liberal civilisation itself, freed of its complicity in the policies of extermination it adopted in 1945, will rest at last on a sure foundation."
If, on the other hand, the nuclear powers were to block all overtures towards disarmament, and where coercion fails, even acquiesce in the proliferation of arms among selected states while retaining the strategic balance of terror overwhelmingly in their favour, then the future would look at this epoch and indeed of its politics in an entirely different light. Gone would be the superior moral claims of political liberalism, says Schell, since a grave "suspicion" would be confirmed: "that the United States and its nuclear allies did not build nuclear weapons chiefly in order to face extraordinary danger,... but for more deep-seated, unarticulated reasons growing out of its own, freely chosen conceptions of national security".
The moral stain would soon enough spread to the founding political doctrines of Western civilisation, warns Schell. If the Western liberal democracies were to resist and defeat the calls for nuclear abolition, then the world would with some justification begin to view nuclear arsenals as "less a response to a particular external threat, totalitarian or otherwise, than an intrinsic element of the dominant liberal civilisation itself - an evil that first grew and still grows from within that civilisation rather than being imposed from without". And in this moment of revelation, it would also be recalled that the "seminal event of the real twentieth century, the First World War, sprang in all its pointless slaughter and destructive fury from the midst of that same liberal civilisation".
These propositions are eloquently put, though the choice that Schell only broadly points to is perhaps already pre-figured in the epoch that precedes the real 20th century. If the real 19th century were to be understood as the period between the French Revolution and the
outbreak of the First World War, then the context in which the doctrine of extermination was formulated and first implemented would be quite evident in the furious competition among the Western powers for colonial possessions, when liberalism usurped the moral authority
to civilise the world, invariably at gunpoint and with enormous loss of lives.
Schell is sensitive to this aspect of the story. He sees in Colonel Kurtz, a prototypical missionary for Western liberal values in Joseph Conrad's masterwork The Heart of Darkness, a chilling presentiment of future mass slaughters. But Schell is perhaps in error when he puts down Kurtz's injunction to "exterminate all the brutes" as a reflection merely of the realities of colonial rule in Belgian Congo.
Extermination, whether by force of arms or by the impersonal laws of free-market liberalism, was very much a reality in virtually all countries subjugated by colonialism. It has been reliably estimated, for instance, that in the last quarter of the 19th century - if one were to revert temporarily to the calendar rather than the figurative concept - between 32 and 61 million people died as a consequence of famines in Asia, North Africa and Latin America. And these famines were only partly induced by stressful weather conditions. In the main, they were directly attributable to the policies of free-market liberalism that came to these regions under the colonial dispensation.
The real 20th century brought the doctrine of extermination to the heart of the Western world. But it must seem less than plausible to argue that liberalism retained its innocence until it was compelled in 1945, by the challenge of totalitarianism, to embrace the doctrine of extermination. If the real 19th century is viewed as the crucible of liberal values, then the categories employed in Schell's narrative seem to undergo a complete inversion. It was not "totalitarianism" that played the role of a "harsh and effective tutor to liberalism" but vice versa. And the "lethal virus" of nuclear extermination, far from being injected into the bloodstream of liberalism by totalitarianism, was rather cultured within this milieu by the ideology of imperialism.
Despite his own firm moorings in the liberal milieu, Schell is fair-minded enough to insist that liberalism as a political doctrine still has to prove itself by confronting and then defeating the
ultimate threat to the future of humanity. Schell may himself remain oblivious to the baleful lingering consequences of imperialism. But his work has the great virtue of impelling the reader into directly grappling with this question. And the answers seem fairly unequivocal: the task of nuclear abolition is one that has to be addressed through a global constituency and then, only after first stripping off the mantle of imperialism that the U.S. today is the sole legatee to.
Out of the Nuclear Shadow, Edited by Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian, 2001, 525 pp.
In India: ISBN 81-86962-25-5 (Hb) Rs. 500 ISBN 81-86962-26-3 (Pb) Rs. 275, Lokayan13 Alipur Road Delhi 110054, Phone 011-3969380
In USA and Europe: ISBN 184277 0586 (Hb) $69.95 ISBN 1842770594 (Pb) $27.50, Zed Books7 Cynthia Street London N1 9JF, Tel: 44(0) 20 7837 8466, Fax: 44(0) 7833 2960
http://www.zedbooks.demon.co.uk/home.htm
Outraged conscience, careful argument, poetry, political analysis - gathered here is the diversity of voices, traditions, and approaches that are weaving themselves into an anti-nuclear movement in India and Pakistan.
In these essays written before, during, and after the May 1998 nuclear explosions scholars and activists from these two countries attempt to understand and challenge the nuclearisation of South Asia.
These essays are an act of resistance against governments that see nuclear weapons as a currency of power, as symbols of prestige, as sources of security, as moments of glory in an otherwise dismal contemporary history.
The collection includes a resource guide to books, films and websites on nuclear weapons, as well as information on many organisations now working on this issue.
Smitu Kothari is based at Lokayan in Delhi, where he coordinates research and campaigns on political, cultural and ecological issues, and co-edits the Lokayan Bulletin. He is a member of the Indian Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, president of the international Group for Grassroots Initiatives and has been a visiting professor at Cornell and Princeton universities.
Zia Mian is a physicist and writer from Pakistan at Princeton University's Center for Energy and environmental Studies, and a visiting fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad. He has written extensively on nuclear weapons issues, and is active in the South Asian peace movement and global anti-nuclear organising. He has also taught at Yale University and Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad.
CHILDREN
Ashray is a grassroots level initiative that works with children who find themselves on the streets with no one to look up to and no one to turn to for help. It works towards providing these children with elementary education, teaching them the skills that will see them through troubled times; giving them shelter and support and training them to become self-sufficient. Ashray also provides these children protection from the local dadas who use them for begging or vending. http://www.indiatogether.org/stories/cry/ashray.htm
Growing Menace of Child Labour
Andhra Pradesh has the largest child labour population in the country at16,61,940 as per the 1991 Census. The figure may well have doubled. AP also has the highest population of female child labour. In India , growth rateamong the poor is higher , and every year more than ten million people areadded to the labour market. (Deccan Chronicle, Oct.9, Via India News)
COURSES
February 18-22, 2002, New York, NY, USA: DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING INTERVENTIONS FOR GLOBAL CHANGE. This course is dedicated to the International Decade of Nonviolence for the Children of the World (2001-2010). It draws on the following research and presentations of Ms. Swain (Coexistence Network Partner) and will feature Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations. Participants will learn an intervention process for a civil society response to complement and strengthen the United Nations world security system for global challenges. Emphasis is on the development of human rights, global ethics, values, and systems that will secure greater ecological integrity, peace, economic and social wellbeing. Deadline is January 22, 2002. Cost is $900 plus a $40 registration fee. More info from Salve Regina University, 100 Ochre Point Avenue Newport, RI 02840, USA, T: 1-401-847 6650 x 2943, F: 1-401-341 2996, Email: imagine@world.std.com, Website: www.global-leader.org
ENVIRONMENT
The auto industry releases a new model of vehicle every now and then. What is not new about them is that they all pollute. Check out at http://www.cseindia.org/html/dte/dte20011130/dte_stati.htm
Pani Yatra (India)
The fourth Pani Yatra, from 14-19 October 2001, was organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) to help raise awareness about rural water harvesting. The twenty four participants, from all over India and Sri Lanka, had a chance to see firsthand the community water management successes of Rajasthan and talk with both villagers and community organisers. In six days, the yatris covered more than 1,000 km of Rajasthan's bumpy backroads by bus, jeep, and foot in their search for water harvesting structures like chaukas, johads, and anicuts, and the people who build them. http://www.rainwaterharvesting.org/methods/paniyatra.htm
Indian Supreme Court bans cigarette smoking in public places including hospitals, health institutes, public offices, public transport, court buildings, educational institutions, libraries and auditoriums. http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/nov/02sc.htm
EVENTS
January 16, 2002, Seattle, WA, USA: THE FACE OF PAKISTAN. Sponsored by Odegaard Undergraduate Library and South Asia Center, Jackson School of International Studies, this is a slide presentation by photographer Phil Borges of portraits taken innorthern Pakistan in summer, 2001. 7PM, Kane Hall 210.There will be an ongoing exhibition of these and other portraits by Borges in Odegaard Undergraduate Library on the UW campus in the month of January, 2002. More info from (206)543-4800.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Indian Lok Sabha passes bill on promotion of SC & STstaffers
Lok Sabha unanimously passed a legislation aimed at giving promotions to government servants belonging to scheduled castes and tribes with retrospective effect from June 17, 1995 , after the Centre announced it would "shortly issue orders to recruit drive for these section of society. The Constitution (92nd Amendment) Bill ,2001, was passed with 355 members voting in favour with none opposing or abstaining from voting it. ( Deccan Herald, Nov. 29, Via India News – 12/05/01)
Goa's Christian tribals to get OBC status
Goa's Christian tribals are to be recognised under the state's Other Backward Classes (OBC) list which entitles them to special benefits, the government announced. Though long recognised as part of the state's ethnic tribes the 'Gaudas' and 'kunbis' Catholics from this segment were being discriminated against for Centrally -sponsored schemes. Almost 70 per cent of this segment of the state's tribals are Catholic, and have been viewed as a prospective vote-bank by all political parties. (Deccan Chronicle, Nov.28 Via India News)
ILO project for rehabilitation of bonded labourers in India
Tamil Nadu is struggling to set free over two and a half million bonded labourers. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has agreed to step in with a $ 5 million package for a model project to eradicate debt-bondage in the State. Saddled with a dubious record of having one of the largest number of "debt slaves", Tamil Nadu has so far released only 11,538 bonded labourers out of the 36,843 identified in official surveys. And, of the released bonded labourers, 939 are missing. (The Hindu, 16 October 2001, p. 16, Via India Mail)
WOMEN
The ugly scenes and stalemate over tabling the Women's Reservation Bill in Indian parliament have had a very beneficial effect. They have finally brought the grim truth into sharper focus that politics has proven to be very inhospitable for women in independent India. What we are witnessing today is a worrisome phenomenon of further decline in the participation of women, not only in our legislatures, but in many other of our political and public spaces. A multi-pronged discussion on reserving seats in the legislatures for women. http://www.indiatogether.org/women/authority/womensrep.htm
Empirical evidence shows that women contribute significantly to the running of family businesses mostly in the form of unpaid effort and skills. On the other hand, many of the enterprises defined as being run by women are in fact run in their names by men who control operations and decision making. Programmes meant to reach women entrepreneurs can succeed only if they take note of this paradox as well as of the familial and social conditioning that reduces the confidence, independence and mobility of women. http://www.indiatogether.org/women/business/renuka.htm
Court upholds ban on Sati
A five-judge Constitution bench of the Indian Supreme Court upheld the ban imposed by a central legislation on Sati and its glorification but did not specify whether such a ban will prevent holding of festivals at ancient Sati temples. Section 2(c) of the Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, defines Sati as meaning the act of burning or burying alive of a widow along with the body of her deceased husband.(Telegraph,Nov.8, Via India News)
CO-EXISTENCE RESOURCES
Call for Papers, Courses, Conferences, Fellowships, Grants, Jobs, & Practical Resources
(For a copy send a blank email to pritamr@open.org with its subject as the word CO-EXISTENCE in the article title)