Category Archives: Politics

Muslim…Sikh…what’s the difference? (updated)

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Something depressingly predictable has gone down in the wake of last week’s terror attack on London (thanks, RC). The backlash we worried about has commenced:

Arsonists set a mosque in northwest England on fire on Saturday, police said, two days after a string of bomb attacks across London killed at least 50 people.

According to the Hindustan Times, authorities are searching for two white men in their early 20s, who were spotted near the mosque before it was vandalized. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only religious edifice that was harmed:

There were also reports in the Indian media Sunday that a Gurudwara — a Sikh temple — had been vandalised in an arson attack in Leeds.
According to the spokesman, two Sikh temples were attacked.

attacks.jpg An attack for an attack and the whole world going up in smoke. Those who are responsible almost seem to be saying, “Hurt us and we’ll hurt you, too” all the while forgetting that they are attacking their own, not to mention their suffering own. As people have pointed out on this very blog, the areas that were hit are quite Muslim, quite brown. We didn’t get a courtesy warning to stay home, we died and bled, too.

The attack on a mosque is awful enough, but going after a Gurudwara…that stings in a different way. You know, I had naively hoped that this wouldn’t happen across the pond. Contrary to America, where Sikhs are more scattered and less understood, I thought that in England, people were more knowledgeable about Sikhism, that they could tell the difference between al-Qaeda and an innocent group of people who had nothing to do with transportation treachery. Perhaps some, if not most of the English can…but much to my alarm, there are quite obviously a dangerous few who can’t. To them, a turban is a turban is a turban. Bend it like Beckham and bomb it like someone ignorant.

“Such attacks are an affront not only to the great Sikh religion but to entire humanity,” the spokesman said.
“The Sikh community in the United Kingdom has carved out a highly respected place for itself in the British society through its industriousness and commitment,” the spokesman said.

None of that matters. We are foreign and we wear turbans, just like that bastard Osama. Thanks to a coincidence of complexion, we are complicit and we will pay. Continue reading →

Next Weekend in SF: The Domestic Crusaders

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crusaders.jpg I know it seems like we only post cool things to do in NYC, L.A. or D.C. but yay urrea readers, take dil: this one’s for you. Next week, you should totally drag your friends and frenemies to Mutineer Manish’s old stomping grounds, for an evening at the theater.

You’ll be watching The Domestic Crusaders, a two-act play which takes place on a single day in the life of a multi-generational Pakistani-American family–a day, by the way, that happens to be the “baby’s” 21st birthday:

With a background of 9-11 and the scapegoating of Muslim Americans, the tensions and sparks fly among the three generations, culminating in an intense family battle as each “crusader” struggles to assert and impose their respective voices and opinions, while still attempting to maintain and understand that unifying thread that makes them part of the same family.

How’s that for salient? If you’re worried about whether or not it will be good, here’s what the Contra-Costa Times had to say about it:

Wajahat Ali didn’t set out to write an earthshaking play. The Berkeley student was taking a short story course from Pulitzer Prize nominee Ishmael Reed. When his professor pulled him aside and told him he was a natural playwright, Ali couldn’t believe it. “I thought it was pure nonsense,” Ali says. Reed encouraged Ali to write a Muslim-American response to 9-11. “All I wanted to do was pass a class,” says Ali, who succeeded in doing much more than that.

Hey. All you readers who have totally reasonable gripes with the media, for not covering a broader, more accurate world– this blockquote’s for you:

“Domestic Crusaders” represents Muslim-American voices that have not been heard because we are living in a country whose media is censored…
“In the largely Pakistani-American audience at the premiere of the play, people were roaring and falling off their chairs,” says Blank. “It’s the kind of audience most original playwrights would kill to be able to contact,” Blank says, laughing.

Continue reading →

Arrested development

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The BBC is running a pictorial on members of the pheasant family in South Asia which are being hunted to extinction. This spectacular-looking family includes the Indian, green and white peafowl, the satyr tragopan, the Himalayan monal, the Western tragopan and the Koklass pheasant, among others.

    

Last October, the Acorn covered the hunting of another South Asian bird. Arab sheikhs fly into Pakistan every year to hunt the endangered houbara bustard, carving the deserts into exclusive playgrounds. Believing the bustard to be an aphrodisiac, the sheikhs use the C-130 Hercules, one of the biggest airplanes in the world, to airlift deli trucks into the desert to store their meat.

Some have built personal airfields… Some have constructed large desert palaces… Some live in elaborate tent cities, guarded by legions of Bedouin troops… Totally closed off to outsiders, these hunting fiefdoms are, in effect, Arab principalities. They sprinkle the vast deserts of Balochistan, Punjab, and Sind… the late King Khalid of Saudi Arabia transported dancing camels in a C-130 to join him on his hunt… The sheikhs normally spent between ten and twenty million dollars for a typical royal hunt…

“… while Pakistanis are being arrested and prosecuted if they’re found to be hunting the bird, Arab dignitaries are given diplomatic immunity… It’s slaughter, mass slaughter. They kill everything in sight.” When I asked him why the government of Pakistan had done so little… he replied, “Because we lack the moral fibre…”… The Pakistanis see the Arabs breaking Pakistan’s own laws, yet there are huge sums of money involved… [Link – PDF]

In the bustard hunt, some see an allegory for Pakistan itself:

Like the houbara bustard, Pakistan too has been the prize in many people’s elaborate games. It has been used by the Gulf States to house and train their Islamists, the fodder for the war in Afghanistan, and by the United States as a conduit for arms and money for anti-Soviet forces. It was given the cold shoulder by both once the last Russian tank departed. Like the devastated desert after a houbara hunt, Pakistan was left a wasteland of heavily armed and angry militants and a socio-economic situation that threatens to turn the country completely towards militant Islam. [Link]

Continue reading →

The “B” word

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After every terrorist attack in the Western World I look for the “B” word in the news the next day. Here we go:

The San Jose Mercury News– Among London’s Muslims, fears of backlash linger, but quietly

Newsday– U.S. Muslims denounce London bombings, brace for backlash

Vive le Canada– Canuck Muslims dread backlash

Monsters & Critics– Australian Moslems fear backlash after London bombs

India Monitor– Muslims cower in fear of backlash

See, here is the thing. Whenever a terrorist attack like this occurs, the cold, dispassionate, analytical side of me asks, “why is the average citizen so afraid to get back aboard that plane, train, or bus the very next day?” The attack was temporally and spatially isolated and not something they must continue to cower in fear of. Aside from not giving the terrorists what they want, the probability that there will be another attack within days or months of the original is just not backed up by the data. The compassionate side of me realizes however, that humans are humans. Fear, real or imagined, is part of who we are and keeps us alive.

For people with brown skin, and especially Muslims, the actual attack is just the beginning of a terrorist incident however. For this group an attack is not a temporally or spatially isolated event. The moment that the physical attack ends is when the real fear begins for a sizeable portion of the population (as shown by the headlines above). With a terrorist attack you don’t know when it’s going to come. You realize that you shouldn’t live your life in fear so you go about your day quite normally, perhaps being slightly more attentive. The general population has a Homeland Security Department to warn them of a possible terrorist attack by means of a color coded system. After a terrorist attack however, if you are brown or Muslim, you need your own system. You have knowledge of credible but unspecified threats.

My point? This is exactly what Reza Aslan stresses. This isn’t a war between Islam and the West. This is a war between Islam and Islam. Brown-on-Brown violence. The West is often just caught in the crossfire because they provide the most dramatic field of battle. Continue reading →

Catch and release

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The BBC reports that Pakistan is trying a new strategy to catch militants associated with Al-Qaeda. They’re using a classic technique from spy movies, so hoary it’s almost a staple Bollywood plot:

The game plan involves letting loose dozens of suspects known to have been affiliated with or at least sympathetic to al-Qaeda, in the hope that they would eventually lead the authorities to some top wanted figures in the terrorist organisation.

Top security experts admit that it is a dangerous game but argue that a similar approach in the past has reaped rich dividends. Security experts say former Guantanamo detainees – released by the Pakistan authorities on being returned – unwittingly led security agencies to many previously unknown hideouts used by local and foreign militants… Pakistani authorities have now clearly decided to extend this strategy on a scale that some feel could lead to unexpected results. [BBC]

The Pakistani government claims that this strategy has led to important arrests in Waziristan, Balochistan and Karachi.

I have no idea whether to believe the Pakistani government, because they have plenty of other incentives to want this strategy. From a political standpoint, this is convenient. The Pakistanis obtain the domestic benefits of getting their citizens out of gitmo without the headaches of locking them up in Pakistan:

In immediate terms, the strategy means easing some of the restrictions imposed earlier on top Pakistani militants. The visible part of the plan unfolding in recent weeks came in the shape of the release of about 150 Pakistanis who had returned from Guantanamo Bay. After extensive debriefing lasting between nine to 10 months, most of these men were allowed to go free.  [BBC]

More importantly, it also gives the Pakistani government an excuse for not cracking down harder on certain extremist groups at home. They can say that it is all part of their grand strategy.

Some security analysts in Pakistan have been critical of the government’s seemingly soft stance in relation to Harkat and Jaish – wondering why they have not been dealt with as severely as some of the other groups. [BBC]

We’re leaving these groups intact, not for any political benefit, but so we can catch Osama. Really. That upsurge of violence in Afghanistan? The attempt on the life of the US Ambassador there? It’s all part of our grand plan …

Continue reading →

It’s safe over there now

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My friend Anji M. alerts me to the case of Gokal and Sheila Kapoor. The couple and their son came to America in 1997 illegally in order to escape persecution by the Taliban. Gokal then filed papers appealing for political asylum. Surely a Hindu fleeing from a brutal fundamentalist regime would qualify, no? Newsweek reports:

…four years after his case first made its way into the system, it was finally dismissed on the basis that the TalibanÂ’s removal from power meant that the family did not have a well-founded fear of future persecution. By then the septuagenarian had a Social Security number, worked as a baggage handler at Dulles Airport, paid taxes and had hoped to be included in a U.S. program that routinely granted asylum to Hindu refugees from Afghanistan. What he didnÂ’t take into account was the extra scrutiny he would receive in the post-9/11 world.

The immigration judge who initially turned down his application was critical of the fact that KapoorÂ’s prominent brother, Dr. Wishwa Kapoor, chief of general internal medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, did not attend the immigration hearing. For this reason, the judge apparently believed he must have aided and abetted his brotherÂ’s illegal entry into the United States.

The judge was wrong on both counts. Hindus do not believe they can live in Afghanistan without being persecuted, and there are so few left in the country itÂ’s hard to prove otherwise. And Dr. Kapoor didnÂ’t testify because his older brother, now 70, was too proud to ask him. The judge could have summoned the doctor to testify, rather than smear him, a man of impeccable reputation who was not there to defend himself, let alone his brother.

Ten days ago, Dr. Kapoor got a 10 p.m. call from his sister in Virginia to say that their brother and his wife, Shiela, 69, had been taken from their home by immigration officials. The officials told the coupleÂ’s son–who had graduated from high school earlier that day–that his parents would be back in a few hours. They were not, and it took two days before a lawyer hired by Dr. Kapoor found out that the couple were in Pamunkey prison, north of Richmond, Va.

Well sure. Everyone knows we’ve won the war against terror in Afghanistan so they should be just fine. Continue reading →

Posted in Law

Mexican standoff

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Abhi posted earlier about the India-Pakistan fight over the high-altitude Siachen glacier. Let’s take a closer look at the economic aspect: the 23-year-old Siachen conflict is the epitome of inefficient war engineering, even worse than the kill ratio of musket warfare in the 18th century. The enemy here isn’t the other nation, it’s the territory you’re purportedly saving. It’s like fighting on Mars or the ice planet Hoth (photos):

Ninety-seven per cent of casualties here are due to the extreme weather and altitude, rather than fighting. “On the glacier you have to first survive the elements and then you fight the enemy,” says a senior officer…. [Link]

… with winter temperatures of 70 degrees below zero, the inhospitable climate in Siachen has claimed more lives than gunfire. [Link]

India has lost more than 2,500 men in Siachen, most of them to the hostile weather. [Link]

Every ounce of supply is hauled on specialized high-altitude helicopters and snowmobiles. The cost has been $10B (extrapolated), or $30B adjusted for purchasing power. The cost of supplies is a hundred times more expensive than on a normal battlefield, and India’s paying platinum rates to airlift human feces. Instead it could have bought fourteen Russian aircraft carriers:

… a chapatti delivered to a soldier there cost Rs 500. Even the excreta of soldiers manning these posts has to be lifted by helicopters and brought to base for disposal… [Link]

Islamabad political analyst Hussain calculates that it costs the Indians $438 million a year to fight for Siachen (Indian officials claim it is less than $300 million), while Pakistan’s bill is estimated at $182 million… [Link]

Continue reading →

“The only easy day was yesterday!”

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I have been intently following the plight of the four missing U.S. Navy SEALS over the past weekend. Knowing that they were out there on the 4th of July just trying to survive in the mountains was pretty moving. As of today, one of them has been rescued, the bodies of two were recovered, and a fourth is still missing. I have a tremendous amount of respect for people who exhibit such extreme self-discipline and self-reliance. Soldiers in mountainous areas epitomize these qualities regardless of the rationale behind their orders.

siachen.jpg

The most brutal mountain fighting in the world has been along the India-Pakistan-China border at 19,000 ft. high on the Siachen Glacier, in the Karakoram. This classic 2003 article in Outside Magazine is essential reading for anyone who is a student of the absurdity of war:

Here’s what is beyond dispute: Never before have troops fought for such extended periods in such extreme physical conditions. At least twice a week a man dies, occasionally from bullets or artillery, but more often from an avalanche, a tumble into a crevasse, or a high-altitude sickness—perils usually faced only by elite climbers. Not surprisingly, the men who serve in the war regard it as the supreme challenge for a soldier.

“Minus 50 at 21,000 feet—it’s beyond anything the human body is designed to endure,” an Indian officer on the Siachen told me. “This is the ultimate test of human willpower. It’s also an environmental catastrophe. And—no doubt about it—things can only get worse.”

…Life at such forward positions is brutal, and the Indians begrudgingly admit that the Pakistanis are tough customers. “They are sitting right underneath us on an 80-degree slope,” one Indian officer who was stationed above Tabish would tell me later. “We can throw grenades just like pebbles on top of them. It really takes guts to be there.” Captain Waqas Malik, 26, who served at Tabish, grimly described the hopeless feeling of such positions. “Once a ridge has been occupied,” he said, “you require a heart with the capacity of the ocean to accept the casualties you will incur in the taking of it.“

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Little Nicky

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In 2001, a 15-year-old named Nicholas Minucci allegedly beat an elderly Sikh gentleman with a baseball bat while spitting racial epithets against ‘Arabs’ (via Turbanhead). He allegedly lay in wait outside the main gurudwara in Queens and shot several people with a paintball gun.

Because the attack happened the day of 9/11, Attar Singh chose not to press charges, saying it was a time for healing. Another Sikh did press charges, but the conviction was overturned on appeal.

Singh’s 62-year-old grandfather, Attar Singh, who wore a turban, was walking to a Richmond Hill temple when Minucci and two other teens assaulted him as the twin towers burned… Mistaking Singh for an Arab, they screamed: “Go back to your own country!” the sources said. Two of the teens shot paint balls at Singh, and when he turned to run, one of three beat him with a bat… “F- Arab, why don’t you blow this up,” Minucci allegedly screamed, the sources said…

“It was Sept. 11,” the grandson said. “The country was in mourning. He didn’t want to make it a big deal…” [Link]

Mistake. Attar Singh’s magnanimity, when he was just five months from death by cancer, turned into his own version of Spiderman’s origin myth. Minucci was encouraged by the slap on the wrist. A year later, he allegedly stabbed another teen in the stomach. Before the victim could testify, he ‘accidentally’ stepped in front of a subway train. Nobody saw nothin’. In that case, the unusually lucky Minucci skated by with probation.

He then made a guest appearance on (surprise, surprise) Growing Up Gotti, the show about Mafia kids. The unemployed teen managed to get ahold of a $60K Cadillac Escalade through his family. For the coup de grace, Minucci, now 19, is accused of beating and critically injuring another man with a baseball bat a couple of days ago.

Minucci’s got a long criminal history, so why is his face all over the papers now? Because he was too dumb to realize that beating a black man in a neighborhood notorious for race riots would land him in the NYT and guarantee the mayor’s attention.

 A group of white men set upon three black men on the streets of Howard Beach, Queens, early yesterday, beating one with a baseball bat and fracturing his skull… One of the black men, Glenn Moore… tripped over a lawn. There, his assailants beat him with a metal bat, stole the sneakers off his feet and ripped an earring from one ear, the police said. [Link]

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Punishing the Victim II: Hindus do it too

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We’ve had a string of posts (1, 2, 3) concerning Imrana, the poor woman in UP who has been ordered to marry the man she accused of being her rapist. Most of the discussion on this topic has blamed Islamic law and the lack of a uniform civil code in India for this horrifying outcome. Well, guess what – here’s a very similar case, except that the rapist and victim were Hindus:

The Chhattisgarh Government on Thursday ordered a probe into a village panchayat’s alleged directive to a rape victim, who was delivered of the child of the accused, to stay with his family until she reached marriageable age and then get married to him. [cite]

In this case, her parents demanded that the rapist be punished but the local council over-ruled them:

Though the victim’s family members were demanding action against the accused, the panchayat directed the boy’s family, also a Dalit, to keep the girl as his wife. It asked both sides to enter into an agreement, signed on a stamp paper, that the boy’s family would keep the girl and her child, villagers said. [cite]

Very twisted stuff here. I wonder how widespread this very messed up rural desi practice is?

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