Quotes of the day – Kipling and Sartre – different paths

“The centrepiece of Kipling’s life was a refusal to look within, an aggressive ‘anti-intraception’ which forced him to avoid all deep conflicts, and prevented him from separating human problems from ethnic stereotypes. Remarkably extraversive, his work stressed all forms of collectivity, and saw the bonds of race and blood as more important than person-to-person relationships. As if their author, he hoped that the restlessness and occasional depression that had dogged him since the Southsea days could be driven off-scent by the extraversive search for cultural roots, through the service he was rendering to the imperial authority. He lived and died fighting his other self – a softer, more creative and happier self – and the uncertainty and self-hatred associated with it.” – Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, pp. 69-70

“That Sartre had a real influence on a generation of young people, largely but far from exclusively students, who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, not only in France but throughout the world, seems impossible to deny. M.-A. Burnier, who was deeply influenced by Sartre before repudiating him, recalled the end of Sartre’s story ‘L’Enfance d’un chef’,* where Lucien, having found that anti-Semitism had given him a meaning in life, decided to grow a moustache. He asked: ‘Is it an exaggeration to claim that Sartre has prevented a good many Lucien Fleuriers from letting their moustaches grow?’ If even that were true, it would be no mean achievement.” – Ian H. Birchall, Sartre against Stalinism, p. 222

*I’ve discussed this work here.

Quote of the day

“Why? So that in the future, Bangladesh will be a place where she and others can condemn Islam and any other ideology they don’t like in its/their entirety…without fear of being murdered for it.”

- commenter “eric” on “An Appalling Reaction to Taslima’s Escape from Threats”

The World Before Her

Nirmukta posted last month about a documentary to be aired on PBS, The World Before Her, so I set the recording.



I recommend it, actually.* When we talk about people being victimized by or victims of unequal and oppressive systems, some listeners appear to hear "victim" as a sort of total identity that renders someone incapable of willful action. But what we're generally talking about is how people's paths are shaped and their options constrained in ways suited to others' purposes rather than their own needs and fulfillment. Within these limiting systems, they still make choices and pursue goals. They have agency, but this makes them no less victims.

Anyway, you can watch it free online at PBS (I think only if you're in the US, though) through October 16. It appears you can also watch it on iTunes, on YouTube, and probably elsewhere as well. After you do, check out this update on what the people involved have been doing since.

*I added the "actually" in tribute to the people in the film, who seem inordinately fond of the word. :)

An insightful remark

I'm almost glad Nirmukta accidentally used a quotation from Chally Kacelnik without attribution, since I missed it the first time and their apology was my first exposure to it.

[Source]

WikiLeaks, Stratfor, and the Assange distraction

While many are focused on the vicissitudes of the Julian Assange case, I should post briefly about WikiLeaks and the Global Intelligence Files. The site went back up a couple of days ago after being inaccessible for a while to a DDoS attack. This followed upon WikiLeaks’ publication over the past two weeks of documents related to Stratfor and TrapWire. There are disagreements over how concerned people should be about TrapWire specifically (here’s what seems a more balanced piece), while others contend that the issue is "not the surveillance, it’s the sleaze."

It’s also that this whole corporate-political business is shadowy as all hell. I’ve read through several of the recently released emails, and they’re…interesting. But even they shouldn’t necessarily divert attention from earlier Stratfor revelations or WikiLeaks documents generally.

I linked to a description of Stratfor’s efforts with regard to Bhopal and the Yes Men in a footnote to a recent post, but they deserve another mention. Back in February, the Yes Men reported:

WikiLeaks begins to publish today over five million e-mails obtained by Anonymous from "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails, which reveal everything from sinister spy tactics to an insider trading scheme with Goldman Sachs..., also include several discussions of the Yes Men and Bhopal activists. (Bhopal activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India, that led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.)

After detailing some of this activity, they note:

Perhaps most entertainingly of all, the email trove reveals that Stratfor's "Confederation Partners"—an unethical alliance between Stratfor and a number of mainstream journalists—are referred to informally within Stratfor as its "Confed Fuck House." (Another discovery: Coca Cola was spying on PETA. More such gems are sure to surface as operatives sift through the 5.5 million emails.)…

Many of the documents released in recent months also relate to Latin America (including the Honduran coup), and people there have analyzed the information and some of the implications of their release for Latin American politics.

It’s tempting to take the media’s lead and narrowly follow the legal travails of Assange and associated diplomatic maneuverings, but this is to some extent an unfortunate distraction from the content of the WikiLeaks materials.

I fully support the idea of lego heads of state

Why stop there? Can’t we have lego states?



A worthwhile interview, if lacking in focus and citations – a discussion of historical and contemporary empire, a recommendation of Late Victorian Holocausts, and an entertaining image of Amy Goodman in a furry royal wedding hat.

Bill McKibben, Tim DeChristopher, Vandana Shiva, and Maude Barlow on Democracy Now!

Justice campaigns in Bhopal and South Africa; commentary to follow

Two campaigns, at once local and transnational, that I think deserve more attention:

The first is the B’eau Pal Water campaign. This was organized by the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, the Bhopal Medical Appeal, and the Yes Men, whose new film I talked about a little while ago, followed by some more videos featuring the pair. As you can see from the videos, the stunt that received the most attention was an appearance on the BBC posing as a representative of Dow (which now owns Union Carbide) stating that the company had decided at long last to clean up the Bhopal site. Of course, this was not Dow’s intention, and people there continue to be poisoned.

The B’Eau Pal Water campaign is the most recent effort to raise awareness about Bhopal and the organizations involved in working for social justice there. They scared off the Dow people:



For those interested, here’s a short glance into the process involved in designing the “product”:



I think it illustrates well how people with a variety of skills can contribute to movements (including radical movements) for democracy, justice, and human rights.

The second is a campaign in the form of a tour. Abahlali baseMjondolo, the “Shack Dwellers Movement” in South Africa, has representatives in New York this week talking about the movement and their film in production, Dear Mandela:



Here’s their schedule in New York (note that there are events tomorrow and Thursday).