Via: Gora Mohanty
On Wed, 2007-05-30 at 22:31 +0530, Yogi Sikand wrote:
> Hello
>
> Kindly forward this newsletter to your friends and
> encourage them to
> join this mailing list.
> http://www.countercurrents.org/subscribe.htm
[...]
Do you have a point in this posting this collection
of random articles about someone who has had their
15 minutes of fame, or is this just some new form
of spam?
Regards,
Gora
Via: "Yogi Sikand"
Hello
Kindly forward this newsletter to your friends and
encourage them to
join this mailing list.
http://www.countercurrents.org/subscribe.htm
In Solidarity
Binu
The Exit of Cindy Sheehan
By Ron Jacobs
http://www.countercurrents.org/jacobs300507.htm
It can be reasonably argued that it was Cindy Sheehan
that made it okay
for Middle America to protest, and for that she must
be thanked. Now
that she is taking a breather from the madness it is
up to us to continue
expanding those protests. It is certainly not time to
give up
Good Riddance Attention Whore
By Cindy Sheehan
http://www.countercurrents.org/sheehan300507.htm
This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the
American
anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment,
because I will never
give up trying to help people in the world who are
harmed by the empire
of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in,
or outside of
this system. This system forcefully resists being
helped and eats up the
people who try to help it. I am getting out before it
totally consumes
me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my
resources
Why I Am Ashamed To Be An American
By Doug Soderstrom
http://www.countercurrents.org/soderstrom300507.htm
If we truly care about our country, if we really do
want our nation to
flourish, then we should realize that we have not only
the right, but,
much more importantly, the responsibility, perhaps
even, one might say,
a moral responsibility to point out its deficiencies
in order that it
might once again be revived
Ideas Cannot Be Killed
By Fidel Castro
http://www.countercurrents.org/castro300507.htm
When he was recently asked by an important personality
about his Cuba
policy, his answer was this: "I am a hard-line
President and I am just
waiting for Castro's demise." The wishes of such a
powerful
gentleman are no privilege. I am not the first nor
will I be the last that
Bush has ordered to be killed; nor one of those people
who he intends to
go on killing individually or en masse. But it would
serve him well to
remember that ideas cannot be killed
Bush Decrees New Sanctions Against Sudan
By Bill Van Auken
http://www.countercurrents.org/auken300507.htm
President Bush Tuesday announced that his
administration is imposing a
fresh set of economic sanctions on Sudan, claiming the
measures are
designed to pressure the government in Khartoum to
halt the bloodshed in
the country's western-most province of Darfur
About Saving Darfur: Reflections On The Carrot And The
Stick
By Stephen Eric Bronner
http://www.countercurrents.org/bronner300507.htm
As pundits speak about the growth of "compassion
fatigue" concerning
Darfur, usually without mentioning the devastating
lack of positive
proposals offered by the political mainstream, now is
the time -- echoing an
old slogan -- to give up the cant and return to Kant
Will The Lebanese Army Enter
The Nahr el-Bared Camp?
By Alexander Jenniches
http://www.countercurrents.org/jenniches300507.htm
What exactly will be the - at least temporary -
solution is uncertain
at this point. But there is good reason to assume that
the Lebanese
government will at the end not confront Fatah al-Islam
directly. Not yet,
and not under the circumstances that the group is
hiding among
Palestinian civilians
Global Warming: Who's To Blame?
By Nicole Colson
http://www.countercurrents.org/colson300507.htm
In any rational society, the threat of global warming
would have gotten
attention a long time ago, with every possible
resource devoted to
measures to slow climate change and alleviate its
effects. But under
capitalism, greed and profits come first--even at the
risk of far-reaching
global devastation
Runaway Climate Change: An Obesity Analogy
By Bill Henderson
http://www.countercurrents.org/henderson300507.htm
Sea-level rise in 2100. An increasing risk of
hurricanes, weird weather
and heat waves. Risks to farming and forestry; drought
and famine
leading to failed states and refugees. Corroding
ecosystems; species
extinction; disease migration and bug infestations.
Predicted increasing but
adaptable - not terminal - risks as the temperature
rises
Christians: A Faith Under Assault In Secular India
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
http://www.countercurrents.org/rawat300507.htm
A review of John Dayal's book "A matter of Equity:
Freedom of Faith in
Secular India"
=========================
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye
The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
Via: "Michiel Baas"
Dear All,
For a while I have read the posts on this list and this is the first
time I am posting myself.
My name is Michiel Baas, and I am a fourth year PhD student in
Amsterdam, doing research on the topic of Indian overseas students in
Melbourne, Australia. Earlier research I was involved in had to do with
the lives and lifestyles of IT professionals in Bangalore. It was also
then that I first learned of the huge number of Indian students going to
Australia. One of the most interesting things for me that many were
actually planning a life out(side) of India. Studying in Australia meant
immigrating out of India. If one studies in Australia for two years, one
can apply for a permanent residency afterwards. In 2005 I conducted one
year of anthropological fieldwork in Melbourne, gathering data on Indian
overseas students, as well as others such as local Indian community
members, immigration/education agents, tutors/lecturers/professors etc.
Recently the List discussed Mayawati's come to power, and attention was
also paid to the rise of the (new/upcoming) middle class. As most of the
people my research focuses on belong to the (middle/upper) middle class,
I am interested in reading work of others who have also focused on this
topic. Through this forum I hope to get in touch with some of you. Do
let me know if you are interested in exchanging views on the middle
class, maybe sharing some findings etc. One of my key questions deals
with: why do Indian (middle class) students want to leave India? Why
this particular way?
Kind regards,
Michiel Baas
Via: "Yogi Sikand"
Urdu in India and a Man with a Mission: Arif Iqbal and His Urdu Book Review
Yoginder Sikand
A narrow lane leads out from a maze of crowded, winding streets in the
heart of Old Delhi's Jamia Masjid area. Ancient crumbling havelis line
the lane, which, probably dating back to Mughal times, is lined on
either side with open drains laden with garbage. Cycle rickshaws,
cattle and pedestrians jostle with each other amidst the interminable
din of bells clanking, customers and shopkeepers loudly haggling and
craftsmen in dim-lit hovels hammering away at tin sheets. At a
nondescript building at one end of the lane a flight of broken stairs
leads down to a dingy basement. It is there—housed in two diminutive
rooms—that Urdu Book Review, India's only Urdu journal devoted solely
to book reviews, has its premises—a telling comment on the sad state
to which Urdu has been reduced in the land of its birth.
Muhammad Arif Iqbal, the amiable middle-aged editor of the magazine,
is a man with a mission. 'Urdu has been grossly neglected, by the
state and by Urdu-speakers, and Urdu Book Review represents a modest
effort to revive and promote the language', he says. The bi-monthly
magazine was launched in 1995. 'There is nothing of the sort anywhere
else in South Asia', Iqbal proudly says. The only other Urdu book
review journal, published from Pakistan, deals solely with Pakistani
books. Urdu Book Review, on the other hand, covers new Urdu books
published all over the world, including India and Pakistan.
Iqbal served as production manager of a leading Indian Muslim
publishing house, the Delhi-based Markazi Maktaba Islami, for ten
years, and in the course of this had the opportunity to interact with
many publishing houses. 'That made me realize how much the Urdu
publishing industry has to learn from others', he says. 'A week-long
course in publishing organized by an institute really changed me', he
relates. 'I was the only Muslim there, and, interacting with the
course instructors and other students, I realized that Urdu publishers
have much room for improvement. This experience inspired me with the
idea of launching an Urdu book review magazine in order to help the
Urdu language and the Urdu publishing industry'.
Modestly priced at Rs. 100 per annum, Urdu Book Review comes out as a
100-odd page magazine, the whole of which is available online as well
free of cost. Separate sections are devoted to book reviews,
announcements of new titles along with the addresses of their
publishers, obituaries of noted writers, names of new Ph.D. awardees
in Urdu and related fields, summaries of writings in the Urdu press
and biographical notes on important Urdu scholars. The magazine has a
print-run of around 2000 copies, of which some 300 are sent free of
cost to scholars and institutions. It receives hardly any
advertisements and does not earn enough to cover costs, which Iqbal
meets by doing contract printing jobs.
'Urdu publishers in India have particular problems of their own,
besides the general problems that they share with other publishers',
Iqbal says. 'Few of them have professionally qualified editorial
teams. Technically, they are way behind Hindi and English publishers.
They don't do book launches, and almost no Urdu newspaper has a book
review column through which new titles can be introduced to the
public', he comments. 'Since the number of Urdu readers in India is
rapidly falling, Urdu publishers that used to publish two or three
thousand copies of a book have now cut down to around five hundred,
and even that takes some two years to sell. That is why some of them
are now shifting to publishing in Hindi and English instead', he says.
'However', he adds, 'few of these are original titles, most of them
being low-quality translations'.
'A distinct lack of vision', is Iqbal's answer as to why Indian Urdu
publishers produce books almost entirely on historical, religious and
literary issues but hardly anything on the empirical realities of the
Indian Muslims. 'Many Urdu publishers do not have a sound academic
background, often being just businessmen. They may have inherited
their businesses from their fathers and run them simply as a
commercial concern. But this cannot be said to be healthy
commercialism. They suffer from a distinct lack of professionalism and
often lack any social commitment. ' he rues.
'Most Urdu publishers are guided solely by the profit motive', Iqbal
goes on. 'So, they produce what will bring them profits. They don't
have any system to commission experts to write books on particular
subjects. They generally publish whatever they get if they think it
would be profitable, often without caring for the social relevance of
their contents. They just want quick returns'.
Thus, for instance, Iqbal says, many Urdu publishers are associated
with one particular Muslim sect or the other, and they churn out books
that rant and rave against other Muslim sects. 'Some of these
publishers are actually paid to produce books in favour of or in
opposition to certain governments and rival sects', he reveals. Living
as a minority, such sectarianism fanned by certain publishing houses
has serious consequences for the Muslim community, he says. 'The sort
of sectarianism actively promoted by certain Urdu publishing houses
has had a major role in keeping Muslim divided, so much so that
religious scholars of the different sects often refuse to even sit
with each other on a common platform', he says.
This relates to the social background of a significant section of Urdu
authors, the ulema, who are graduates of madrasas. The sort of
education that they receive in traditional madrasas is reflected in
the sorts of books that they write. 'Generally, madrasa students are
kept unaware of the world surrounding them, and so when they graduate
and step outside, they are often unable to properly adjust or relate
to the world', Iqbal rues. For their part, 'modern' educated,
middle-class Muslims increasingly prefer to write and read in English,
thus narrowing down the class base which the Urdu publishing industry
caters to. Further, Iqbal says, many middle-class Muslims seem to
distance themselves from the Muslim masses, taking little interest in
their problems and concerns. 'And so', he adds, 'a class of Muslims
that could have played a key role in revitalizing the Muslim or Urdu
publishing industry is largely disinterested in doing anything of the
sort'.
In the current context of growing Islamophobia, Iqbal says,
Muslim-owned publishing houses, including Urdu publishers, have a
major role to play in countering anti-Muslim discourses. But in this,
he laments, they have not been very successful. 'Rebuttal of
anti-Muslim propaganda is generally done in Urdu, through books and
magazines, which few non-Muslims can read. Thus, their rebuttals do
not reach the readers that they should. It is like preaching to the
converted', he rues. 'Few Muslim publishing houses bring out
literature aimed at non-Muslims and written in a mode that they can
understand'.
'Perhaps', Iqbal reflects, 'Muslim publishing houses suffer from a
sort of fear. They fear that if they actively challenge misinformation
about Islam and Muslims they may be targeted. They don't want to court
controversy'. 'And, in any case', he says, there are almost no Muslim
research institutes or publication houses that do any serious analyses
of anti-Muslim writings, and so their efforts to rebut this propaganda
is generally quite ineffective'.
Another area that the Urdu publishing industry is seriously lacking
in, Iqbal relates, is in the matter of translations. 'So many good
books are coming out in the market in English, on Islam, on Muslims
and also on other issues which Urdu-readers might be interested in.
Yet, translations of such books have been negligible', he says. 'Most
Urdu publishers would be blissfully unaware of these new books, so
narrow is their vision', he argues.
Given the numerous problems that the Urdu publishing industry faces,
Iqbal stresses that it is vital that Urdu publishers form an effective
association of their own. Two such associations do exist, but he
claims that they are virtually defunct. 'We need an active association
that could help Urdu publishers be more professionally and technically
competent', he insists. 'It could help the industry produce more
socially relevant literature. It could also promote interaction
between Urdu publishers and others, so that they can learn from them'.
'Some of us', he adds, 'think we don't need to learn from others,
being content with living in our own little islands'. 'But that', he
insists, 'is ridiculous'.
'Urdu faces a grim future in India', Iqbal tells me as we wind up our
conversation, 'but there are spaces and opportunities that we need to
make use of'. 'Ultimately', he says, 'it is up to lovers of Urdu to
save, protect and promote the language'. And by publishing his
magazine against heavy odds for over a decade now, Iqbal shows what a
major difference a single individual can make in this regard.
==================================================
Muhammad Arif Iqbal can be contacted on arifiqbalubr@yahoo.co.in
Urdu Book Review can be accessed on www.urdubookreview.com
Via: "[soundART]"
Call: soundart for SoundLAB - Edition V
Theme: soundSTORY
deadline 1 August 2007
