Desicritics Author: Richard Marcus

Vinod Joseph, Author Of Hitchhiker Live At Epic India

Richard Marcus — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:10:31 EDT

When I was first approached by Ashok Banker to help him set up an Arts & Culture Magazine at his web sit, "Epic India" my head was filled with visions of the great literary magazines of the past. In their pages you would find contributions from people like Hemingway, Orwell, Joyce, and poems by Hart Crane.

Well reality doesn't give a fig for a person's fantasies and I've learned to be grateful for any and all contributions that come my way. We've published a few works of original fiction, but for the most part have been on the other side of the fence offering up critiques of work for our audience. While that is an important service to offer, there are already plenty of sites that do the same.

So to say I was thrilled when Vinod Joseph, author of Hitchhiker emailed me asking if it were possible for him to publish a collection of his recent short fiction with us would be an understatement of epic proportions. I had previously reviewed his book and interviewed him for Epic India and other sites so I knew that even if by some chance I didn't like the stories they would be well written and a great addition to our pages.

Like Hitchhiker his new collection of stories, A Taste Of Kerala - Stories From Simhapara will be a mixture of fact and fiction. The people and village of Simhapara may not exist but the region of Kerala does, and the lives described within these pages have the same ring of authenticity that his previous characters did.

But you will be able to judge for yourself, because starting on Saturday July 7th Epic India will be publishing one story a week from Vinod Joseph's A Taste Of Kerala – Stories From Simhapara for the ten weeks it will take to tell them in their entirety. Remember these are full-length short stories, so they are going to be substantially longer than the average article posted to the Internet.

Mr. Joseph hopes that people will take the time to leave their comments and constructive critiques in the available comment section. Part of the reason he wanted to publish with Epic India was to be able to receive immediate reactions to his work. Remember though that personal attacks and derogatory remarks based on race, creed, colour, religion, and sexual orientation are forbidden and will result in the summery banning of their writer.

For those interested in reading some other opinions on Mr. Joseph's novel Hitchhiker aside from the links already given, here are two more reviews to check out.

Check the pages of Epic India over the next week for any further announcements about this presentation. If you would like to have your work appear on Epic India or to have it reviewed on our pages please do not hesitate to contact Richard Marcus at editor at epicindia dot com.

Book Review: Devices Of The Soul Steve Talbott

Richard Marcus — Sun, 27 May 2007 12:57:10 EDT

Since the industrial revolution of the 1800s the world has gone through massive technological changes. From the cotton gin of the 1800s to the assembly line of Ford motor plants of the early twentieth century to today's microchip technology the speed of production has increased. The faster the production schedule the faster our lives move and the quicker the world spins by.

What kind of changes has this imposed on us in the way we interact with our environment? Not just the natural world, although that is part of the equation, but with all aspects of the world around us. The people we come in contact with, our involvement in our work, and the way we see ourselves have all undergone changes.

In his new book, Devices Of The Soul, Steve Talbott sets out to examine how our relationship with technology, especially in recent years, has changed us. The subtle manner in which we have gone from an intuitive being who draws upon all the elements at our disposal to make a decision to being dependant on bodies of information that we access on purpose.

This is not an anti-technology book, far from it in fact, for Talbott doesn't deny that elements of technology have made our lives better. It's a matter of how we allow the technology to define us and define how we live that is the problem according to him. By letting machines make so many of our decisions, or relying on them for doing tasks we would have done on our own in the past, we have removed the human element from the equation.

Now this may not sound like such a bad thing on a certain level, but how about our relationships with other people? If we only experience humans and cultures at the remove of technology, and what that technology tells us about them, are we getting a true picture of who and what they are? Maybe in the past we wouldn't have had access to any information at all, but is that any worse to having the information we do receive filtered through someone else's opinion?

Why is it that nobody looks at the sky anymore to see what the weather is going to be like during the day? "How cold is it out?" "I don't know let me check the weather channel?" What about going outside and experiencing it for yourself and feeling how cold it is? Will hearing someone tell you what the temperature is actually tell you how cold you will be when you step outside?

The number they say it is might give you an idea, but it won't tell you whether or not it's damp, or how cold the wind really is? You won't know that until you're outside so why didn't you check that way first? Convenience: or has our reliance on getting the answers from someone or something else gotten to the point that we don't trust ourselves anymore?

Quick, where does the sun rise each morning? At which cardinal point on the compass does he come up in the sky? How about the moon, do you know the answer to that? East is of course the answer to both questions and to most adults I should hope it was obvious. But for far too many people of the next generation that answer is a mystery, as are many things that we take for granted in the natural world.

But think of the environment that most kids grow up in the West; television, computer games, computers, cars, and an urban landscape. According to Talbott what should we expect from them, that they be aware of things that they are never exposed to or think about? Maybe the question of where does the sun rise sounds a little extreme, but he sites knowing a high school graduate with good grades and very bright as an example of a person who didn't know the answer to that question.

I don't know about you, but things like that scare me and make me nervous. If we are raising people so out of touch with the natural world as to not know in which direction the sun rises, what will they care about the world outside of their own sphere of existence? Will we be able to entrust them with what little we haven't destroyed to keep safe for their children?

Devices Of The Soul is not an easy read in any sense of the word. The language Mr. Talbott uses is heavy and specialized to the point of being nearly academic in places. But it is also necessary to use this language as it the only vocabulary capable of discussing the subject. Until you get used to it, and the dryness of the tone, you might have some difficulty reading the material.

But I think that's part of his point of how technology has taken away our ability to communicate complex ideas and thoughts because we are becoming used to a vocabulary that only allows for the expression of basic needs and wants. Higher intellectual ideas and concepts can't be put into text messaging short forms or cute smiley faces.

Devices Of The Soul challenges our conception of our self in an effort to make us examine our relationship with technology and how it has changed us. While change is inevitable, and there is nothing wrong with it intrinsically, blinkered acceptance of all aspects of it can be dangerous.

Steve Talbott has rung an alarm bell that is well worth our while to pay attention to and that we ignore at our own peril.

Interview: Vinod Joseph George: Author Of Hitchhiker

Richard Marcus — Sun, 20 May 2007 00:09:22 EDT

In North America we tend to preserve outdated and romantic ideas about countries that have no bearing on reality. Whether it's believing that Arabs still live in tents and keep numerous voluptuous wives that are hidden behind closed doors (the fact that tents and doors don't really mix never seems to bother anyone) or that Indian Princes ride on the backs of Elephants hunting tigers in the jungles surrounding Mumbai, our views of the world are still overly effected by Saturday afternoon matinees at the Bijou.

Although we have managed to bring ourselves beyond the Rudolf Valentino and Sabu the Elephant boy state, we still haven't bothered to learn much about the realities of life in most countries beyond our own borders let alone across the sea. Fortunately the resources to educate ourselves are becoming more and more plentiful.

I don't mean from any removed sources like histories written by anyone with a line to toe, but by fiction writers who don't hesitate to speak truths that far too many everywhere would prefer remain unspoken. It's been my fortune to read a great many of these books including Vinod George Joseph's Hitchhiker. (Reviewed at Desicritics among other places)

Somehow Mr. Joseph was able to use the novel form to shed light onto one of the mysteries of Indian society that we in the West have little or any real understanding of; the caste system. Without being shrill, or preachy; just letting the facts and circumstances surrounding his main character Ebenezer a reader was given far too clear a picture of just how horrible it is to be from a lower caste.

Mr Joseph very kindly agreed to answer a series of questions I had about the book, himself, and the caste system. Intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate answers to an emotionally charged question can be hard to come by sometimes, so his replies to my queries were a refreshing change.

I'd like to thank Vinod George Joseph for his answers and hope you find them as intriguing as I did.

1) Can you tell us a little bit about yourself – where you were born, brothers and sisters etc.?

I was in born at a place called Kollam in Kerala. That’s in southwest India. My dad worked as a lecturer in a polytechnic in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. My mother was a schoolteacher. She taught mathematics. So I spent my entire childhood in Tamil Nadu where Hitchhiker is set. I have a younger brother who is now (like many Indians of our generation) a software engineer.

2) You're a barrister, or is it solicitor, I've never understood the difference to be honest, but all of a sudden you've written a book. Was it so all of a sudden or has this been something you've thought about for a while?

I am a solicitor. To explain the difference between barristers and solicitors in a simplistic way, barristers appear in court on behalf of clients; while solicitors negotiate on behalf of clients, draft agreements etc. I specialise in corporate law and advice on mergers and acquisitions, bond issues, stock exchange listings etc.

I wanted to write a novel for a long time, ever since I read my first novel (R. K Narayan’s Swami & Friends) when I was ten. Hitchhiker was in the planning stage for four or five years before I actually sat in front of my laptop and started typing. I had just come to the UK to do my masters in Law, an LLM, after having worked as a corporate lawyer for 4 years in Mumbai. It took me a year to finish it. I wrote for an hour or so every day till my LLM exams got over. After that I wrote full time – ten or twelve hours a day - for three months before I started working as a solicitor.

3) Where did the idea for Ebenezer (the main character in Hitchhiker) and his life come from? Is there any autobiography involved?

There is no autobiography involved. The idea for Ebenezer came from what I saw and not what I experienced. As I just mentioned, I’ve always wanted to write a novel ever since I was very young. So, when I finally started writing, rather than write a war novel or a detective thriller as I would have liked, I ended up writing about things I know and have seen.

4) Aside from the whole caste system and reservations, you also look at the I. T. industry in India and don't see it as the same economic miracle as it's being portrayed. What is the reality today – Are companies like the one Ebenezer worked for that only provided content and such still around – or has it all become call centre and hardware.

The IT Industry in India has evolved over a period of time. Leading Indian companies are really world class, but of course there are companies at the lower end of the spectrum as well. So, you have companies that do cutting edge work and also companies doing boring, tedious low-end work outsourced to them by others. Some companies do both. Indian IT engineers are among the highest paid professionals in India. To succeed in the modern day service oriented world of business and technology, soft skills are as important as hard skills. And it is very unlikely that a person with Ebenezer’s background will have the sort of soft skills that a person from a more privileged background will have. It is not a question of intelligence or hard work, but all about the environment one grows up in.

5) How much of an economic miracle is it really anyway. Judging by your book the majority of the country is still not experiencing the miracle and child labour is still the norm not the exception?

It is an economic miracle. No one can deny it. But only a small fraction of India has benefited from it. India has always been a land of extreme wealth and extreme poverty. And it continues to be so. If you want to talk numbers, in a land of a billion people, maybe ten percent has benefited from this boom in some form or the other. That’s over a hundred million people who have gained something from this economic miracle. That still leaves nine hundred million unhappy Indians.

Child labour is still very much prevalent among India’s poor. But children who belong to the upper strata of Indian society have a privileged up bringing.

6) For people who may not understand what it is can you explain what the caste system is now and how it has been corrupted if it has? (My understanding was that it just used to be title given to people according to their jobs, not designations of their stature in society and that is a relatively recent invention)

The caste system prevalent in India is a system of beliefs, customs and traditions that horizontally stratify Indian society. Though it can be said to be tied to Hinduism, it is followed by almost all communities in India, including Christians, Sikhs and Muslims.

According to this system, society is divided into five major classes or castes. They are the Brahmins (priestly class), the Kshtriyas (the warrior class), the Vaishyas (the merchants), the Shudras (labourers) and the untouchables. One is born into a caste and there is practically no mobility within this structure.

There are various theories regarding the caste system in India and how it came into being. And before I say any further, I should confess that I am no expert. I know as much about the various theories as any layperson that is interested in knowing about these things.

The main theory, which is endorsed by a majority of scholars and historians, is that India had waves of immigrants from central Asian steppes since 1500 BC. They were fair in colour - as opposed to the earlier inhabitants (Dravidian and Austric races) - and the caste system was born. Varna or caste literally means colour in Sanskrit and Hindi. The new immigrants were naturally on top of the caste pyramid. And they brought in religion to justify caste. Even if one belongs to a low caste, one ought to stick to it so that he is reborn into a higher caste in his next birth.

The theory I have described above has a sub-theory that even before the immigrants from central Asia arrived, India had caste. The Dravidians, who were also possibly migrants to India, had pushed the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent down the social ladder. And they were in turn labelled ‘shudras’ by the fair skinned later arrivals. The original inhabitants became untouchables.

So, according to these theories, caste is not something recent. Some social activists even equate casteism with racism since the origins of caste are rooted in race.

But there are people who hold the view that till the arrival of Islamic invaders, a person’s profession was his/her caste. There was social mobility. But after the Arabs, Afghans and Turks started ruling chunks of India from the tenth century AD onward, social mobility was lost. Caste became a rigid structure, especially after the arrival of the Europeans. According to this theory, the caste system as it exists today is a recent phenomenon.

7) In North America we've had various affirmative action programs for minorities that were initiated against the wishes of those in favour of maintaining the status quo of white male dominance. Even thought disparities are long from eliminated we hear lots about the rights of the majority from conservatives who try to portray them as stealing jobs and opportunities from white people and play up fear and racism. Does this sound familiar to you in terms of the reservation system. Could you explain that and how it works and what it's intent was?

In India, reservations based on caste have a long history. They were introduced even when the British ruled India. And they are different from affirmative action in the sense, they are not voluntary, but mandatory quotas to be fulfilled by colleges in admissions, and by government departments. Schools and colleges that receive government aid are also bound by these quotas in the appointment of teachers. Different states in India have different percentages reserved for different castes. From what I know, the state of Tamil Nadu, where Hitchhiker is set, has the highest percentage of reservations in India. The other main difference between the situation in India and the US/Canada is that India has much fewer resources than the US or Canada. And it has a larger population. So, competition is a lot more intense and losing out to someone who is entitled to reservations generates a lot more anger than in the US/Canada.

I feel that reservations are the most effective tool for moving a socially backward caste up the social /economic ladder. But it does have its share of drawbacks. The main draw back is that it is not possible to ensure that every beneficiary of reservations actually deserves it. Reservations have created a creamy layer within every caste and this creamy layer corners most benefits. This is not to say that reservations should be done away with. But it is necessary to build filters into the system so that the benefits of reservations are evenly spread. Also, some of the people who lose out on account of not having reservations may not be financially well off. For want of a better term, I call it collateral unfairness. It is quite difficult to explain the need for reservations to a 18 year old middle class boy or girl who has failed to make it to an engineering college or a medical college because say, fifty percent of its seats are reserved on the basis of caste. It is difficult to see the larger picture when you are personally affected. A lot of the outcry against reservations comes from middle-class India for whom a decent education and a good job at the end of it is the only way forward. India with its billion plus people does not as yet have enough schools or colleges or resources to ensure that everyone gets basic opportunities. Until fifty years ago, everyone who belonged to the lower castes got excluded. This is no longer so. Now you find people at the bottom layers of all communities getting excluded.

8) In Hitchhiker you make it quite clear that there are plenty of ways that companies and schools are able to circumvent reservation quotas – is that still an accurate portrayal.

In India, the private sector is not bound to reserve places for lower castes. There is a demand for that, but it has not been put into effect. So, it is not correct to say private companies circumvent reservation quotas. Private educational institutions do however have quotas for appointment of teachers if they receive government aid. It is common for privately run schools and colleges to circumvent quotas in the appointment of teachers.

9) I received some comments from Indian readers when I reviewed Hitchhiker about how they felt people shouldn't portray India in a negative light anymore but focus on all the positive elements instead – how do you react to this?

I feel that it is important to examine oneself critically and make amends. Mere window dressing does no one any good. It’s quite silly to take the stand that criticism should not be public. Unless you do this, you will never bring about change. But I am happy to say that India does have its share of activists who do a decent job questioning government policies when things go wrong. In fact, I think India has more such activists than the US. I’m not sure about Canada though.

10) What do you think it will take to change people's attitudes about caste? Do you think it can be legislated or is so deeply ingrained that isn't enough and reservations will never solve the problem?

People’s attitudes about caste are changing, but they are changing too slowly. Legislation outlawing caste already exists, but it has made very little difference. The worst effect of caste is that the average middle-class Indian doesn’t give two hoots about the hardships faced by Indian who live in villages and slums. And the reason for the nonchalance is that the Indians who live in poverty and distress are very likely to be from the lower castes. As mentioned earlier, reservations cannot provide a solution by themselves. In fact, I would say that having more than 25% reservations is actually counter-productive. We need to spend more on building schools and hospitals and make sure that every Indian child goes to school. Once every Indian child has access to a decent school, then reservations will become more effective, since the intended beneficiaries will be able to benefit from it. I feel that caste divisions will disappear only when India becomes prosperous and basic needs for everyone is fulfilled.

Economic liberalisation has brought some wealth to India, but very little of it trickles down. India already has a large Maoist insurgency in many parts of central and eastern India. As poor people watch the rich ones lead comfortable lives and feel that they will escape their poverty, a Maoist revolution appears very attractive. India’s biggest challenge is to spread the benefits of liberalisation around (better tax collections, efficient investments in village infrastructure) as soon as we can.

11) I've avoided the whole issue of Missionaries in India, but are there still concentrated efforts to convert people to Christianity in areas – whether through bribery and offers of permanent employment or other means?

Christian missionaries are quite active in India. A few of them use fair means or foul to convert people. But I ought to add that most charitable work in India (as in the US or other parts of the world) is done by religious organisations. Christians, Hindus, Muslims are all in the fray. So, it’s a mixed bag. Religion based charities do a fair amount of good, but they usually carry their ideology and beliefs with them.

12) I'm interested in your publisher, can you tell me about them and how you ended up with them?

I got around thirty rejects from various literary agents and publishers before Books for Change agreed to publish Hitchhiker. Books For Change (BFC) is the publishing wing of Action Aid India. BFC publishes books with a high degree of social content. Hitchhiker was BFC’s first foray into publishing fiction.

13) Final question for you – Now that you've been bitten by the literary bug do you have any other ideas for books? Would you write about the same themes again or are there other areas of Indian life that you'd like to examine?

Yes, I have plans to write more. After Hitchhiker got published, I started writing a novel. It’s about a politician in Tawa, a fictional country in the Indian Ocean south west of Sri Lanka. I then got busy with work and abandoned my novel. Recently I started writing a collection of short stories set in a fictional village called Simhapara in Kerala. I should finish these short stories in another month or so. After that I have plans to pick up the threads of my novel again. Let’s see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted.

That concludes my interview with Vinod George Joseph, if it whetted your appetite to read his book Hitchhiker good, if it made you curious about the reality behind the "economic miracle" in India even better. When only ten percent of a population benefits from something I don't quite get how that's a miracle. It sounds more like a maintaining of the status quo where ten per cent of a country's population controls the majority of a country's wealth.

It's the same all over the world, why should India be any different? Like any other large capitalist free market country their attitude seems to be as long as the bottom line is fine who cares how many fall below it and can't get back up?

Canadian Politics: Alleged Terrorists Released From Jail

Richard Marcus — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 09:14:08 EDT

The results of the Supreme Court of Canada's overturning the use of security certificates to hold refugee applicants in permanent detention without trial if there was any suspicion of terrorist activity are now being seen. Two men who had been held under the law for years were both released from federal penitentiaries in the past two days.

Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub was released on this past Thursday after being held in Kingston Penitentiary for the last seven years because he had run a farming operation in the Sudan for Osama bin Laden. He has been released under conditions tantamount to him being under twenty- four-hour surveillance.

The terms of his house arrest includes being monitored by the Canadian Border Authority via a GPS bracelet permanently attached to his ankle, video cameras in his house, taps on his phone, and being followed by agents on the rare occasions he is allowed to leave his house. His family are also being held responsible for him adhering to all of his bail conditions.

Mr. Mahjoub has been the Canadian suspect with closest ties to Osama bin Laden, but he claims his association was innocent. The farming concerns he ran for the leader of al-Qaeda were during the time before bin Laden even lived in Afghanistan, and he claims to have just been another employee and eventually left the job over money disputes with bin Laden.

Mr. Mahjoub has never been accused of any terror activity, but the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) claims that he was part of an Egyptian extremist group called the Vanguards of Conquest and knew al-Qaeda operatives including a person alleged to be a Canadian financer of the group and an Iraqi who the American 9/11 commission calls al-Qaeda's principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction. ( It may be just me, but any American announcement containing the words Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction just doesn't seem to have much credibility)

The second man was released on Friday from a detention centre in Kingston Ontario Canada as well. Mahmoud Jaballah has been in detention since 2001, although the government has been after him since 1999. When they attempted to have him deported in 1999 they lost their case held under normal circumstances, but when the opportunity arose with the security laws in place he was immediately rearrested.

Attempts by the government to have him deported back to his native Egypt have been constantly denied by the courts because of the very real threat of torture he would face if returned. Although the current government continues to insist upon Mr. Jaballah's guilt (In a statement released by Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, in response to Mr. Jaballah's release Day implied he was the murderer of women and children.) the judge said that although the initial evidence against Mr. Jaballah did at one time warrant the security certificate, now that he has spent six years in detention and no additional evidence has come to light she had to defer to the Supreme Court's ruling that the longer a person spends incarcerated the less likelihood there is of them being a security risk.

Based on those grounds the federal court judge changed Mr. Jaballah's sentence to that of house arrest, similar to the conditions imposed upon Mr. Mahjoub. The judge asserted, but offered no proof to back her words, that the conditions were imperative in Mr. Jaballah's case because she had no doubt that if not monitored he would get in touch with terrorists.

Mr. Jaballah first came under suspicion because of a series of over a hundred phone calls he placed to the United Kingdom, Azerbaijan, and Yemen to an alleged al Qaeda front. When those are added to the twenty calls he made to those destination and Pakistan in a subsequent two-day period and the fact that when asked to explain he either was evasive or didn't answer the questions it served to confirm his guilt in the eyes of the courts.

Given the atmosphere in North America in the days following 9/11 you can understand why he was placed under suspicion. The bombings he was accused of co-ordinating were embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But now nine years later and no further evidence has come forth, and, according to his lawyer, when the United States released a list of suspects, he wasn't even named as an un indicted co-conspirator.

The government of Canada's reaction to these events has been highly predictable. Aside from his insinuations about Mr. Jaballah being responsible for killing women and children and just awaiting his opportunity to go on another bloodthirsty rampage, he also has stated that the government would prefer that all these people remain locked up.

In another tidy bit of fear mongering he also said he hoped that the house arrest rules would be enough to keep Canadians safe from them. He then added that the court agreed that Mr. Mahjoub had clearly worked for Osama bin Laden and received a salary for that work. Well who wouldn't want to be paid for working, and since when has it become a crime to work for someone when there is no proof that your activities were criminal.

I mean if we're going to start rounding up people who've had business associations with Osama they better be picking up Dick Cheney and almost everybody on the Halliburton Board of Directors. At one point they had owned around 30% of bin Landen's company. Not just his families business - but his company. Doesn't anyone find it at all odd that on the day after 9/11 when all the planes in and out of the United States were grounded, that all the members of the bin Laden family living in the United States were able to fly home?

Who arranged that for them, and why was it allowed to happen? If Dick Cheney and George Bush, both of who would have to okay something like this, come to Canada will they be picked up on a security certificate? They've had some pretty suspicious contact with bin Laden and his whole family immediately after 9/11.

What does that sound ridiculous? Why is it anymore ridiculous than wanting to keep a man in jail because he ran a farm for bin Laden long before he even went to Afghanistan? What proof do they even have that either man had of any involvement in any terror activity? Well, none, actually. One guy made a lot of phone calls to the countries where he could have family just as easily as he could have terror contacts. Why so many calls in two days? Hell if my mom has to contact her family about an event like a death she could make twenty calls in an afternoon no sweat.

Mr. Mahjoub worked for someone who turns out to be one of the bad guys, but how was he supposed to know that back whenever it was he worked for him. In fact the government hasn't said when he worked for him, only that it was before bin Laden was in Afghanistan, which means before 9/11/01. In fact he even says he quit working for him over a dispute with money. No one has given us any reason not to believe him.

Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub were both held in Canadian prisons with no trial, not knowing what exactly they had done to end up there, and knowing if they were to lose they'd be deported to torture and death in their former homes. Perhaps it was understandable seven years ago to keep an eye on people like them, or even detain them temporarily. But now it 's just cruel and unjust.

If you're having any doubts about which side to err on in Canada, freedom or so called safety, think about Mahar Arar and his time in an Egyptian jail being tortured. It was our security service that put him there with their inaccuracies and incompetence. Do you trust them with any more lives?

Canadian Politics: Vimy Ridge To Afghanistan: The Lie Remains The Same

Richard Marcus — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 01:37:31 EDT

Ninety years ago Canadian soldiers went over the top at Vimy Ridge in France during that great waste of life in the twentieth century known as World War One. There was nothing honourable or noble about that war - at least in World War Two you had the Nazi leaders of Germany as a canker that had to be exorcised from the earth - it was just the last stuttering gasps of the Empires of Europe.

If we think our political leaders today are callous and stupid, and there is no denying they are, even George Bush jr. would be hard pressed to match the inbred stupidity of those folk who allowed a whole generation to be destroyed under the guns of France. Canadians like to bleat how our soldiers attacking the guns at Vimy Ridge in 1917 was a coming of age for our country. Yep it proved we could be as stupid as anyone else and knew how to spend the lives of our young men as ably as the next country.

Yep we had the balls for slaughter so that made us a country just like our former colonial masters the British and the French, or our new economic master the Americans. It sure is something for us to be proud of isn't it? So proud that we built a huge monument in France so on the ninetieth anniversary we can celebrate how many people were cut to pieces by machine gun fire.

My idea of a memorial for the fiasco that took place from 1914 - 1918 is to erect a huge plaque saying that this was a futile waste of life that accomplished nothing except set the stage for all the wars for the next hundred years. Out of that war came the mess that is the Middle East right now, the horror that was the ethnic cleansing of the Balkans, and the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War One gave Hitler an excuse for war.

On the weekend of the ninetieth anniversary six Canadian soldiers were killed in the first pointless war of the Twenty-First century - Afghanistan. Their personnel carrier was blown to shit and back by a homemade bomb buried in the dirt on the road. The six soldiers were killed instantly while two more were injured, but it looks they'll pull through.

I wonder if the Canadian press will get tired of printing the headline, "The Most Canadian Soldiers Killed In Combat Since The Korean War". This is the second time they've written it in the last four months and both times it's been because one of those road side bombs had blown the crap out of a convoy. (We don't count accidents like when the Syrians shot down some Peace Keepers on the Golan Heights in the 1990s or when the American National Guard twice used Canadian troops for target practice in Afghanistan because they can't tell friend from foe. I'm sure telling parents that their child was killed by friendly fire makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside about their allies, I know that's how I feel.)

I can't remember how many "The Most Since Korea" was last time, it's getting hard to keep track of things like this when there is a steady trickle of deaths. Although come to think of it they do seem to come in clumps. A few months will pass and there will be no fatalities, casualties sure, but no deaths, then all of a sudden, as if making up for lost time there will be a series of them.

Either it means that there has been increased activity on the part of the Taliban, or it means the Canadians have moved into an area where they are more active. Either way it seems the result is the same. Dead soldiers.

What I find is interesting is that the Taliban were supposedly defeated before Iraq was invaded in 2003 - almost four years ago, and a new government was installed. Our troops were supposed to be helping to rebuild the country, yet here they are being killed by people who our government call the Taliban. Were they all really hiding in Pakistan, Iran, and wherever else they have armed camps.

Or, as is more likely, did they simply blended back into the scenery again. Went home to their villages and waited for the new government to prove itself as corrupt and ruthless as they were before the Taliban took over last time. You see there is an unpleasant truth we haven't been told about the current "democratically elected" government in Afghanistan.

Do you remember one of the reasons that were cited for going to war in Afghanistan? To free women from the oppressiveness of life under the Taliban, where they were treated like so much chattel and were denied basic human rights. So why is it that nothing has changed for women at all in Afghanistan? Where is there much vaunted freedom? Why are girls still not going to school, and women still scared to go out on the streets, even in major cities like Kabul, without being fully covered in traditional garb?

It's because the current government are only different from the Taliban in that they accept American weapons and food and present a veneer of respectability so that the press buys the lie of change occurring. Did you know that until people understood how bad the Taliban were they were welcomed as liberators when they overthrew the same people who are power now?

Yep that's what our soldiers are giving their lives for, a regime that is as oppressive and repressive as the Taliban. Why do you think so many villagers give support to the Taliban? At least they are honest about who they are. Sometimes the devil you know is better then the alternative. At least with the Taliban they knew exactly where they stood, even if it was in hell.

But our politicians, especially Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, one of the most duplicitous people to ever enter politics, aren't going to tell you any of this. They are just going to tell you about soldiers making the supreme sacrifice, paying the ultimate price, and all the other euphemisms they have for saying they got blown to shit and died a horrible death thousands of miles away from home for no good reason.

Of course the timing couldn't have been better these poor schmucks getting killed this weekend if Steven Harper had planted the bomb himself. There were all the dignitaries assembled at the memorial to the great waste of humane life at the beginning of the Twentieth century and everyone was ready to talk about ultimate sacrifices anyway. This was actually a gift from the Gods for Mr. Harper and his gang. What a perfect way to tie the two circumstances together and gain some sentimental support for a war that is becoming more and more unpopular at home.

Canadians have been told from their first history class how important Vimy Ridge was in our growth as a nation and that the soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice there did so for freedom and democracy. Now ninety years latter they're still off in foreign lands paying the price for the very same ideals. The same qualities that made them heroes at Vimy Ridge are making them heroes in Kandahar.

Well I have to give Mr. Harper credit for getting it part right. It's true that Canadian soldiers are still dying overseas, and yes it's true it's for the same reasons - just not the ones that government is giving. In both cases, Vimy and Kandahar, France and Afghanistan, there were, and are, no good reasons for Canadians to be dying.

In 1914 we went to War as a subject of Great Britain; we had no choice because they controlled our foreign policy in those days - they were at war so were we. We didn't fight for Canada; we fought for King and Empire. This time around we went to war because America did. We're not fighting for Canada over in Afghanistan, we're fighting to clean up a mess the American's made back in the 1980's when they armed the Taliban in the first place.

The Canadian government has the gall to say that the people of Canada are only against the war in Afghanistan because they don't understand how important it is. Excuse me, I think they have that backwards - the people of Canada are against the war in Afghanistan because they do understand how unimportant it is.

We're over there propping up a government which is as bad as the one it replaced, maybe even worse because they could start fighting amongst themselves at any time over who is in charge. In the meantime we're wasting valuable manpower and equipment that could be used for peacekeeping missions if places like Darfur, Ethiopia, Somalia, or anywhere in the Middle East.

Or even better our army could do what it does best and be over in the Solomon Islands helping the people to recover from the tsunami that left the island's population virtually homeless. Or they could be travelling through Africa setting up medical relief stations in some of the places hardest hit by AIDS. I'm sure army issue condoms are the toughest on the market for preventing the spread of disease so they would be a boon in Africa. Not to mention the fact that our people are superb at coordinating activities in areas to see that the maximum good is done with minimum strain on resources.

Can you imagine what field hospitals dispersed through some of the hardest hit areas of Africa could do for the people of those areas? Think of what would happen if they co-ordinated with on the ground aid agencies for the distribution of not just medical supplies, but household goods that are so essential for preventing the spread of AIDS and other diseases.

But no, that's not sexy enough for our politicians; they want to be able send young men off to die in noble causes because it makes them feel important. Anyway if you send people off to treat AIDS they might give out condoms and that according to our government is wrong. It might encourage people to have sex or something equally obscene.

What they don't get is that they are committing the biggest obscenity around. When they stand up in a war memorial that's been built to honour the people who were sent needlessly to their deaths ninety years ago and talk about the ones who they've sent to their deaths all that it tells me is that they haven't learned anything.

I was angry when I started writing this article and now I'm just sad. It's heartbreaking that young men and women continue to be sent off to die for causes that don't exist by people who continually betray the faith placed in them to lead us with integrity. Our leaders put so much energy into teaching us who our enemies are so that we can go out and kill or be killed.

Wouldn't it be nice for a change if they put that same energy into teaching us how to like people instead? When they start doing that then they might be worthy to stand up in front of us and talk of honour and nobility. But not now, not as long as they equate it with death, killing, and hate.

India: Development At What Cost?

Richard Marcus — Fri, 6 Apr 2007 10:10:03 EDT

I recently reviewed a book called Hitchhiker by Vinod George Joseph. To be honest with you, I was appalled by the nature of some of the comments on the review because of their attitudes towards the subject matter raised in the book. The tone of the comments was that anything negative should be ignored and people should instead be celebrating the great "economic miracle" that's happening in India today.

The book is about the caste system, more specifically Reservations and how the system fails those persons in the lower castes it's supposed to be assisting. The author points out the amazing numbers of loop holes that schools and corporations have so that they can avoid having to hire or teach people of lower castes. What is even more unsettling about the book is that it is set in today's India, not some distant past.

When I read the first comment that came in and the person decried the fact that the author had focused on the negative aspects of life in India instead of talking about how great it was under the new economic miracle I got mad. I responded to the comment by saying that I didn't believe you could call something development if you left one person behind, let alone the millions who are being left behind the world over by so-called development.

I also mentioned that I found it odd that the people who espouse the view that everything is wonderful and only malcontents and trouble makers say otherwise are usually the ones who are benefiting the most from the economic order. How often do you hear a person living in the slums of Mumbai saying how glorious it is that he doesn't have running water in his house, his children will never receive a proper education or have the chance to change their circumstances?

Over and over again studies have proven that children who grow up in poverty and in poor neighbourhoods are at an extreme disadvantage to those higher up the social scale. Lack of nutrition from a poor diet, an environment that is hostile to learning because it lacks an immediate pay off and costs money that nobody has, all contribute to making it nearly impossible for these children to get an education and break the cycle of poverty.

Look at the reality for a second; even if the schooling is free there are all the ancillary costs that go along with sending a child to school. If you can barely put food on the table to feed your family how are you going to buy pencils, pens, and paper for your child to take to school?

I'm sure there are those who are going to say where do you get off being critical of our society and us; you're not an Indian. True enough I'm not, but that doesn't stop me from being able to see injustice and no matter how anyone attempts to justify it the caste system is an injustice. When people are being judged not by their abilities but by who they are and the result is negative, that is discrimination no matter what country you live in.

For twenty years I protested against the policies of a South African government that was violently discriminatory against the majority of that country's citizens. Until majority rule was instituted I refused to purchase anything that had been produced in South Africa and to do business with anybody who did business with that country.

Of course I wasn't the only one, people around the world, of all colours, races, creeds, and sexes protested against the injustice being perpetrated in South Africa. It was external pressure being brought to bear that resulted in the release of Nelson Mandela from jail and his eventual election as President.

Closer to home, my family took part in the boycott against produce grown in California in the United States in support of the United Farm Workers Union that was fighting for decent wages and living conditions for the migrant workers who picked the crops. Cesar Chavez, who was the leader of that union, had called for the boycott as the only way to execute change and relieve the suffering amongst the workers that had been a way of life since the 1930's.

I continually write about the poor conditions plaguing the First Nations people of Canada and in support of all their activities to obtain restitution from the injustices they have suffered over the last five hundred years. If Canada had any exports worth mentioning I would encourage people to stop buying Canadian until our governments had taken the steps necessary to give Native Canadians the same chances that the rest of us enjoy.

So I find it appalling when someone says that the caste system is none of my business because I'm not an Indian. Injustice and intolerance are everyone's business, and the caste system is an injustice as much as apartheid was. How can any person of good conscience ignore it?

In Canada we have over a million children living in poverty, which is a disgrace, especially when you consider how small our population is. When our governments have the nerve to boast about their performance and how well the economy is doing, all I can think of are the million plus children growing up in poverty and the impossible challenges they have to overcome.

But in Canada we have a semblance of a social safety net other countries lack, so that at least those children living in poverty get a semblance of attention. They have free medical care, they are protected by child labour laws, and they get some education for free.

According to Mr. Joseph's book, there might be child labour laws in India but they sure aren't enforced. Ten-year-old children work in match factories making matchsticks and are paid according to how much they can do in a day. Mothers and children sit at home making packages of matches day in and day out earning a miniscule amount of money in relation to the amount they work.

People of the lower castes are still killed in the outlying villages without any repercussions. In spite of a percentage of spots reserved for them at schools their chances of getting good paying jobs are still minimal because companies won't hire people who received their education via a reservation.

I have no idea what the numbers are when it comes to the caste system, and how many people there are in the lower or untouchable ranks. But as long as any people are being left behind how anyone can boast about how great things are for India or any country is beyond me.

I remember back in the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon was still in the first term of his presidency. The Vietnam war was still being fought, and the National Guard had just killed four students at Kent State University during an anti-war rally. Instead of doing anything constructive about the problems facing society, the Nixon administration sent Vice President Spiro Agnew out on a speaking tour.

His job was to tell the American people that everything was all right and only a few "nattering nabobs of negativism" had the nerve to say otherwise. It's been common practice among right wing politicians to say that people telling the truth about circumstances are being negative. Especially when the truth disagrees with the artificially rosy picture politicians are painting of the world in order to get re-elected.

So when I hear people saying we should focus on the positive elements of what's happening in India and not talk about the abject poverty, child labour, the caste system, or the religious intolerance on all sides I get angry. When are we as a species going to ever put compassion above convenience and commerce?

It is truly marvelous that India is becoming one of the world's major players. For far too long global policy has been set by only one culture with more then half the world's population being left out of the decision making process. But if India becomes a world power while neglecting her own people and failing to correct the problems of her own society than nothing will change. We will just be exchanging one set of greedy hands grasping for whatever they can take for another.

Right now there is nothing about the attitudes being expressed by India that make it any different from the other so-called developed nations. They are willing to build an empire on the backs of their poor just like anybody else, and that's nothing to celebrate. Right now they are presenting a shiny fa�ade to the world, but it is hollow at the core. If India does not deal with her internal problems in a real way and correct the inequities that are still inherent in her society, one way or another she will implode inwards just as the United States are doing.

Humans are supposed to be rational animals; I'm still waiting for evidence of that from someone, somewhere.

Book Review: Hitchhiker Vinod George Joseph

Richard Marcus — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 02:30:40 EDT

Affirmative action programs seem to be surrounded by controversy the world over. In North America, African Americans and women have been the major recipients of these programs in an attempt to redress discrepancies in education, financial, and employment opportunities that continue to this day. Of course the backlash from the majority white Anglo-Saxon male population ebbs and flows depending on how threatened people are feeling.

In times of economic threat the majority circles the wagons against those they see as stealing their livelihood, their rightful place in society as the ones who get everything given to them at the expense of others. But in North America we only have to correct a few hundred year of injustice and the majority do see the point in it.

The change to full equality has an inevitability about it that can't be forestalled in North American society in spite of what a minority power base tries to prevent. The idea that black and white people need to be forcefully segregated seems ridiculous to us now, but only forty-five years ago they could not share lunch counter facilities or sit together on a bus.

Twenty years ago nobody would have believed that a black person would be the president of the Republic of South Africa. Yet today they now have majority black rule after years of near slavery and segregation. There is tangible proof that change can occur and that no one's place in society is fixed in position by their colour or the strata of society they are born in.

But at the same time another reality exists beyond the ken of understanding to North American minds. The caste system in India has existed for over two thousand years and has successfully segregated elements of society according to status and birth for longer than our culture has even existed.

In his new book Hitchhiker, Vinod George Joseph has written about the caste system by following the lives of young people from a variety of backgrounds as they try to navigate their way through today's India. To someone like myself raised on the notion that all people are equal and deserve an equal opportunity to prove themselves, it was hard to believe that this book was set in contemporary times.

Occasional references to names (Microsoft) and events (the bombing of the World Trade Centre) seem like they are from another planet when read in relation to the description of a mother and daughter being killed because of their caste. Instead of grade point averages students talk about what kind of reservations each school and each program have.

For those like me who had no idea what that word meant in the context of schooling Mr. Joseph lets it come out in the story line without having to lecture or teach a class. The conversation between students of different faiths and castes as they discuss their chances of admission to what they think are their best options for careers and what will be required of them to achieve their goals, brings it all out naturally.

Most of the time we see the world through the eyes of his protagonist, Ebenezer. As an untouchable he should have all the advantages of the affirmative action offered by the reservation system, but he is a Christian and that mean he is no longer part of the caste system so is not entitled to those benefits except to a reduced degree.

Supposedly because his family are no longer Hindu they are no longer subject to the same sort of prejudices that affect others. That's fine in theory but in practice of course they are still untouchables who nobody would want have their son or daughter marry, or will give a job to, or let study (or even teach) at a school they run unless they are made to.

Ebenezer tries his best but at every turn another barrier is raised against him. Sure the companies have to keep so many spots open as reservations, but if you can't find a "qualified" person for them you can't fill those spots and they just stand empty. Or if a certain amount of money can be made to exchange hands then rules can be changed and reservation spots can vanish.

No matter how many affirmative action programs are implemented, no matter how much the government says they are working to change the system and make life better for the former lower castes, nothing really has changed in the way people see each other. Well-educated Ebenezer still has to tug at his forelock to an illiterate farmer who acts as if Ebenezer needs his dispensation to do anything because he is one caste level up.

After the riot that kills Ebenezer's mother and daughter the men who did the killing and started the brawl (and who raped his aunt when she was a teenager) are not sentenced or even charged. Do you think it makes a difference that the police jobs are all held by a caste superior to Ebenezer's and is the same as those doing the killing?

I don't want to give the wrong impression about the Hitchhiker, that it's one long tirade against an unjust system, because although that is a part of the story, it's also the story of people and their experiences on all sides of the system. There are the young men who want desperately to succeed on merit alone and not be thought of as tokens; the young women who want to be more than chattel and judged by how much of a dowry they will bring to a prospective marriage; and those who get caught in the sectarian violence between Muslims and Hindus.

All the characters in the story are entirely believable in the way they act and behave considering who they are and their circumstances. The author never makes the mistake of climbing on any particular soapbox; he is simply reporting the facts as they are.

Vinod George Joseph has written a work of fiction and has even changed the names of castes. In his foreword he says that he has done his utmost to paint as fair a picture of the circumstances in his country as possible. Judging by the way in which he lets the story almost tell itself and never presents a judgement on his characters, simply letting their actions speak for them, I'd have to say he has succeeded.

Hitchhiker is a difficult book to read in its blunt honesty and its unwillingness to compromise anything in its attempts to depict the truth of the circumstances in his country. I don't know if everybody who reads this book from India will agree with what is said in it, from either side of the argument, but what I do know to my ears it has the ring of complete authenticity.

For anyone who believes in the economic miracle of India, and how bright a future it has, reading this book will make you re-evaluate a lot of what you read in the newspapers about that. It seems like the shiny bright picture being painted is hiding some of the old unpleasant truths India might not what the rest of the world to know about.

[Editor's Note: Reviews of Hitchhiker by Sujatha Bagal and Shantanu Dutta are also available on Desicritics.]

Book Review: Death Comes For The Fat Man By Reginald Hill

Richard Marcus — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:58:19 EDT

Indomitable, indefatigable, and inflexible have all been words to describe the Mid -Yorkshire constabulary's Andy Dalziel. But more surprising is how many people call him friend. No matter how exasperated Ellie and Peter Pascoe, or Sgt. Wield get with "Fat Andy" there is no thought in any of their minds of that presence ever vanishing.

Like a mountain or other large part of the scenery seen every day, life without Chief Superintendent Andy Dalziel coercing the next round out of his subordinates is unimaginable. Which makes his being brought down by a bomb at a suspected terrorist site all the more unbelievable. Not just laid up for a few days either, but in a coma from which he may never rise again.

Terror and terrorism confined to London in modern Great Britain and no matter how far north your go, even into the wilds of Yorkshire; its effects continue to be felt. With Andy down it's up to his far more politically correct subordinate Peter Pascoe to liaison with the Counter terrorist troops that storm the Mid-Yorkshire police headquarters in an attempt to drag as much information out of the site's ruins as possible.

In Death Comes For The Fat Man Reginald Hill has gathered together his familiar cast of characters from the Mid Yorkshire constabulary and thrown them up against every police officers' worst nightmare. A beloved colleague brought down in the line of duty and you're not able or allowed to do anything about seeking out those responsible.

For Peter Pascoe his frustration at being relegated to the sidelines by the counter terrorist squad is only made worse by the feelings of guilt he is suffering for having been literally sheltered from the worst of the blast by the bulk of his superior officer. It only increases his frustration and anger to find out that those responsible are in actual fact vigilante anti-terrorists who are being covertly assisted by the very people who are supposed to be investigating their activities.

In other words Reginald Hill has set-up all the right ingredients for a typical hunt the spy among the spies while you hunt down the killers that has been the hallmark of good British mystery writing since Le Carré. But the wonderful thing about Reginald Hill books is the fact that he goes off in directions unexpected and poses questions that maybe some of us would rather not think about.

There's a great deal of fuss made these days about the intelligent person's murder mystery as opposed to the old fashioned pulp fiction style of Raymond Chandler, or the detective pulling it out of the hat style popularized by Dame Agatha. But even they have become formulaic with the troubled, alcohol plagued, solitary male who can't keep a relationship on the rails, or the woman who has to be as tough as the men but keep in touch with her feminine side. You wonder when they ever have time to do any police work they're so troubled.

That's the great thing about Reginald Hill's books. He never loses track of who his people are and what they do for a living. Instead of making it an oddity for a cop to be human and have emotions, while all those around him or her are either on the take or louts of the first degree, it is commonplace among his characters.

He is also far too adroit a writer to ever make all of his villains evil wankers carrying bags marked swag, or to let liberal niceties prevent him from writing truths. For example in some parts of England today there are elements in the Muslim community who would have supported the decision to bomb the underground and who could very well be planning some other such activity.

But just as Hill won't shy away from that truth, he doesn't shy away from the truth that there is just as sizable a number of English Christians for whom the sun has never set on the empire and who believe the only good wog is a dead one. It's a collection of these types who have formed themselves into a group called the Templars; named after one of the more fanatical groups of knights from the time of the Crusades. (Hill also shows himself capable of having fun at his own expense when Peter is researching the Templars in a book store and the proprietor makes comments about them being all the rage in books right now because of that damned Da Vinci Code)

The bomb that caught Andy was their handiwork, although it was the occupants of the video store who were the target and the police were just an unfortunate accident. You see the Templars have decided to carry on the work of their namesakes and kill the Infidels who have in their eyes escaped justice. In other words found not guilty by the courts but not by the Templars.

At first Peter has a policeman's usual abhorrence for vigilantes and their scorn for the systems of government. But what if Andy were to die? What might happen if he caught up to the Templars who did this and Andy had crossed over as he continually threatened to do? What is fuelling his obsession to hunt them down at all costs if not a need for vengeance?

Is he that much different from them? When he realizes how well protected they are, and they might just get away with it he begins to wonder. What would he do if he found out they would escape prosecution, or get off with a slap on the wrist because knowing and proving are two different things?

These are his thoughts as he hunts for Andy's attackers across England. Sneaking around behind the backs of his new friends in Counter Terrorism, who have conveniently seconded him to their service where they hope to keep him under wraps. But Peter hasn't been under the tutelage of Andy Dalziel all these years for nothing. Piece by piece he puts together the jigsaw puzzle with help from the most unlikely of sources.

Constable Hector, who thought he heard the shot that brought everyone to the scene, has always been a standing joke around the dept. The idiot child of the Mid-Yorkshire force turns out though to be close to savant when it comes to drawing faces from memory.

When someone tries to clean up a loose end in Hector and tries a hit and run that fails, Hector is able to draw the driver's face from memory. When the same face turns up on the back of a novel about counter terrorism in the Gulf War, as its author, and in Hector's room trying to visit him after the accident Peter knows they have one of their men.

Reginald Hill delivers another wonderful book with two of the most memorable detectives in the Parthenon of British detective writing. How many other authors have created a character that can dominate it even when they are laid up in a coma for the majority of the book. Oh all right Andy does a little astral projecting, negotiates with death on occasion, but it's nawt much more then he usually does in a day's work, as I'm sure he'd be the first to tell you over the pint that you bought him.

Reginald Hill writes books that are about people who happen to solve crimes because they are cops, but they are also people and as such he has succeeded in bringing one of the most human faces to policing of any of the writers of crime fiction alive today. Death Comes For The Fat Man is touching, scary, funny, and very human all at once.

There is a crime to be solved, and murders to be prevented, but there are also lives to live and hopefully to be celebrated and not mourned. Death Comes For The Fat Man is available in Canada through Random House Canada and various online retailers like Amazon.ca.

Canadian Politics: Torture In Afghanistan

Richard Marcus — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 00:19:40 EDT

Most of us take pride in the country of our birth, even if on occasion we don't agree with those who are in charge. We all like it when our country is recognized by the world's press; it makes us feel important by association. Coming from a country like Canada, of lesser importance on the world's stage, catching the eye of International media is even more of treat.

But there are those occasions when you realize you need to be careful what you wish for, because it might just come true. Start thinking, how come the Americans get all the press, and the next thing you know Canada has its very own prisoner scandal, just like the Americans in Iraq did a few years back.

Now obviously that's not quite what you were hoping for when you wanted to see your county's name above the fold at Le Monde or other prestigious papers. Reading that in April 2006 three captives held by Canadian soldiers were mistreated and that even now a year latter an investigation is ongoing into the whys and wherefores of the situation.

If that weren't enough to make you cringe there is also the report that the Canadian army has been handing over prisoners to the Afghanistan security forces without checking on what their eventual fate would be. According to Canadian law any person in custody may not be turned over to a third party if there is a chance they will either face execution, torture, or any other cruel and unusual punishment not allowed by Canadian Law.

When the issue was first raised in the House of Commons, Minister of Defence Gordon O'Connor denied there was any wrong doing, by insisting that the International Red Cross was overseeing all prisoner transfers. But as of March 4th/2007 the Red Cross said they were doing no such thing.

Officials in the Defence Department claim that they signed a deal where Canadian troops must notify the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the International Red Cross when they had over a prisoner to the Afghan authorities. The Human Rights Commission is supposed to be monitoring the well being of the troops once they are in the hands of the Afghan army.

This agreement is described as an extension of one Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier signed back in December 2005 agreeing that all prisoners Canada captured would be turned over to the Afghan army. That agreement had been widely condemned by Human Rights activists, because there had been no provisions made for monitoring by any Rights body.

While the new agreement rectifies that in principle it's almost impossible to know what actually takes place on the ground in Afghanistan. The Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission is currently investigating eighteen cases of prisoners being handed over in spite of the knowledge that they would be tortured or otherwise mistreated.

Now I don't know about anybody else but I don't like the idea of my country being considered complicit in the torturing of Prisoners of War. To give the Minister of Defence his due, he doesn't appear to either, in a surprise visit he landed in Afghanistan on Sunday determined to find out as much as possible.

He claims to have a two-fold purpose in visiting. The first he says is to meet with the people from the Human Rights group and gain assurances they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. "I want to look the man in the eyes and I want to be confirmed that they are going to do what they say they are going to do."

His other intent is to have people in the Canadian army show him exactly what the process is, what they do from the moment they capture an enemy soldier to the moment they hand him over to the Afghanistan government. I would guess his reason for this is to find out where there are any holes in the process that could cause things to go wrong, or information to not be delivered.

How could Canadian soldiers hand over prisoners when they knew they would be tortured? Who was responsible for that decision and how could it have happened eighteen times? Was this an isolated instance of one man or one platoon that has a personal vendetta against the enemy, or is it wide spread lack of understanding of the policy.

That's the information that the Minister and his staff should be trying to find out so as to prevent any repeats of the activity. I hope for the sake of my country, the men and women of the armed forces and the people who are taken prisoner that he is able to find a solution to this problem.

It's hard to take pride when one is complicit in torture, and if our government, or our soldiers are taking part in that sort of activity than none of our hands are clean.

DVD Review: Favela Rising

Richard Marcus — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 14:01:11 EDT

Rio de Janeiro, home of Sugar Loaf Mountain, white sandy beaches, beautiful half naked people, a magnificent statue of Jesus Christ that looms over the city, and some of the most violent slums in the world. In The Favela (Portuguese for squatter or slums) that cling to the sides of hills overlooking the city, thousands of people desperately eke out an existence in conditions that no North American can come close to understanding, while the hotels on the beach pretend they don't exist.

The rule of the Favela is split between the drug lords and the police, and with the other 90% of the population stuck in between and trying not to get squeezed out of existence. Between 1987 and 2005 when 467 minors were killed in both Israel and Palestine, 3957 people under the age of 16 died violently on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The distance from the white sandy beaches to the Favela is measured in more then inches and feet; they might share the same territory but they are worlds apart.

When the police are even more dangerous to the citizens than the drug runners, the police are the ones making the money from the drugs not the kids who kill each other on the streets for the dime bags of coke, where can a people go to save themselves. Who can they turn to when the police exact vengeance on drug lords by coming into the Favela and killing people at random as happened in 1993?

Twenty-one innocent people were killed by a division of police in retaliation for the death of four officers on the previous day. They had been executed by the drug lord of one Favela, and the police exacted their own revenge with machine guns and hand grenades. Among the dead was the brother of Anderson S� a young member of the drug gangs.

Anderson was born and bred in Vigario Geral Favela, affectionately referred to as the Bosnia of Rio because of the extreme violence and its similarity to an armed camp. Growing up in Vigario a young person has the option of making $650 US a week working for the drug lords and probably dying by the age of twenty-five, or earning the average wage of a Brazilian adult, $13.00 US a week. There were no other alternatives.

When his brother died, Anderson's Godmother feared that he would drift further into the drug culture, she was enough of a realist to know that not much else awaited a young man, especially a young man who would most likely want revenge on the police for the murder of his brother. But what she hadn't counted on, or anybody else for that matter, was that his brother's death would serve to change Anderson's, and hundreds and thousands of others through him, life.

The documentary film Favela Rising, now available on DVD tells how Anderson and a group of friends took it upon themselves to try and change their corner of the world and have had more success than they might even have hoped. AfroReggae started as the name of a newsletter about Afro Brazilian culture and like a cell splitting multiplied into so much more.

A band for performing music that spoke to the people about what they could have, and that demonstrated aspects of their culture by incorporating, dance, singing, martial arts, drumming and acrobatics. Classes to teach young people how to play the drums, and dance, and sing all in the manner of their people, African Brazilians, were a natural extension of the performances, and a means to their end of showing their was another life aside from that of being a drug dealer.

It's a simple theory, but one that takes perseverance and dedication to put into practice. Give people back who they are and it gives them a sense of self and belonging; they are more than just another Favela resident, they are Afro Brazilians with a heritage and a history. They are a people.

Native Americans of various nations through out North America have been doing this in an effort to save their newest generation from death at the hands of pretty much the same things as the residents of Vigario Geral. But Anderson and his people have had no help from the governments; in fact they know they can't count on the government at all, so they do it on their own one person, one block and one neighbourhood at a time.

Naturally Favela Rising focuses on Anderson S� and his associates and their Afro-Reggae programming but the film makers, Mat Mochary and Jeff Zimbalist, have done a remarkable job of conveying exactly what the streets of Vigario Geral are like. Shooting from overhead and using long shots give you the sense of how stacked on top of each other everybody is, with houses crammed into every available space

The camera peeks into dark and dingy shelters in which the blue light of a TV might shine, as the inhabitant sits in the doorway staring with eyes that have been drained of hope. It's these incidental shots that are the ones that speak most powerfully about life here. The scenes of violence might be more viscerally thrilling but the weight of the look in people's eyes that is resigned to this being all there is, lives with you long after the cameras have left their presence.

The directors lived and filmed in the Favela on and off for two years. When they weren't there they left cameras behind with the Afro Reggae people to distribute among those students who had become proficient in their use. According to the film makers some of the most dynamic footage of the documentary comes from the work of these camera men and women who because of their situations were able to take cameras into places they wouldn't normally.

In order to tell the story properly the directors have interspersed file footage in amongst their own, and in it is where we are given the background on all the history of the Favela. They have also made wise use of talking head interviews with the principles involved in the Afro Reggae program to help tell the story of how they went from a small magazine to a cultural event that draws tens of thousands .

In a bonus feature on the DVD, a brief film about making the documentary, neither one of the filmmakers makes any bones about the fact that they are both friends with Anderson S�. So if you are looking for something that might pass for objective film making on this subject, this is not for you.

But if you are looking for a passionately told story of one community's attempt to throw off the shackles of poverty and violence. Not only do they succeed in helping themselves beyond their wildest hopes and dreams, they have now been approached to help start similar programs in Haiti and other areas in the Caribbean and South American.

I'm always wary of any movie that labels itself inspiring. If there is a more overused word in today's movie public relations game I've yet to see it in use. But if they want to ever show a movie that deserves to be described in those terms, thenFavela Rising is one movie I wouldn't ever argue about giving that honorific. On one final note, the investors in this film have agreed to donate 100% of net proceeds to Favela educational programming.

Just one more really good reason for buying this DVD..