Desicritics Category: Politics: Europe

Recycling Ships

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:40:55 EDT

Ships are living creatures. Ask any sailor and he will agree and he will further say that ships are feminine. That combination of steel, paint, oil, blood, sweat, tears, sand, sea, wind and waves can be nothing but feminine. But unlike ladies, when ships reach the end of their lives, they are treated rather brutally. They are driven up dirty, oily beaches, and then are ripped apart unceremoniously till the only sign that a living breathing ship ever existed would be some oil stained patches of sand and a heap of unidentifiable steel pieces. The process of recycling a ship in the countries such as India, Bangladesh, China etc. has been highlighted in the western media. For us poor innocents who saw those videos and photographs that entire process looks horrifyingly like the personification of Dante’s hell. So I went poking around.

First of all, do you think I am exaggerating? I am not. Here, take a look at some of these links on this ship breaking industry.

Ship breaking in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
The science behind the complaints
Two photo essays here and here.
A video essay here.

See what I mean by Dante’s hell? Naked feet treading over hot oily sand, breathing in noxious fumes, no safety equipment, clearly devastated ships, fires and sparks around the place, dark eyes and mud, earnings in the bottom layers and garbage pickers. It is indeed a hell on earth. But, according to some estimates, there are more than a million people across the world directly engaged in ship breaking. Almost 200,000 in Bangladesh itself.

And for very poor people in poor countries such as India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc., the fact that they have employment is important. It will make the difference between starvation and existing. But this thought seems to have passed people by. When people get shocked at the sight, think about why ships are not being broken up in the USA, UK, Japan, Greece or the shores of Italy? Well, we in the west have put in so many rules, regulations, laws, notifications and ordinances that recycling equipment is simply not cost effective to break up ships here especially when you have lower cost locations available. You have to wear special shoes, wear a gas mask, worry about decontamination of the ground and so on and so forth. And if you lose your job, you will always have a welfare cheque or you can move to another job.

But there are no such human health and safety or environmental requirements in Alang in Gujarat in India or in Chittagong in Bangladesh. And still people are glad to have those jobs. If you put in those requirements for gas masks and decontamination in Chittagong, then you know what will happen? The ships will go to Sierra Leone to be broken up. The 200,000 people in Bangladesh will starve because as you know, jobs or welfare cheques are not really that readily available there. So while you blanch at the nightmarish conditions, do look at the smiles on the faces as well, they are doing honest jobs which the west has made it uneconomic to do in their own lands. But here is the Greenpeace site, quite an interesting site to read. The judgement call to judge employment versus environment protection is very difficult to read and make. Not an easy one at all.

There is an international convention which bars the transfer of hazardous waste between countries. The full name is, Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. Quite a mouthful, eh? It was setup in 1992 and almost 170 countries have signed up to this declaration but it does not seem to be stopping the trade very much. An example of a successful usage of this convention to stop a dirty ship from landing on the shores of Pakistan or India was the case of the scrapping of the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau in 2006.

After a huge global protest campaign by Greenpeace who protested against the French violating the Basel Convention, the French decided not to send the ship to India to be broken up and the poor ship is currently tied up at the Naval port of Brest, gently rusting away. Quite a big victory, eh? It would have been if at exactly the same time, several other ships loaded with asbestos would not have been in the process of being broken up in Alang, India. And if no more French ships loaded with asbestos had landed in India. Or if Greenpeace had continued to campaign to make sure no more asbestos laden ships landed in Alang. But life goes on. An indication of the importance of this subject to Greenpeace can be seen at their main site for ship breaking. Notice the last date of update? It is early 2006. I suppose the camera’s and reporters have gone away but the labourers who are breaking the ships are still there.

The other main reason for scrapping in these countries is that they provide good quality steel at rock bottom prices. Bangladesh is notoriously lacking in raw commodity materials and by some estimates, this ship breaking industry provides up to 90% of the iron and steel usage in the country. Similarly, other countries utilise scrap steel in their domestic iron and steel industry. Have you sent the prices of steel recently? They have gone up through the roof. The Global Carbon Steel Composite Index has gone from 138.3 in February 2006 to 217 in March 2008. So for the poor countries that have to purchase steel, it makes more sense for them to get it in this way.

The European Union and the International Maritime Organisation seem to be working up the courage to implement a convention on doing pre-cleaning of the hazardous materials on the ships before they end up on the breakers beach and ship breaking in general. These hazardous materials are really bad, such as asbestos, dioxins, oil, chemicals, you name it. Now this is a very tricky area. And will be very difficult to implement. Who pays for the clean-up? Does the last owner of the ship pay for it? Does the owner of the last cargo on that ship pay for it? Who will enforce the ruling? Do you enforce the ruling where the ship has been tied up at the last port of call? Or where the ship has been registered? (Can you imagine a country like Liberia or Sierra Leone taking action?).

Or do you make sure that every cargo owner pays some element of the cargo fees aside for eventual cleanup? And if the fees are not paid, then where is the money to clean up going to come from? General taxation? Which general taxation? Do you wish this to be paid out of EU funds? Or national funds? If so, why would say Luxembourg have to pay for clean up of ships while it is totally landlocked? Who will enforce it? Do you change the penalties by size of the ship or by the cargo capacity of the ship? There are quite a lot of questions to be answered, but seems like some form of a convention will emerge and very slowly, with loads of holes and exclusions, take shape. Then countries will sign up slowly, the industry will shift its patterns, and over many decades or so, get to a stage where a global standard has been agreed, implemented, operationalised and policed. Long way to go yet. If you think I am joking, head over to the International Labour Organisation website and see the conventions they have written, the number of parties who have signed up and then look around to see if that has made much of a difference, these things take time.

I love ships, I adore their shapes and I love their behaviour. They are definitely human to me and could be the inner sailor in me speaking. They are definitely contrary, need to be handled very gently and carefully and very expensive to run. So much so that Admiral Chester Nimitz said, "A ship is always referred to as 'she' because it costs so much to keep one in paint and powder." Ships talk and murmur. Seriously, they do. Listen to them and you can listen to them talking, murmuring, creaking, screeching and whining. Not on those cruise ships, they are not ships, they are gaudy ornaments, sound proofed and carpeted all over. But a warship, a tanker, a container ship, a cargo vessel, serious vessels, who treat the sea warily and with respect, they talk to you.

Docks talk about ships taking birth in yards, joy you feel when the ship hits the water in the rush. It is very much like a human birth. Signing of the contract, the bringing together of men, materials and money in a womb like yard and the final birth as the ship rushes down and splashes into the water to be finally born. When a ship sinks and dies, it cries. Submariners who have torpedoed ships frequently talk about the sadness they feel when the ship dies. They talk about the haunting ship’s death groans when they hear the crumpling of the ships hull as it sinks down to the ocean depths.

But perhaps that is indeed the right grave for ships, the ocean depths. To be driven up a beach and then stripped naked, all the hull and steel cut away with flame torches, all the furniture and fittings unscrewed and unbolted, the oil drained away, till nothing is left but a patch of oil stained sand is somehow very distressing. But perhaps the fact that in the ship’s death, she has given back something to the humans who built and rode her while she was alive, makes the manner of her death worthwhile.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

Technorati Tags: India,Bangladesh,Pakistan,Turkey,China,European Union,Transportation,Shipping

Poetry: smiling crocodile

temporal — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:45:49 EDT

in the parched marshes
crocodiles have stopped
shedding tears
at the never ending
deir yassins as sleeping
dieties from
the past are invoked
they have to feed too
in darfur there are
no crocodiles left
we eagerly await
a saharan ronnie
kasrils to discover
fahimi zidan
conscience is the biggest
crocodile of all
bigger than most gods
                    asleep
as we tuck our kids
with a kiss on the
                    forehead
after the bed time
stories we look
under our beds
for hidden reptiles
and satisfied go
                    to sleep
before the jaw closes
once i want to ask
the crocodile if
i can have a word
                    with his god

African Union Troops Help Take Back Anjouan, Comoros

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:58:36 EDT

I am not sure how many of you know but there is a wee bit of a war going on in a tiny corner of the world in the Indian Ocean (See here for a bit of a background to this war). So some of the regional African heavies got together, threw their weight around, created an army and went to kick out the chaps who declared independence. Now this step was very interesting for so many reasons. But as usual, I had some stupid questions:

So this step was carried out without UN blessings. How many of the howlers at the Iraq war out there are howling equally at this imperialistic step? Speak up, guys, I cannot hear you loud and clear. ...
So this was a dump on a secessionist self-determination exercise. How many of the secessionist self-determinist howlers are howling equally at this step? Hello? Can't hear you.
So Anjouan declared independence. I must have missed the announcements of recognition by the USA, Germany, UK etc. just like they did for Kosovo. Where are the police forces and aid convoys from the EU?
When is the African Union going to deal in a similar way with Congo, Zimbabwe, Darfur, Sudan, Somalia, Morocco, Western Sahara?
Typically, Anjouan is the island which is most economically active and rich. So this is basically a fight over resources - it was the people who do not have money who went to kick out the people who have money because the people who have money were refusing to pay the people without money.
The country was sent to the dogs by some exceedingly stupid economic policies of the state-directed kind. Who will repair this and provide aid to fix these issues? The invasion has immediately mucked up the economics of that island for the next many years anyway. The only basis remaining is, whoops, we mucked up again, because of our political, economic and military policies, our people are AGAIN starving, please help with money, food, equipment. (Tens of coups since independence, welcome to paradise on earth.)

Thinking about all these questions, the quote "is hammam me hum saab nange" (In this bathhouse we are all naked) comes to mind. All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Kosovo's Independence - The Emperor is Wearing Albanian Clothes

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:09:54 EST

Kosovo has declared independence on the 3rd Sunday of February, 2008 and the expectation is that it will be recognized by USA, UK and many other countries immediately. As soon as these western powers do recognize Kosovo as an independent country, it will immediately cause a huge dislocation in the fabric of all other separatist terrorist campaigns, their supporters and the states/groups who oppose them. We have examples ranging from the Turkish, Iranian, Syrian or Iranian Kurds, Northern Irish Catholics, Palestine, Malaysian Indians, Kashmiri Muslims, Naga’s etc. in India, Thai Muslims, Sri Lankan Tamils, Darfurians against Arab Sudanese to the Turkish Cypriots. This will make the international political scenario very complicated and the hypocrisy galore of almost all countries will be exposed. How so? Well, let us take a look.

First, a brief look at Kosovo. The country, which can be said to be part of the Bulgarian (Christian) Empire, became part of the Byzantine Empire in 1018 AD. The local Slavs fought against the Byzantines and then finally became independent in 1208 but not for long. Then the Ottomans came in 1389 and the epic battle of Kosovo happened, something that has been seared into people’s minds. This battle is at the same level of the Battle of Hastings for the English, the Battle of Panipat for the Indians, the Battle of Karbala and the Battle of Badr for the Muslims, etc. That battle defined what Serbia is, the leaders of the Serb armies were even canonised as saints!. But to no avail, over the next hundred or so years, the Ottoman’s won and Islamisation happened rapidly till the 1871 when Serbian Nationalism again arose. Wars happened, the Turks ethnically cleansed a very large number of Slavs from Kosovo and it was a big fur ball but by the end of the 19th century, effectively, the land of the Serbs was now the land of the Albanians.

Then in 1912, the Balkan wars broke out again, and this time, the Serbs won, did a re-colonisation of Kosovo, and the Albanians moved out. Then the World War 1 broke out which ended in a confused mess. In 1929, the kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed lasting till 1941 when the Italians invaded and then again after some confused too’ing and fro’ing, the republic of Yugoslavia was formed. Now the Albanians lived under the atrocious and horrible regime of Hoxha in Albania proper, and for them, Kosovo was a paradise. So all the Serbian re-colonisation and wars were frankly useless as the population of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo rose rapidly to the low 90% by the late 1970’s.

Then the Slobodan Milošević phenomena happened and all hell broke loose. Whether he was personally to blame or whether he was just a conduit for long festering religious/ethnic tensions will be long debated, but Yugoslavia broke apart into civil war, ethnic cleansing and genocide. The Kosovo problem is just one step in the still to be completed Balkan saga. After the Bosnian war, the attention of the Serbs turned to Kosovo and then the Albanians reacted, peacefully first and then violently. Horrible atrocities were carried out by both sides and then the Serbs got pounded by NATO who stepped into the breach on behalf of the Albanians. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Albanians were ethnically cleansed, thousands were killed, and it even degenerated to destruction of churches and mosques.

Now, under UN guardianship, the situation is that the Kosovo Albanians are confident enough to declare independence. The rights or wrongs of the actual decision are beyond this essay, but the point is, that this fight for independence is being waged under the guidance and approval of the West. Mainly Europe and America and they will recognize the independence of Kosovo immediately and they are the people who are providing the military, police and economic cover to the Kosovars. While countries like Serbia (naturally!), Russia, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania are also the doubters and countries who will not recognize an independent Kosovo.

So what does this mean for other insurgencies, terrorist campaigns and separatist movements? Let us take things within Europe first. Well, the Northern Ireland issue is calming down rapidly so I am not very sure how much it will impact them, but if the protestant/Anglican minority in Northern Ireland or in mainland UK do decide to stall the peace process, this is definitely a way out for the Catholic politicians to declare unilateral independence as an interim way to get to full union with Ireland. Will Scotland use the same mechanism? I do not think so. How about Wales? Nope, it will not. But the Basque in Spain will and can definitely claim this precedent to demand their own homeland.

How about the demands of the far right in Northern Italy? No? How about the very dangerous and frankly hypocritical stance in Northern Cyprus? That statelet is recognised by the Turks and only Turks. Why is Europe not recognising Northern Cyprus as an independent country? See? No response and no comment. Hypocrisy galore. No, actually they are liars, for lying to the Turkish Cypriots, but then, hypocritical lies come very easily to certain people. So the much vaulted principled foreign policy, the speeches about democracy and ethical treatment.

So if that is the case of how to deal with separatist cases, how will the EU/USA work with the other members of the Quartet on the Palestinian case? Will they provide another 2000 members of a stabilisation force to help settle and provide security to the Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank? A similar situation will come up when we talk about Kashmiri Muslims, the Sri Lankan Tamils, Darfurians, and so on and so forth. Will the USA agree on the Puerto Rican struggle for independence? Or how about the Hawaiian struggle? For that matter, would the American Civil War have happened? Curious when these kinds of decisions are extrapolated wider and back in time.

Another question that arises is what happens when the minority becomes the majority? What happens to the minorities in the now majority country? The tragic situation is that the new minority always suffers. Look at what has happened to Pakistan and Bangladesh, two countries created for being the homeland of Muslims. This invariably meant that the minorities of Christians and Hindu’s have their numbers rapidly reduced. Similarly, we have seen the situation in Palestine where the Christians have been emigrating or being terrorised to a great extent. We saw this behaviour in Bosnia where the various minorities, which became the majority, in turn oppressed the minorities.

So here’s the other question to NATO. If the ethnic Albanian Kosovars now oppress the ethnic Serbs as it will happen, will NATO bomb the ethnic Albanians? Or will the EU police force be in there for the next 200 years? Or what? It is very clear that it will not do so and more hypocrisy is very clear on part of the Western Powers. This is the reason why all these high sounding principles are frankly distasteful when you hear from these politicians. Not surprising, specially when you remember that these politicians are the inheritors of the same tradition which has managed to carry out two world wars, innumerable genocides and centuries of warfare and colonisation. Fifty years of civilisation and soft EU power is too short a time for the hypocrisy and naked ambition to breed out. Watch out for more hypocritical statements emanating from these politicians, especially for places such as Northern Cyprus. In this case, the Western Emperor is currently wearing Albanian clothes.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!

Caesar Augustus - An August Personality

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 3 Feb 2008 01:55:52 EST

Julius Caesar is very well known in the world, his history, his deeds and wars. The month July was named after him, but how many people know about the Caesar Augustus who had the following month named after him? In many ways, Augustus left a deeper imprint on the world than Julius did. And despite being a total out and out imperialist, he understood the concept of institutions and drove it forward. The man, who can arguably be said to be the father of Western Civilisation, is not well known at all. Let us explore this fascinating man who still influences you and me.

As usual, this essay came forth via several strands. The first was the BBC TV Series ROME which is a brilliant overview of Julius Caesar’s life. The second was a masterful best seller biography (in a series) by Colleen McCullough which I have devoured over the past few years religiously. The last thread was when we were driving around in Northern Italy this summer. We drove on a bridge across a small stream and I mentioned off-hand to my son that this is the famous Rubicon River, which lead to a short history, civics, anthropology, sociology and economics lesson. While I was expounding, he had dropped off to sleep which rather put paid to my lecture (a frequent occurrence, I must admit!) Finally, I received a great book by Anthony Everitt entitled, The First Emperor, Caesar Augustus and the Triumph of Rome, on my birthday which I also devoured hungrily (incidentally, quite a lot of factual information in this essay is from this highly recommended book).

But that led me to think a bit more about the impact he has had on our world. By and large, he was a larger than life character. He exploded on the Roman scene and over his lifetime, starting from the time he was Pontiflex Maximus to the Dictator for Life, he did not really leave behind much besides death and destruction. He built for himself not for posterity. But the strangeness that is humankind, we remember him rather than the rather quiet Caesar Augustus who followed him and who actually influenced posterity in many more ways than Julius Caesar ever did. Julius Caesar invaded Long Haired Gaul and besides killing off more than a million Gauls, also mucked about with other countries ranging from Spain, Britain, to Greece and Egypt.

Just as an aside, but related to the Roman Empire, I am continuously struck by how the Mediterranean Culture is much stronger than say the Arab Culture even now. Whether we are talking about Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, on a longer term basis, they are more European than Arab/Muslim as of now. I wonder if that is why there is always that schism between the Gulf Arabs and the non-Gulf Arabs and whether the cultural, religious, linguistic and economic difference is due to the impact of the ancient Roman Empire (and perhaps the influence of Greek Thought).

But it was Caesar Augustus who first centralized power across all the Roman Regions and Buffer Kingdoms (whether we are talking about Britain or Egypt or Armenia). He was the first person who got legislative approval to actually be able to review and control the Pro-Consular regional representatives appointed by the Senate. He is the ruler who drove a political system that survived for more than five hundred years. This consolidation of power and establishment of political institutions can be rightfully said to be the basis for Western Political Thought and civilisation.

How about his masterful wielding of power, discreetly behind the scenes? Now love him or hate him, but you have to admire his propensity to single handedly wield power over one of the largest and most complex empires known to man. And he did not even call himself as a Dictator or an Emperor. He was simply the First Citizen. He was also honoured with the title of “Father of the Roman Nation” and perhaps that was his biggest achievement. Bear in mind that he would go to the Senate and People to get his power renewed. Now you might quibble over it, but he still did show that the people were supreme, even over a man like him.

The man lived in interesting times (with due apologies to the Chinese). He was the anointed successor to Julius Caesar. He worked with and then defeated Mark Antony and managed that arch manipulator and ruthless queen Cleopatra very smoothly. He was the father (adoptive) to Tiberius, that next famous Caesar and ruthlessly hunted down and killed all the assassins of Julius Caesar including the idealistic but confused man, Brutus.

Despite being the richest man in the world of his time, he lived simply with his wife of more than fifty years in a small set of rooms in the Palatine Hills of Rome. I have not have had the pleasure of seeing his rooms from the inside but I have seen them from the outside and found them to be spectacularly insignificant. If you stand down in the Forum with your back to the Palatine Hills, tune out the incessant chattering and clicking of the tourists, and slowly revolve around in a 270 degree arc, you can very well feel absolutely amazed that this tiny place, with mouldy buildings, columned corridors, and marbled portico’s, controlled a giant empire. And Caesar Augustus established several of those buildings himself.

He was a strange man indeed. He was not like Julius Caesar with his genius and political brilliance (which killed him in the end as he was not able to compromise - a vital element in politics). He realised the difference between conquering a territory, ruling it and winning the hearts and minds of the people. His continuous issues with Germania and the tribes in the lands bounded by the Elbe, Rhine and Danube showed that he learnt his lesson. He did not over-reach himself with the Germanic tribes, but applied those lessons within the Roman Empire itself by developing the political body and nudging and forcing people to take part in political institutions.

He was a physical coward, who suffered psychosomatic fevers during military campaigns, but forced himself to be brave, facing down violent mobs and plunging into battles to prove his bravery. He was clear on the use of force, but also knew that his basic power rested on the famous Roman Legions. And Proconsul Publius Quinctilius Varus, who managed to get his three legions massacred in Germania, was cursed by Augustus for long periods of time. I found that image so evocative, Augustus banging his head on doors and plaintively crying out ”Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions”. The September day was then called as an unlucky day, a day of mourning.

He knew the use of force, the cost of a standing army and the costs of imperialism. After the civil war, he drastically pruned his standing army to just the bare minimum number of legions required to keep peace on the boundaries. And it was that bare minimum of legions which made him react so badly to the loss of the three legions in Lower Saxony in Germany because it blew a hole in his finely crafted and balanced military – political framework.

He drove himself and other rich men to provide civic services ranging from fire services to temples to employment generation schemes. Rome, at that time, did not have a bureaucracy or a confirmed political class outside the Senate. He extended and bedded down the participation of people in the political and civic world thereby establishing the institutional framework that we see these days of political parties, civic bodies, charitable institutions, etc.

Caesar Augustus was a master in news management and while managing news by sponsoring poets and artists like Horace, Virgil and Livy, he also tolerated people who spoke against him. But before you think that I think he is a God (even thought he was deified like Julius Caesar), the chap was a randy old goat, shagging anything and everything available. He was a hypocrite to the core by proposing moral, family and behavioural laws in public, but being anything but inside the family. His treatment of the women of his family would be appalling to anybody who reads about how he treated them in the case of their marriages. But it was perfectly normal at that time for a paterfamilias to think of women as basically political counters. And that showed another inconsistency within himself. While pushing for republicanism, legalism and constitutionalism, he was a dynast out and out, by working on his successors, options for heirs and spares, over a very long period of time. In fact, he even managed to adopt his wife as his daughter thereby recognising her contribution to the great Roman Empire and his work after his death.

The long term planning was amazing for a man who lived two centuries ago; he was putting into place plans for his successors which were measured in the decades, at a time when life expectancy was measured in the maximum of thirty years years, he would lay plans which would mature ten to twenty years later. But he would be amazingly flexible, when his grandsons died; he smoothly changed his plans to incorporate his stepsons into the dynastic plans. When Tiberius, his elder stepson refused to fall into his plans, Augustus worked on Tiberius for more than ten years before his plans worked out.

He was very clear about his limitations. He knew that he was no military genius, so he pushed hard for his childhood friend, Agrippa, to lead almost all of his military campaigns, whether in the East or in the West. And he had no compunction or issues in sharing power with Agrippa. Agrippa had equal power in the East as Augustus had in the West. This negates those critics who point to his inability to share power such as in the Second Triumvirate with Mark Antony and Lepidus. And he knew that he cannot manage this vast empire on his own, so he explicitly and deliberately educated his sons and stepsons to learn about how to manage political careers, religious offices and military campaigns.

He was disciplined, very disciplined and this came out on both the good and bad sides. Given his constant health issues, he was disciplined in his diet and would take regular exercise. On the other hand, the emotional discipline that he maintained meant that he could exile his darling daughter ruthlessly for being promiscuous and immoral.

At end of the day, he was a statesman who established institutions which still exist, he encouraged moral behaviour and established identities which still resonate across the world, whether in the form of urban planning, religious ceremonies and institutions, philanthropic and charitable institutions, liberal democracy, republicanism, constitutionalism, economics, sociology, news management, and a whole host of other factors that human civilisation currently takes for granted.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!

Technorati Tags: Book Review,Italy,History

The Tata Nano: The Second Coming or Satan's Car?

Amrita Rajan — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:40:31 EST

So this is what the Apocalypse looks like. Tata Motors unveiled their long-in-the-works project, nicknamed the People’s Car due to its ex-showroom price of Rs. 100,000, and received what Reuter’s calls a “pop star welcome“. Sure, the most hated pop star in the world.

When Tata security personnel weren’t trying to save the new Nano from a fate worse than death (”Please don’t scratch the paint!”), they were keeping an eye out for all the protesters from Greenpeace (”Cut CO2 emissions”) and NGOs representing the West Bengal farming community (”Subsidised by farmers’ blood"). I really have to pause here and inform Greenpeace that their slogan writers are obviously crap and they need to get in touch with some NGOs pronto. This is India, we like to express our sorrow with something catchy.

Debate on the merry interwebs, as evidenced by this discussion on a fairly innocuous NYT blog post, rages from the prosaic (”Good luck finding a square inch to drive it on”) to the racist (”Dumb Indian choo-choo car”) to the patriotic (”I now feel validated as an Indian because an Indian company proved it can make cheaper stuff than the Chinese”) to the hilarious (”Tata comes from Gujarat and Nano means 'small' in Gujarati so Apple can stop drawing up its legal papers”) to the environmentally conscious (”We shall all DIE of pollution when the poor in their millions get their hands on this infernal vehicle”).

[Please note all quotes in the above paragraph were paraphrased by me because the original comments sucked on the same level as Greenpeace’s pitiful attempts at sloganeering. In other words, don’t be outraged if you go over to the NYT and can't find exact quotes.]

Anyway, apart from the Singur controversy, where Tata stands accused of initiating the crimes carried out by the West Bengal government by the simple fact of its existence, the main thrust of the arguments are as follows:

PRO - It’s a marvel of engineering! The world will never be the same again! Tata rocks! The car has been reinvented again! And also, Jesus, Vishnu, Moses, Mohammad and the Buddha called and said this was the best they could have hoped for humanity. Amen.

CON - It’s a disaster of unimaginable levels! Civilization as we know it has come to an end! Tomorrow we shall wake up and find ourselves choking to death! Polar bears will drown, whales will be eaten and tigers will end up as Viagra. I hope you’re all happy, doing Satan’s work!

Truth, like always, is somewhere in the middle.

On the one hand, where the hell do any of us get off making the case that cars should remain a luxury? Ratan Tata might be indulging in a PR exercise but he’s got a point when he says there are tons of families out there who’re making do with extremely unsafe modes of transportation because they can’t afford safer alternatives. Anybody who’s seen a woman balance a tiny baby on her lap while clinging to her husband as they sit on his bike and make their way through bumper-to-bumper traffic has a lot of nerve arguing that that couple ought to stick with their bike so that the rest of us, with more money in our bank accounts, can swan around in our air conditioned cars.

Of course, this is not what a lot of people are saying. They’re making entirely valid points about congestion, pollution and sustainability. But they’re directing their ire at the wrong target. There isn’t a single company on this planet that holds the sole solution to these problems. Collectively, however, we all do. And it is the responsibility of all our governments to make sure that the task of saving our planet falls equally on all our shoulders. It is again the government - and in India, I’d like to remind you, we follow that fabulous system of a government that’s by the people - that needs to improve infrastructure. They should do that irrespective of whether or not the Tata Nano is launched because we pay our taxes for a reason but the introduction of the Nano means that they have an added incentive.

By targeting a company that is releasing a product meant for the less privileged, you’re automatically setting yourself up for charges of elitism and discrimination. It doesn’t matter if your points are made of gold and come wrapped in diamonds that magically nourish the starving who lay eyes on it - the moment you start saying giving poor people access to something is bad, you’re automatically the bad guy.

Sunita Narain of the CSE seems to have got that much when she said her organization wasn't particularly against the Nano, which she hailed as an aspirational product. But she also said the fact that Tata Motors makes about 10 buses a month is an indication of where their priorities lie - because, you know, all that's keeping public transport from becoming a success is Tata's refusal to up the production numbers. The people who're supposed to place the orders, draw up strict rules for the conduct of those same buses and enforce strict emission standards on them - they're completely beside the point, apparently. [The title of that piece, by the way, suggests that she said her organization is against all cars - a statement that wasn't evident in the piece itself but if she actually said that then it's comedy on an entirely different level.]

As for the actual safety and environmental concerns, I’d say wait and watch. The thing won’t even come out till September so all this hysteria is a bit previous. A lot depends on the final product and the word of mouth publicity it receives. If it’s a bad product, if it’s rickety or unsafe, it won’t sell. It could be priced for a fraction its projected cost but people won’t buy it if it doesn’t work to their satisfaction.

Tata also says that it meets emission norms and surpasses them even - I don’t know enough about cars or the science of making them to call bullshit or not, so I’ll reserve judgment until I learn something one way or the other. And as far the terror in numbers goes - well, what did you expect? Didn’t any of you come across the terms “upward mobility” and “aspirational” before? They’ve been talking about the burgeoning middle class for years now: how did you think it would relate to real world terms?

I’d also like to note here that if Tata has indeed exceeded the emission norms, it’s done something very smart. A number of people are lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that India’s carbon footprint has thus far proven to be much less than that of the First World’s in spite of the growing hysteria around the question, “What of India and China? They’re going to take all the gas and turn it into CO2 - just like us but with slanted eyes and head wobbling!” We’ve been afforded the luxury of being able to learn from the mistakes of others and in my view, we ought to jump at it with both feet. We should be looking at stuff like the Pivo 2 and trying to beat that instead of the Maruti 800.

Because the truth is also that the Nano isn’t some miracle of modern engineering. It’s a miracle of Indian ingenuity. It’s an exercise in cost-cutting and a gamble on eventual returns.

In the midst of all the hype, this much is very true: change is on the way.

Strangulating Freedom of Expression - Islamic Historical Perspectives

Alamgir Hussain — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:00:48 EST

Mr. Tahir Aslam Gora, driven out of Pakistan for his critical-of-Islam writings, wrote in The Hamilton Spectator on December 13 that freedom of expression has deteriorated even in the liberal West from what it was in Mecca during Prophet Muhammad’s time 15 centuries ago. Referring to the example of hounding of Bangladeshi humanist author Taslima Nasrin by unruly Muslim mob and an Islamic death-fatwa on her head, in Hindu-majority secular India, he wrote:

“Prophet Muhammad exercised his rights of freedom of expression in his full capacity by challenging the prevailing beliefs of the time and calling them mere lies. Despite the opposition to his claims, he had open and huge support from his allies. But today, in a so-called liberal and enlightened world, challenging some Islamic beliefs is not that easy.”

Mr. Gora is absolutely correct in stressing that Muhammad enjoyed a high degree of freedom of expression, but he fails to mention that Muhammad had killed other rights to freedom of expression at the same time. Mr. Gora is correct that Muhammad took full freedom in saying whatever he wanted about the religion, custom and forefathers of the Pagan Quraysh of Mecca. Muslim chronicler Baihaki records (in Proof of Prophecy) Muhammad’s disciple Amru ibn al-Aas’s testimony of Quraysh leaders’ discussion about Muhammad one day:

“Never have we had to tolerate from anyone what we have had to tolerate from this man. He slanders our fathers, criticizes our religions and divides our people, and blasphemes our gods. Such grievous things have we tolerated from this man…” The Prophet who was nearby and hearing this conversation, he responded, “Men of Quraysh! I will surely repay you for this with interest.”

Islamic historian al-Zuhri adds:

“The unbelievers of the Quraysh did not oppose what he [Muhammad] said. If he passed the place where they sat together, they pointed to him and said: “This young man of the tribe of Abd al-Muttalib proclaims a message from heaven!” This they continued to do until Allah began to attack their gods…, and until He proclaimed that their fathers who died in unbelief were lost [to hellfire]. Then they began to hate the Prophet and show their enmity to him.”

In trying to prevent Muhammad’s insults, the Quraysh sat with him in their sacred shrine of Ka’ba in 615 C.E. and requested him to desist from reviling and speaking evilly of their Gods. They offered to worship his God for one year, if Muhammad would reciprocate by worshipping theirs for the same period. In rejection, he responded [Q 109:1-6]: “Oh unbelievers, I worship not that which ye worship… To you your religion and to me my religion.”

In sum, Prophet Muhammad preached his religion in Mecca for 13 years insulting their Gods, customs, and ancestors and never did he receive any physical assaults of serious nature if at all. In 622, seeing no hope of progress of his stagnated mission in Mecca, the Prophet emigrated with all his disciples to Medina where his creed was making brisk progress.

After his relocation, Muhammad called the treatment of his community by the Quraysh “tumult and oppression,” which was in turned deemed “worse than slaughter.” In revenge, the Islamic deity revealed a series of verses, sanctioning Holy war against the Quraysh [Q 2:190-193], until the religion was Allah’s [Islam] alone. Muslims must slay the idolaters [the Quraysh] wherever found [2:193]. They must fight the infidels even if they did not like it, because Allah only knows what is best for them [Q 2:216]. They must “fight in Allah’s cause, and slay and be slain” [Q 9:111].

With Allah’s sanction of Holy wars against the Quraysh, Prophet started sending Muslim horsemen to raid caravans of the Quraysh, starting in the seventh month after his relocation. After three failed attempts by his disciples, the Prophet himself commanded three expeditions, which also went in vain. In the eighth attempt, they achieved success at Nakhla, in which, one Meccan attendant of the caravan was killed; two were taken prisoners; and the fourth escaped. This first successful Jihad raid brought much-needed booty. The prisoners brought more revenue through ransom. The Prophet, being the leader of the bandit, took 1/5 share for booty.

The following month, the Prophet led another expedition to plunder a rich caravan returning from Syria under the care of Meccan leader Abu Sufian. This led to the famous battle of Badr, in which the Quraysh suffered a heavy defeat. They lost 70 men and another 70 were captured as prisoners, while Muhammad’s party lost only 14 Jihadists.

A few of the prisoners were cruelly beheaded at Muhammad’s instruction. One of them was the Meccan poet Al-Nadr bin al-Harith, who distrusting Muhammad’s messages, used to say: “By God, Muhammad cannot tell a better story than I, and his talk is only of old fables which he has copied as I have.” Instead of ransoming him like other prisoners, Muhammad ordered his execution.

This massive bloodbath, rare in Arabia―that too, of their own kinsfolk―caused much revulsion among the people. Abu Afak, an elderly poet of 120 years of age, wrote poetic verses condemning the cruelty of Muhammad. Muhammad ordered the poet’s execution. One of Muhammad disciple slyly entered Afak’s house at night and dispatched him in his sleep [Ibn Ishaq, Oxford, Karachi, p675].

In condemnation of the elderly poet’s death, Asma bte Marwan, a poetess and mother of five, wrote verses denouncing Muhammad’s heinous act. Muhammad ordered her execution, too. His blind disciple named Umayr, belonging to Asma’s tribe, entered her house one night, removed her suckling baby from her bosom and plunged his sword into her breast with such force that it got stuck onto the couch. Prophet thanked Umayr for the job well-done [Ibn Ishaq, p675-6]: “You have helped God and His apostle, O 'Umayr.” The blind assassin for his great service received the honorific, ‘Umayr the Seeing.’

Another famous poet to fall pray to Muhammad’s sword was Ka’b ibn Ashraf, a Jew. Hearing about Muhammad’s victory at Badr, he traveled there. Witnessing the ghastly bloodbath, he traveled down to Mecca, and wrote a poem, lamenting over the dead Quraysh and inveighing Muhammad’s unjustified barbarity.

Once reached Muhammad’s ear, he said [Ibn Ishaq, p367]: “Who would rid me of [Ka’b] Ibnu'l-Ashraf?” Muhammad’s disciples, including Abu Naila and a foster brother of Ka’b, volunteered for the job. The assassins, with permission from Muhammad, befriended Ka’b by saying bad things about the Prophet. Then on one moonlit night, Abu Naila went to Ka’b house calling him to come out to devise some plan to counter Muhammad. Ka’b’s newly married wife warned him: “By God, I can feel evil in his voice.” Ka'b answered to his wife: “Even if the call were for a stab, a brave man must answer it.” Then he went out with Abu Naila, who enticed him to go walking around while talking about their plan. A pleasant little proposal on a moonlit night as it was, Ka’b came along. Once gotten at the right place, Abu Naila and his four accomplices fell upon the naïve poet with their swords and dagger and butchered him. Al-Tabari records, they brought Ka’b’s head to Muhammad and the Prophet duly thanked them for their service to Allah.

When Muhammad captured Mecca in 630 CE and destroyed the idol Gods of Ka’ba, he ordered execution of 10-12 men who had criticized, apostatized from, or overtly opposed his creed. Among them, were two singing girls, who had composed songs ridiculing Muhammad’s messages more than a decade earlier during Muhammad’s preaching in Mecca.

Ibn Ishaq [p368] adds that the “attack upon God's enemy [Ka’b] cast terror among the Jews, and there was no Jew in Medina who did not fear for his life.” Indeed, it had struck terror in the hearts of the poets and critics. No one, who lived within his reach and aware of these incidents, probably never dared composing anything critical of the Prophet thereafter.

The Prophet took utmost liberty of the tolerant Arab society in disparaging the religions, customs and ancestors of the Quraysh in any way he liked and still enjoyed complete safety in Mecca for 13 years. He freely converted the citizens of Mecca, but he ordered execution of the ones who apostatized from his creed.

In Medina as a refugee, he tried to attract the powerful and wealthy Jews to his creed. Once rejected, he took the liberty of disparaging their creed, calling it perverted and canceled by Allah and still enjoyed complete safety. But just for a poem of Ka’b, he ordered his execution.

The next day, he announced an open order to kill the Jews [Al-Tabari, Vol. VII, p97]: “Whoever of the Jews fall into you hand, kill him.” One unfortunate Jewish merchant named ibn Sunayna happened to fall on the way of Muhayyisah―a convert from the same tribe. Muhayyisah’s family was dependent on the generosity of ibn Sunayna. Still, the fanatic barbarian fell upon the unfortunate merchant and killed him. When his elder brother confronted him citing the generosity of the merchant and coming hardship to their family―the mindless fanatic warned the brother that he would kill him too, had Muhammad instructed so.

Muslims of our civilized world today take the freedom and liberty and proudly distribute, in the idolatrous country of India, their holy book, which demand killing the idolatrous Hindus, wherever they are found [Q 2:191; 9:5]. But when a poet or writer another book criticizing the unacceptable content of the book; her/his life is there for taking by the Muslim mob. Even when Taslima Nasrin says softly point out the obvious fact that Islam oppresses the women, her life is threatened by blood-thirsty Muslim mob.

Muslim refugees of the Western country take all the liberty and freedom to preach Islam, and distribute their holy book among the Christians and Jews of those countries that calls the scriptures of the latter to be corrupted, perverted and cancelled. It denies and condemns many percepts of the Bible, including the divinity of Jesus ― the central belief of the Christians. Quran also urges unconditional war against and subjugation of the Jews and Christians to subhuman dhimmi subjects [Q 9:29].

But when a critic, Salman Rushdie for example, writes a book doubting the claims of Muhammad, his life is there for the taking. If a Hindu, Jew or Christian openly tries to preach their creed to Muslims in countries like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Iran or any other Muslim country―He/she faces death, assaults and jail by the authority or the Muslim mob.

Muhammad had killed the freedom of expression of the highly tolerant Arab society, save his own, 14 centuries ago. After his death, Muslims have killed freedom of expression of others wherever they have gone. Like their refugee Prophet in Medina, the supersensitive and intolerant Muslim refugees are successfully undermining the freedom of expression at every step in Western countries ― the only frontier which allows it by law today.

Some More Thoughts on Immigration

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 05:33:14 EST

I was reading Michael Skapinker's note about Immigration. I think he is making the wrong argument. Basically he is saying that a points-based immigration system will keep out entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Marks or Philip Green as none of them have a degree. I have three problems with this argument.

1. This is episodic hindsight proof. You select 5 billionaires and say that if you adopt a rule that only lets you in if you have a degree, then you would exclude those 5. Well, if you go back to say 1970 when Steve Jobs created the Apple I, then you figure out how many unemployed students with no college education would you have to let into the country every year since 1970 to show that you can develop that ONE Steve Jobs today? The figure would run into hundreds of millions. So for every Steve Jobs, how many students with no collegiate education do not become billionaires? 1:100,000,000? assuming roughly 3 million students per year?

2. If you do not have a points-based system, on what other basis would you let them in? Blood or birth based citizenship has major issues and have racism or overt ethnic or religious or or or discrimination based overtones. So this is the best way out of all the bad ways to run an immigration system.

3. Plus if you invite college graduates, then you have a better than average chance that they will not rely on the public purse, will be tax payers, might be professional and may be more apt to create companies. So yes, I agree that its better to have college graduates than an open one. Remember in my previous note, I did say that immigration depresses wages of the lower blue collar natives, so you need to protect them!.

Finally an indirectly related point. There was quite a brouhaha about 120,000 Brits who were emigrating every year while 500,000 were immigrating. So I thought, people who leave are people who do not have hope in the country or do not like the weather or get married elsewhere or get another job somewhere else etc. etc.. People who come are people who have hope in the future and trust in the country, think that the bad weather, hospitals, transport, etc. is worth it to come here to work, get married, live, retire, setup businesses, etc. So

1. As long as there is net immigration, its good for the country

2. Use this faith and hope to provide them seed capital, working capital, education, and get them to generating value quickly!

3. You can't figure out who will be the next Bill Gates but all a Government can do is to provide figurative land and fertiliser, seeds and farming will be done by farmers, so best get educated people.

Technorati Tags: Immigration , United Kingdom

France At A Crossroads

Mayank Singhania — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:30:25 EDT

It’s been a long time since I blogged, and I never thought I would be blogging sitting in Paris, France. Well I have to sit, as I have walked more than 10 km today. The walk was interesting and enjoyable, given the beautiful weather and the even more beautiful Parisian architecture to admire. But I did not walk the distance so that I can talk about the weather or beautiful buildings (there might be a post on that too, you never know). I was forced to walk to my college in Paris because of a train strike, which brings me to the topic I wish to address today.

Strike? In France? Isn’t France supposed to be a capitalist country? (Did I take some of our communist friends from Calcutta with me?) I had the same perception of France when I left India a month ago. I have been trying to understand French politics, its people and a bit of its history, and I am surprised that France has at all been capitalist. The people and successive governments in France have adopted socialistic policies. Unions in France are very strong; the right to strike, vacation, pension and social security are almost sacrosanct. Privatisation is a bad word, and people really don’t trust corporations. Perhaps the only thing capitalistic about France is that it recognizes the right to private property.

The French economy isn’t doing too well, and there are reasons for that. European integration has lead to free movement of goods, capital and people. Capital has migrated out of France in search of lower wages, people have moved into France in search of higher wages and goods have found higher prices. Unemployment and illegal immigration are just the tip of the iceberg of French problems. In order to solve the unemployment issue, France had adopted a rather, ahem, “interesting” policy of mandatory 35-hour work weeks for all employees in France. (While some employment was created in the process, the labour bills of many French companies shot up and they are struggling to be competitive today). Economic growth has been sluggish (hovering around 2%) and inflation is up, especially since the introduction of Euro in France.

France pays great retirement benefits to all employees, which are taken out of the taxes collected annually (France doesn’t have a pension fund). With an aging populace, fewer people are working every year (to pay taxes) while more number of people get added to the retired list (to enjoy pension and retirement benefits). To add to its woes, France also has one of the earliest retirement ages in all of Europe, and also allows earlier retirement (than the retirement age) in many jobs. This allows some people to pay taxes for fewer years than period of their retirement benefits. The retirement benefits have led to some fiscal disarray. To further complicate matters, taxation is a taboo subject in French politics. Being a part (rather a founder) of the European Union, France is obliged to exercise fiscal discipline, keeping its fiscal deficit under control. France needs to cut down its spending on retirement benefits.

Against this backdrop, the last elections in France were held. Nicholas Sarkozy, the current president of France won the elections with a slogan of “Rupture”, which was telling the people that we need to change our ways drastically, if we wish to grow. Any person would be forgiven for saying that Sarkozy could not have won the election. Sarkozy is the son of an Hungarian immigrant and his promises included taking away benefits rather than extending benefits to the people. Sarkozy promised sweeping reforms and gave slogans like “Work more to earn more” to the vacation-loving French. However, Sarkozy had proved his mettle as interior minister during the riots that raged through Paris last year. More surprising than his victory was the popularity- ratings that he enjoyed after the polls. Sarkozy had effectively managed to get the people of France to agree in principle that change was needed in the way things had traditionally been done in France, which by itself was no small achievement.

Sarkozy, along with his labour minister Xavier Bertrand have started trying to implement their promises, and the first task they took on was taking away the early retirement option extended to rail employees, firemen and electricity workers in France. This has led to the strike with which I began my blog. This is the first crisis for Sarkozy, and for the first time in ages, there has been an unpopular strike in France. How things shape up after this may decide the future course of French politics for years to come.

I had the option of skipping my classes, but one of the reasons I chose to walk to my institute was to show solidarity with Nicholas Sarkozy, for I believe he is a man who can set things right in France. I’ll be leaving France in December, but it is always great to see a politician strive hard and stick to his guns for what he believes is right for the country. I hope some Indian politicians are learning something.

Book Review: A Day in Spring by Ciril Kosmač

Vivek Sharma — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 13:51:40 EDT

A Day in Spring is a beautifully narrated tale by Ciril Kosmač, a Slovene poet, author. The book that first appeared in 1953 is a terse account of nostalgia and life of a writer who returns to his homeland after spending fifteen years away at wars. The story progresses through reminisces the writer has about his childhood. It yields, in a poignant and heartwarming detail, the development of narrator's personality through the two world wars in the backdrop. Essential to the story is the character of Kadetka, who the writer remembers lovingly as a child embedded with his nostalgia. His Auntie narrates some bits of the novel, and the contrast between the voices reveals what difference in insights experience, age, travel and education brings to us.

Several parallel tracks come together in this mature and modern novel. The affair of a Slovene girl with a Czech soldier, and years later another affair of her daughter with Italian soldier bring out the complexities and absurdities of war out in a very taut novel. The writer reveals his love for the mountainous country, the river Idrica and his people through descriptions that are lyrical and border on poetry. The personalities of the characters in the novel are revealed mostly through events, and the dialogues are kept to minimum. There are occasions in the novel when the reader feels sheer joy or compassion or love and in creating these occasions nearly a dozen times through the novel, Ciril Kosmač manages to arouse my whole hearted admiration, applause and appreciation. It was indeed a pleasant surprise to find this 169 page novel to be so aesthetically pleasing and rich in imagery and experience.

I have to quote the following extract from the book, for I think if it was relevant to Yugoslavians in 1950s, it is even more relevant to young nation of Slovenia now. It must be remarked that Slovenia is young nation in Eastern Alps, with population of two million. It is located close to Italy and Austria, and in the World War II, was the arena where partisans fought against Germans and Italians. Here is the quote, that is both a homage to his country and in some respect to his own terse novel:

"Yes,it seems to me that we small nations love our land more dearly than great ones do, or at least in a manner different from theirs. Our native land is small, and as we cannot sing of its greatness, we celebrate and sing of the details which are full of beauty. Because beauty is like truth. Truth does not require bulky tomes to make herself plain, nor does Beauty need a wide, boundless space wherein to unfold herself, to thrive and blossom. Let Expanse thunder forth its mighty song, true Beauty grows in silence. We know our country as we know our mother's face. Her lines and wrinkles are familiar to us, her expressions of joy and happiness, her furrows of grief and anxiety. We are always aware of the clasp of her hands, rough as a peasant's but kindly and warm; we cling to her and have defended her for a thousand years, often with simple means, yea, often with bare hands, but with success - because the chief sponsor of our victory is impassionate love, which does not calculate and therefore does not yield, even when faced with overwhelming odds."