Identity, pride and Internet trolls

Among many instances of bashing specific communities and peoples on social media, one in particular drew my attention, which I wanted to talk about. Not because it is going viral yet (or may be it is, I’m not sure). But probably because while many such trolls, relished unabashedly by highly educated folks, are borderline perverse, there are ones like this with a bullet-point pithiness that makes it consumable as a seemingly fine assortment of historical truisms.

It runs something like:

“Someone asked me, what is the difference between an Indian and a Pakistani. This picture should do the job.

• CEO of Google is an Indian
• CEO of Microsoft is an Indian
• CEO of PepsiCo is an Indian
• CEO of MasterCard is an Indian

.....

• CEO of Taliban is a Pakistani
• CEO of Al Qaeda is a Pakistani
• CEO of Lashkar-e-Taiba is a Pakistani

.....”

Now if we evaluate the statements themselves, as historical truths, they appear accurate, individually. However it’s not about the statements, it’s about the underlying claim which, per my understanding, is as follows.

-   Pakistani lives, historically, have promoted, primarily a culture of violence and terror. Lives of Indian origin, on the other hand have (eschewed all that, and) primarily been devoted to pursuit of excellence and betterment of humankind.

And then that constitutes the basis for shaming of one national identity by comparison with another, the two tortured identities themselves being created in the aftermath of the 1947 partition.

This claim, which seems absurdly out of context, will be revisited afterwards. For the moment though, it will suffice to say, that the claim can be shown to be false for the simple reason that the glorification of Indian history is laughably selective, perhaps done deliberately. A look at Indian military policies in the last 30-40 years should be enough to wipe off any claims to a moral superiority. Kashmir, Punjab, Bangladesh border. And the narrative has been the staple narrative of any state that uses terror. We don’t commit war crimes, we just use counter terror.

It is at that point that the pride and self-righteousness that so beset the Indian national identity perplex me. And at two levels.
-          German history has seen both Goethe and Hitler. While both have shaped that history, neither typifies it. That is how their history has unfolded; that is how history generally unfolds with a statistically distributed share of ageless intellectuals and mass murderers. Likewise, for every Sundar Pichai one might be able to locate a policy maker who made possible large scale murder a daily event in Gujarat in 2002. For every Primo Levi, we could find one IDF soldier who shoots at Palestinian children with impunity.

-          But it is at a more fundamental level that such hubris seems incomprehensible to me. One really has no role in his/her birth - Pakistani, Indian, German or Jewish. So why should the onus of guilt and shame fall on anyone and everyone that shares that ethnic identity? Does every German-born child have to inherit Nazi guilt? I mean, I understand the argument of citizens being accountable for an elected government and its actions, but that’s hardly the argument being presented in those bullet points. In fact, if that was the argument, I don’t see how Indians could get around it, when the state uses so much repression and terror in its troubled areas.

Back to the claim itself, why that part of the Indian subcontinent has been a breeding ground for terror is a complex subject, which is outside the scope of discussion here. I’ll say this though - the claim is meaningless without a context. There is no understanding of pro-Kashmiri terrorism without understanding repression and torture by the Indian army. There is no understanding why 19 people flew planes into buildings, no understanding of ISIS, no understanding of anything we would like to label as “terror” without acknowledging other forms of terror we give a free pass all day long. Just that such terror has a different form – occupation, missiles and bombs; not the suicide belts or beheadings that suit our narratives.

I may have to contradict myself now – but as an Indian American, I find it quite shameful, yet somewhat comical also, that so much negativity has recently been spewing out of people of Indian origin, mostly Hindus, who would set out with the objective of self-glorification, but in the process establishing themselves as bigger bigots.

Primo Levi carried a different kind of guilt – the burden of living, the oppressed who survived when so many had perished. That guilt made him end his own life eventually. So did Tadeusz Borowski, another oppressed soul who had provided us a gleaning into that abyss where humanity had sunk.

As long as I can breathe and be able to read Levi and Borowski, I would try and have the humility to acknowledge that my sharing an ethnicity with successful CEOs means nothing; I am just a speck on the wall, and all of humanity has given us dark abysses to stare into. What we make of our lives is something else.

Remembering Hiroshima

He: “You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing.”

She: “I saw everything. I saw the hospital – I’m sure of it. The hospital in Hiroshima exists. How could I not have seen it?”

He: “You didn’t see the hospital in Hiroshima. You saw nothing in Hiroshima.”      

…

She: “Four times at the museum in Hiroshima. People walk around, lost in thought, among the photographs, the reconstructions, for lack of anything else. The photographs, the reconstructions, for lack of anything else. The explanations, for lack of anything else.”

(from Alain Resnais’ 1959 film Hiroshima Mon Amour.)

Trying to put a title to my post, “Remembering Hiroshima” was a reflexive response. Then I realized it posed an ethical challenge in that I couldn’t possibly remember Hiroshima, similar to the characters in the film. In my case of course the event itself happened way before my time. What we go by in the absence of memory is memorializing; this has served in modern history to preserve collective memory in the form of historical archives, museums, public education; as exemplified by memorials to suffering under Nazism throughout Europe.

In America, this creates the other challenge, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki are hardly present in public narratives. When they are, they are presented as events that occurred during WWII, not as studies in morality. Part of it is not specific to America but a tradition of WWII narratives in general in the western hemisphere, which clearly define the aggressor and the responder, and consequently acts of violence follow where their perpetrators belong rather than where the acts should belong based on a consistent set of moral standards. The rape of nearly a million German women by the advancing Red Army hardly occupies the same space in public discourse compared to any atrocity committed by the Axis powers.

Hiroshima is an extension of that principle, just at a much more staggering level. Not just because of the numbers and scope committed by one single act. But every time Hiroshima is remembered in the form of an intellectual debate on the necessity of the use of that weapon, humanity takes a step back. Auschwitz, Babi Yar could be out of the realm of debate, but no such inviolability is accorded to Hiroshima. It was a necessary destruction to end the war, and no one talks about it.

Our moral judgments come from our moral position, which interestingly, can shift depending on what narrative we adhere to. Rationalization for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is usually the result of consequentialist thought, which “locates morality in the consequence of the action”¹. Destruction of these cities was justified in the “greater good” of limiting further casualties by expediting the end of war. If, on the other hand, we ever find ourselves in harm’s way, our adversary’s world view is not relevant any longer; end does not justify the means any more. At that precise moment we take a position exactly opposite of consequentialism – a deontological philosophy like Kant’s, which “locates morality in the action itself”².

The irony is that our moral philosophies simply don’t matter to the monumental suffering we inflicted – a suffering beyond death, into sterile lives that somehow trudged along after death. Disfigured, transformed, scarred existences. In the searing images of Shohei Imamura’s “Black Rain” where a man cannot tell his own brother because he is so unrecognizable.

He: “What did Hiroshima mean to you in France?”

She: “The end of the war. I mean completely. Astonishment that they dared do it, and astonishment that they succeeded….”

Close to Life - Impressions from Guatemala (Thanksgiving 2012)

A group of teenagers performed some amazing dance routines on Paseo de la Sexta right across from a bar-restaurant called ‘Saul’. They beautifully worked off of one another; any time one guy was tiring out, another one jumped in, demonstrating a fascinating combination of physical fitness, contortions and an intuition for rhythm. In the beginning they were performing almost in a conversational style – doing bits and pieces, briefly passing verbal cues as to what could be done better or improvised next time around. By the time I had left, walked down the avenue and back up to the same spot, they were more organized performers – this time to Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and the crowd had strengthened. These guys were simply having fun.

I thought art and human possibilities were endless, even in Guatemala City where crime, poverty and slip-shod existence define everyday life. The city center is heavily policed; and armed guards have a ubiquitous presence from ordinary business establishments to public parking areas.

My hotel concierge in the Camino Real district recommended a nearby restaurant called Kacao that served local flavors. While I was there, a man came in and he was peddling shawls of different kinds. He stood near the entrance and offered his stuff to every patron that was leaving; he seemed needy, requested a few times, but always smiled and stopped short of pestering.

I made a day trip to the city of Antigua, a UNESCO world heritage site. Time had stopped at this ancient city, in its cobblestoned streets, in its ruins. It has become somewhat of a tourist trap in recent years, as evident from traffic on the motorway just leading up to Antigua. But signs of a rural and traditional living were unmistakable. Many shops were actually extensions of homes.  Many women would sell products while carrying their infants wrapped up and tucked on their backs like backpacks. And at times they would take a break to nurse them; a moment of vulnerability by urban standards was a way of life to them.

Close to the ruins of an old church was an open market place; I was approached by a vendor hawking beads, jewelry, even flutes. I politely refused to buy, he persisted a little bit, but then he gave me the smile of understanding and switched the subject to what I was there for, and pointed me to touristy areas. So I went over to Casa Santo Domingo, part luxury hotel, part ruins; there was a wedding going on, with wedding guests and tourists almost sharing the same space, while some talented musicians played Bach's Air.

Employees at the Westin Camino Real, Guatemala City were wearing name tags that also said “My passion:”; the young woman at the concierge desk for example, had identified Real Madrid as her passion. One restaurant server's read: “Mi passion: mi familia”.

There was an obviousness in the note; yet its poignance made me long for my own 3 1/2 year old.

Two weeks earlier, I had been visiting Kolkata and saw him for the first time in almost 4 months. It was morning, and he was still sleeping as I went inside the mosquito net and stroked and patted him that eventually woke him up. The bewilderment in his eyes has stayed with me since.

Ruins of El Carmen Church, Antigua, Guatemala

Catedral de San Jose, Antigua, Guatemala

Antigua, Guatemala

Do I celebrate Christmas?

Around Christmas time, it’s quite common to hear “Are you almost done with your Christmas shopping?” I heard that a few times as I was being seated at restaurants. I usually answer “Well, my family is traveling at this time. Not much to do.”  That is actually true, since my wife and my 4-year-old traveled to India this past Thanksgiving. As I check into my hotel in Bogota on Christmas day, the guy is curious as to why I am traveling by myself. My answer doesn’t have much variation.

The questions are absolutely harmless, coming from people who just want to do some small talk. But the significance of the holiday season really does not extend beyond the Judeo-Christian world, at least from a religious angle. So there should be no special need to shop for presents or to be with family at this time of the year. But then there is the cultural factor – we tend to mimic the rest of the societal setup. So the questions at least have some assumption – either I am Christian or Jewish, or I simply do what most other people are doing. I have come across sophisticated staff in restaurants I have long frequented who are more direct – “Do you guys celebrate Christmas?”

The problem is there is no good way to answer this. Because I actually do celebrate Christmas - most years that is. Growing up in Calcutta in a fairly multi-religious urban environment, we always used to partake in a celebration that was huge not just due to the vibrant Christian and Anglo-Indian communities, but one that transcended faith – it was an occasion to get out, mingle, or sample cakes from Nahoum’s bakery - a Jewish family run business dating back to the early 1900s.

Over the years I have spent in the United States, I have seen the celebration is too personal and family-oriented; almost everything outdoors shuts down like in a curfew. So I have tweaked my own celebration as well - some family and friends, some baking, some Netflix, a good time overall.

First off, in all likelihood the person asking the question would not be aware of the layered cultural setup I was raised in; he just expects me to be like everyone else around me. The more challenging part is he would probably expect me to celebrate Christmas the same way he would celebrate in his, that is an average Christian household, if I answered yes. May be there’s not much difference – I just don’t know. Of course I could answer ‘Yes – but in my own way’ but that makes the conversation complicated.

To my mind, the question derives from an expectation that a minority subculture should conform to religio-cultural practices of the majority. A religio-cultural practice is different from just cultural like love for NFL, or the English Premier League. But we ourselves, the minorities, feed into this homogenization by celebrating Christmas. But sometimes we don’t celebrate Christmas. And that’s not an aberration in our lives. I have a hard time explaining that.

Our nation, our morals.

'Dirty Wars' - book by Jeremy Scahill and upcoming documentary based on the same.
http://dirtywars.org/

A few weeks ago the author was on Tavis Smiley show. At one point during the interview Tavis, to paraphrase him, said he felt embarrassed as a black man, since our targeted assassination program responsible for killing women and children, is overseen by two black men, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. While race is definitely not an issue here, Tavis was entitled to personalize it at some level, since many black supporters view black politicians as belonging to the tradition of MLK, civil rights and social justice. More so when the President is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and frequently invokes Mahatma Gandhi, and picked this champion of non-violence when once asked whom he would like to have dinner with.

Watch the interview here:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365012223/

Here's another link from 2 years ago where Mr. Scahill opines on the killing of Osama bin Laden in the same show.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/investigative-reporter-jeremy-scahill/