Eminescu and Mahavira; Romanians Yearning for Indian Culture and Spirituality and Culture

Eminescu and Mahavira;                                                           Romanians Yearning for Indian Culture and Spirituality 

In the autumn of 1983 before the freezing cold set in , after visiting Romania's Steel Complex at Galatsi ( India sold 5 million tons of iron ore annually) ,I decided to go further north to Iasi, capital of Moldovia region ( the northern half is the republic of Modovia since the collapse of the Soviet Union). At its university library , I was pleasantly surprised when shown an exercise book which had an almost complete translation of Panini's grammar done in 1883, by Romania's all time great poet, novelist and journalist ,Mihail Eminescu - a sort of Ghalib and Tagore rolled into one.

Eminescu , who was born (1850-1889) not far from Iasi ,had studied Sanskrit at Berlin and had translated Ashtadhyayi  to take his mind off his depression. This is not surprising since Sanskrit has been taught in Romania since 19^th century and at Iasi itself up to early twentieth century.

Regarded as the most representative Romanian poet ,Eminescu's poems span a large range of themes, from nature and love to hate and social commentary. He was influenced by the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and his most notable poem, "Luceafarul" includes elements of Vedic Cosmogony. His poems have been translated in over 60 languages .He is considered the godfather of the modern Romanian language. He remained popular and accepted by even the Communist regime of Nikolai Ceausescu.

Poets and intellectuals like Eminescu, Mircea Eliade and S.Al-George have brought Indian philosophy, religion, art, history and poetry to Romania and acted as interpreters to the West. Illiade had studied Sanskrit and Indian philosophy at Calcutta and Shanti Niketan in late 1920s and spent 6 months at an ashram in Rishikesh. Later he taught at Paris and Chicago and was a prolific writer on Raja yoga, Indian philosophy and mysticism. He in fact was the first to bring Indian philosophy to America. But his book Maitreyi of his romantic liaison did cause considerable controversy. It was made into a film too. The author saw some of Maitri's letters to Illiade.

In 1982, I attended an extraordinary display of Romanians doing Hath Yoga exercises , some of them over 70 years old. How ever the Communist regime stopped such classes .It did clarify that it had nothing against the system of Yoga. Later ,in the wake of 1989 spontaneous uprising and overthrow of the Ceausescu regime , then taken over by the ex-communists and the military , it was revealed that Yoga classes were being used as a cover for clandestine meetings .

In 1983 and 1984 I organized many screenings of Attenborough's film on Gandhi at the Residence . It was seen , apart from diplomats ,by a large number of Romanian officials and party members including an old couple , who were senior to Ceausescu in the seniority list of party membership . The regime had banned the release of the film as the party line did not accept that nonviolence can bring about a revolution. 

 

When an Indian foreign minister with intellectual pretensions visited Romania in 1983, a list of Indian classics and books translated into Romanian and books written by Romanians on India was made. It filled 50 pages and covered a. wide range; starting with Vedas, Upanishads, hymns, coins, history, geography, philosophy, culture and literature. It is easy to find complete works of Rabindra Nath Tagore, Prem Chand and others in Romanian. Tagore, who visited Romania in 1926, was a household name.

Many Romanians would visit the Embassy library and some, specially students, would request for unusual and difficult books on Raj Yoga and mysticism . Once , I querried one student .He said that while watch was kept on all Romanians visiting foreign missions, the regime was less intolerant of visitors to the Indian embassy. With books and knowledge banned or prohibited in the country, library books remained one of the only windows still open to them, he said .

Romanians are a highly cultured people with their theatre, ballet, and music developed at par with the best in the West in communist era. Before the 2^nd World War, Bucharest was known as the Paris of the Balkans.

But the new Romanian generation is Western and consumer oriented. There is a sad story of Dr Amita Bose, who had taught Sanskrit, Bengali and Indian culture in Bucharest for twenty years. She also translated Eminescu's poems into Bengali . She died soon after the change of regime in Bucharest , unwanted in her country of adoption and unsung in India, whose cultural ambassador she had become. But she left behind thousands of students, many still pursuing Sanskrit studies and Indian philosophy. Indian films with socialistic themes starring Raj Kapoor used to be very popular in communist era. But now the Indian dance and song films with "dishim dishum" have replaced them on Romanian TV channels. 

Below is a glimpse of interest in Indian culture and philosophy ,an article by Prof. George Anca, an indefatigable Romanian in his efforts in bringing India and Romania closer. He taught Romanian language and literature at University of Delhi ( 1977-1984)

K.Gajendra Singh, 7 June, 2011.Delhi ( Ambassador of India to Romania;1981-84.He was resident in Bucharest as freelance journalist from 1998 to 2007)

 

BETWEEN MAHAVIRA AND EMINESCU 

GANDHIAN JAINISM IN ROMANIA

 

By George Anca

 

Meeting Acharya Mahapragya, listening to His Words, reading his books, and especially understanding, all the way through, what happens with one's mind and actual Ahimsa path of transformation of heart and thus of mankind itself were among life term achievements. Post-Gandhian career of non-violence appeared as a global re-foundation of urgent ahimsa practice, from a non-violent life style to economics – e.g. hunger and poverty as sources of violence -, and spirituality in the light of Ahimsa Prashikshan. Instead of formal declarations we shared, tens and thousands of us, an intimate, almost silent consciousness change helped by most qualified trainers, under the guidance of Acharya Mahapragya and Uvacharya Mahashraman.

 

As A Romanian, I tried to spread the teachings of Rajsamand. I wrote afterwards a micro-novel – The Orissa Woman. Jain Poem – and I did a research on Ahimsa in Romanian literature from the ancient ballad Mioritsa/The Little Lamb/Memna (in Hindi) to the new Romanian Heysichasm, re-reading in ahimsa-key poets like Mihai Eminescu, Lucian Blaga, Vasile Voiculescu. Before Rajsamand I lectured, at Delhi University, on Mircea Eliade's Centenary in the World, mentioning that he has introduced ahimsa concept in Romania and commented Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent revolution.

 

Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) rewrote in Romanian on his own the beginning of the world from a sparkling point, as in Nasadya Sukta.  Even a violent birth of cosmos has to be challenged.  I wish  Eminescu were in Rajsamand and see the tenth Terapanth Acharya, Mahapragya as a confirmation of his holy visions.

 

Climbing the Hill with thought to Tirthankaras and Terapanths, some of us got an increased feeling of Christmas on 25th December, few days after Id. Dr. Gandhi made clear once more our growth through Rajsamand encounter, a landarmak in our way to better humanity. Rudi sent here his Introduction to Jainism. Mezaki found similarities between Shinto and Dacian Zalmoxe. Gabriela spoke of enthusiasm in Rajsamand. Thomas reformulated his interfaith statement.

 

Vinod wrote me a letter just in Rajsamand. And I received in Bucharest from the editors – P.V. Rajagopal and S. Jeyapragasam – Ahimsa NONVIOLENCE -, International Gandhian Institute for Nonviolence and Peace, Madurai, May-June 2007, including articles "Economics of Nonviolence and Peace" by Acharya Mahapragyaji, and "The Nonviolent Revolution – the Italian who embraced Gandhi's Satyagraha to oppose Fascism and War-II" by Rocco Altieri.

 

"The search for spiritual salvation did not require Gandhi to retire to a cave as a hermit, for he carries the cave with him" (A. Capitini )

 

Romanian priest and scholar Constantin Galeriu speaks on Mahatma Gandhi as the only leader of revolutions who discovered the Saviour, through Sermon on the Mountain preaching to  love one's enemies. He proved to his enemies that he loved them, even dying as a martyr. In his own words: "I think only evil should be hated not evil-doers even when I could be the victim"; "Not to admit and to detest your enemies' mistakes should never rule out compassion", and even love for them".

 

The same spirit was shared recently in Romania by the author of The man, his people and the empire: 'What is freedom?' probed one student after Rajmohan Gandhi's address at a university in Baia Mare, a northern Romanian city of 130,000 that was once a major mining centre. Prof Gandhi replied that 'if the state tells me what to do, I say I will resist. But if my conscience asks me not to do something, I want to obey it. Then I find I have inner freedom.'

 

For them, and his university audience, Gandhi highlighted four key points;

 'If you're planning a strategy for a community or country, leave absolutely no-one out;

 'Have the courage to speak the truth to your own side;

 'Think a lot but also leave room for inspiration;

 

'If you find hatred around you, fight it. If people are hating each other, reconcile them. If someone is hating you, forgive him.' (Rob Lancaster, "Romania: Reaching out to young leaders" 22/04/2010).

 

On a blog on internet, Ion Burhan sees in Gandhi's satyagraha a way to make conscious some "social sins" of Romanian society  such as: richness without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, gain without morals; science without humanism, religion without personal sacrifice, politics without principles.  An article by Satish Kumar on Jain religion, translated into Romanian, keeps in original the supplementary readings as for a global communion: Padmanabha Jaini, Jaina Path of Purification, Jawahar Nagar, Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidas, 1979. / Acharya Mahaprajna, Anekanta: The Third EyeLadnun, Rajasthan, India: Jain Vishva Bhavati, 2002. Email: books@JVBI.org. / Umasvati, That Which Is: Tattvartha Sutra, translated by Nathmal Tatia, San Francisco and London: Harper Collins, 1994. / Pratapaditya Pal, The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India (1995). New York and London: co-published by Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Thames and Hudson. / Jan Van Alphen, Steps to Liberation: 2,500 Years of Jain Art and Religion (2000). Antwerp, Belgium: Etnografisch Museum.

 

 On the site of Biblitheca publishing house is announced (May 2011) the last book issued in Romanian translation: Introducere in Jainism by Rudi Jansma and Sneh Rani Jain. Ahimsa - "the heart of Jainism" -, Gandhi – modern apostle of Jainism -, Karma are among key words of the presentation for general public.

 

 A letter sent to Romanian Parliament by Cristina María Speluzzi from Buenos Aires República Argentina is opened by a quotation from Gandhi:

 

Honorable Members of the Romanian Parliament,

Distinguished Officials,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

"The greatness and the MORAL progress of a nation can be judged by the way the animals are treated " (M. Gandhi)

 

The dark specter of a death sentence for strays in Romania is again of major concern for people from all over the world…

 

Again, poor innocent animals are about to be legally massacred by the tens of thousands…

We found out that The Romanian Parliament's Committee for Public Administration Territorial Planning and Ecological Balance intends to make a new law regarding the management of strays….and they want :

 

- the dogs captures by the dog catchers will be PTS after 14 or maximum 60 days ( those considered dogs for fights, aggressive breeds will be PTS after 48h or 10 days ; those sick will be PTS immediately )

 

- sick animals will not be given for adoption.

- those who feed or take care of strays will be fined

- the minimum conditions for the captures, living quarters, transport, care ( food and shelter ) WILL

 

BE ELIMINATED FROM the new law

- the clear description of how the euthanasia will be done and what substances are to be used WILL BE ELIMINATED FROM the new law…it will be replaced with " the euthanasia will be done by a specialist ".

 

- the non profit organizations for animal protection WILL HAVE NO RIGHT to complain about the living conditions of dogs in municipal shelters. the control will be done only by the Sanitary-veterinary Authority.

 

- the non profit organizations for animal protection WILL HAVE NO RIGHT to capture, take care or spat/neuter strays.

*

In his book  The Gandhian Mode of Becoming, Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, 1998,Dr. Catalin Mamali adds to the "simple list" of comparison terms -   Socrates, Jesus, Buddha,

Confucius, Martin Luther, Thoreau, Ruskin, Tolstoy, Steiner, Marx, Tagore, Freud, Mao,

Lenin, Savarkar, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa -  one more

frame of reference: Niccolo Machiavelli. A special feature for a book on Gandhi published in India may be also the large number of Romanian authors in bibliography: Badina O, Blaga L, Botez M, Brucan S, Constante L, Draghicescu M, Eliade M, Gusti D, Herseni T, Ierunca V, Istrati P, Mamali C, Neculau A, Preda M, Zapan G.

 

"As a thinker and practioner of politics Machiavelli had a profound influence on European

political life. Seeking power through any means was the major principle of his philosophy.

As against this Gandhi preached and practiced ethical principles of purity of means for

attaining his objectives. One can hardly imagine two completely opposite view points and

their paths of life. (Govindbhai Raval, Vice Chancellor, in "Foreword")

 

"Mamali's book has one organizing axis a comparison of Gandhi with Machiavelli, for

understanding both of them better, as each other's contrast, dialectionally – not to end up

telling the reader whom he should follow. Interestingly, they were both fighting for freedom

of their lands. But to Machiavelli such giant tasks accrued to the Prince. To Gandhi the

liberation could only be done by those who should be liberated; the people, not the way

Machiavelli (and the Marxist tradition) saw them, as "masses," as superficial admirers of

success: hence to be led by feeding them with successes." (Johan Galtung in "Introduction").

In the end the author makes a pool - each of the 140 statements can be given grades between 1 and 5 according to the readers' degree of agreement or disagreement to the respective position.  Here are some of  satyagraha, ahimsa, but also aparigraha statements.

 

1. It is impossible to detach, to separate the ends from the means.

 

6. Any economy ignoring moral values is ultimately wicked and artificial.

8. The individual entrusted with a public mission should by no means accept valuable

presents.

 

20. Any person willing to act in support of social welfare should never depend on public

charity.

21. Only when a person is able to look at his/her own errors through a magnifying glass

and at the others' through a minimizing one, is he/she capable to correctly evaluate

his/her and the others' mistakes.

 

 42. Centralization as a system is improper for the non-violent functioning, and organization

of the society. It is hard to achieve a non-violent society within centralized systems.

47. Most of the people would rather forget their own father's death than the loss of their

fortunes.

 

50. Not to admit and to detest your enemies' mistakes should never rule out compassion

and even love for them.

The means should be in harmony with the purpose.

 

67. It is altogether difficult for a person living in dire poverty to achieve his moral

development. Those who accomplish it in such strained circumstances are people of

extraordinary ability.

73. Bad means cannot help attain good ends.

 

90. In my opinion any person who eats the fruits of the earth without sharing them with the

others and who is of no use to the others is a thief.

 

96. Non-violence is indispensable to genuine economic development.

98. I think only evil should be hated not evil-doers even when I could be the victim.

99. In my opinion a person should never use friendship to gain favours.

 

112. I think that the most efficient means to have justice done is to do justice to my own

enemy.

114. When many people live in dire poverty, it is of utmost importance to cultivate in all of

us the mental attitude of not boasting objects and appliances which are denied to

millions of people, and, consequently, to reorganize our lives in keeping with this

mentality as fast as possible.

120. I think that each and every person should give up the desires to possession of as many

things as possible.

124. Individuals should primarily use goods produced by indigenous economy.

 

 

Syed Saleem Shazad Silenced for Telling the Truth -A Tribute

Syed Saleem Shazad Silenced for Telling the Truth

-A Tribute 

"Pakistan is the world's most dangerous country for journalists,." Reporters Without Borders , Paris 

Syed Saleem Shahzad , Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online , who has been writing well informed and courageous columns almost daily since ten years, disappeared while driving for a television interview in Islamabad at the weekend . Police discovered his body about 150 kms southeast of the capital two days later. It appears from the many injuries that he was brutally tortured, quite clearly as a warning to other truth seeking journalists in Pakistan. Saleem had recently exposed a possible link between al-Qaeda and Pakistani military in the May 22 attack on Mehran naval-aviation base at Karachi , carried out like the 26/11 rampage on India's financial and cultural capital, Mumbai . 

Saleem, only 40 years old is survived by his wife and three young children. 

Pakistan remains the country with most journalists killed in the world, in 2010 - 44 - and not one single killer has been brought to justice so far. 

Hameed Haroon, the chief executive of the Dawn Group of Newspapers said in a June 2 statement that Saleem had  told him of receiving  "death threats from various officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on at least three occasions in the past five years". Based in Karachi , he wrote regularly on various Islamist militant networks , haunting and wrecking peace and calm in Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond to India and elsewhere . 

In a surprise move, an ISI official stated on 1 June that the incident "should not be used to target and malign the country's security agency". 

"Baseless accusations against the country's sensitive agencies for their alleged involvement in Shahzad's murder are totally unfounded. In the absence of any evidence and when an investigation is still pending, such allegations are tantamount to unprofessional conduct on the part of the media," the official told the Associated Press of Pakistan. 

"The ISI offers its deepest and heartfelt condolence to the bereaved family, and assures them that it will leave no stone unturned in helping to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice."

In a warning to the Pakistani media, the official said that it "should refrain from [making] baseless allegations against the ISI that seek to deliberately malign the organisation in the eyes of the people of Pakistan". 

Haroon responded that Mr Shahzad's purpose "was not to defame the ISI but to avert a possible fulfilment of what he clearly perceived to be a death threat". "The last threat which I refer to was recorded by Mr Shahzad by e-mail with me, tersely phrased as 'for the record' at precisely 4.11 am on 18 October 2010, wherein he recounted details of his meetings at the ISI headquarters," added Haroon. 

Saleem's brutal murder has been denounced all around the world by almost every one , even by Hilary Clinton, Secretary of State USA , a country which along with its CIA, Saudi Arabia ,its Mukhabarat and other Gulf Emirates had financed, trained and created these nurseries of terrorism and some states still finance them .

 

Aamer Ahmed Khan of BBC Urdu Programme recalls how in 2001 , while editing one of Pakistan's leading news analysis magazines ,he had used a story on the ISI-Taliban nexus. A few days later he got a call from one Colonel Tariq. "I know quite a bit about you. You drive a Honda City, don't you?" he said. He knew details of my wife and family and continued: "I find myself wondering why people like you think they can be journalists and have a family at the same time."

 

Later Khan was called into the ISI for a dressing down. He then realized the scale of the monitoring and surveillance worse than by FBI in US under the Orwellian Patriot act , and brutally ." The entire journalist community in Pakistan knows how closely the agency monitors media and journalists. Every reporter in the country knows that if they get a telephone call from anyone who calls themselves "Colonel Tariq" it is bad news. It usually means they have fallen foul of the ISI", Khan added .

.

It is clear that Saleem's murder is part of a systematic campaign to eliminate truth seeking voices. "It appears that elements within Pakistan are waging a vicious and brutal war against free speech."A senior Baloch nationalist teacher and poet was recently killed which his family alleges was the handiwork of the ISI. So no wonder fingers are pointed at ISI.

 

Tribute by K Ghori , a former Pakistani ambassador

 

In his tribute in Asia Times , Karamatullah K Ghori , a former Pakistani ambassador describes how Saleem travelled over dangerous badlands straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the mountainous region that is home to militants of all shades. "In November 2006 he (Saleem) was held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan for six days, but within days he was back in business, literally sweating, as he would joke, up and down the valleys of North and South Waziristan."

He took risks and interviewed notorious militant leaders like Sirajuddin Haqqani, a major player in the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, and Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani terrorist who heads 313 Brigade, the operational arm of al-Qaeda.

 

Ghori avers that "killing, in cold blood a man of letters like Saleem amounts to an open declaration of war against the fundamental principles of Islam and defiance of the teachings of its Messenger, Prophet Mohammad, who bestowed the greatest honors on a seeker of truth by intoning that "the ink of a scholar's pen is holier than a martyr's blood". 

The core problem , continues Ghori is the failure of Pakistan refusing to tackle the challenge of fundamentalists and their soul-comrades, the terrorists. " there is hardly any backlash against the corrosive damage the fundamentalists are doing to its (Pakistan) social order. The silence of the clergy against the defacing of Islam is simply deafening. Those few voices that articulated against terrorists have been brutally silenced.  -- the ruling elite , almost irrelevant -their sole concern is with remaining in power by any means, even if it means subcontracting Pakistan to a United States agenda. -- The military leadership, on its part, has failed to check the spread of the festering cancer of fundamentalism and radicalism in its ranks - a damning legacy of General Zia ul-Haq's 11 years at the head of Pakistan, and then General Pervez Musharraf's rule until August 2008.—

"Pakistan's military brass remains hopelessly mired in its infatuation with parity with India in military hardware and it must therefore stay on the right side of US to keep its arsenal well stocked. Its latest decision to sign on to Washington's demand for military action in North Waziristan - a central piece of Clinton's visit to Islamabad on May 27 - is evidence of the US agenda in the region ruling the roost in Islamabad. A blitz in North Waziristan will , inevitably, lead to a more virulent terrorist backlash in the rest of the country and more spilling of innocent blood like Saleem's." 

 

It is a damning statement. 

I have been an admiring and regular reader of Saleem's articles which I recommended to many others. In a way we were colleagues , since I wrote 60 articles for Asia Times from 2002 to 2005 , when suddenly I was asked not to send my articles .My articles were mostly most read specially on Middle East , with posts in Cairo and Algiers and as Ambassador to Jordan ( 1989-92) during the 1991 war on Iraq and ten years stay in Turkey in two tenures . 

Following Saleem's journeys in bad lands and articles was something like going through a spy thriller except that it was real life risks . I would mail him words of appreciation and some times , with my watch over Turkey since 1967 and study of five centuries of Ottoman empire ,even add information about how in the history of Islam and now , the lines between the Mir and the Pir ,the temporal ruler and spiritual ruler remain blurred ,contested and changing.

 

After the establishment of a secular republic in Turkey by Kemal Ataturk, the country is sliding towards Islamism , with ample financial support and investment of yesil surmaye (green money) from Saudi Arabia .West hoping to see a pro-Sunni regime in Ankara ranged against Shia Tehran is quiet and in fact lauding the so-called Turkish model ! 

Rise and Fall of Janissaries in Ottoman Empire

I referred to Saleem the 'Devshirme' system of recruiting Christian young boys mostly from Balkans but even from Anatolia for its shock troops ,the Janissaries and also the top civil service cadre in the Top Kapi Palace .
 
Beginning with the forced recruitment from Christian prisoners taken as booty after the battle ,the system progressively developed into a privileged and influential warrior force that converted young Christian boys to Islam and instructed them in the Turkish martial arts. Unlike feudal levies Janissaries owed loyalty to the Sultan only. Regimented training and strong moral codes transformed the Janissaries into more than an impressive military force , a political entity of such unchecked power ( shades of ISI)  that they unwittingly contributed to the very downfall of the empire itself.  The Janissaries were an important factor in the military expansion of the Ottoman Empire from the 1453 capture of Constantinople to the battles against the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

 

The next couple of centuries saw the growth of the power of the Ottomans, but a succession of uprisings by Janissaries resulted in more power flowing into their hands. The first Janissary revolt occurred in 1449 and served as a model for many later revolts, each of which brought them more power and pelf. The Janissaries reached such an enviable state of influence by the late 1600s that the Ottoman bureaucracy was effectively held hostage to their whims and demands. A mutiny led to change in the policy of the politicians. Eventually, the Janissaries started to engage in successful coups to topple even a Sultan who was not receptive to their specific desires. They put their own self-interests first and placed obstacles in the path of modernizing the army.
 
In 1807, the Janissaries revolted against Sultan Selim III, and replaced him with Mahmud II . Mahmud II finally decided that the Janissaries had to be decimated in order to preserve the empire. In the summer of 1826, when the Janissaries staged another uprising, the rest of the army and the people were ranged against them. The Janissary force finally faced either death or retreat and exile. The survivors were banished and their wealth taken over by the state.
 
Like the Konya Sultante the Pakistanis under its religious President Zia-ul- haq with financial support from US led West and Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states trained and sent Jihadist and militants' aka modern day Ghazis into Afghanistan in 1980s, who forced the Soviets' exit from Afghanistan. Eventually the Communist edifice under mined by Slav nationalism , Orthodox Christianity and economic over reach , collapsed by the beginning of 1990s.

 

The modern day version of Janissaries ,a  conglomerate of various militias, free booters, religious fanatics, nationalists and tribal chieftains classified as Al Qaeda ,Taliban ,Pakistani Taliban etc are somewhat like the Janissaries of the Ottoman empire , their most effective fighting force which terrorized European Christians and helped extend the Ottoman empire into Europe .But soon instead of terrorizing the enemies of the Ottomans ,they threatened the Sultans .Finally the Janissaries had to be destroyed .Would Pakistan be able to do the same i.e. destroy the terror groups and its supporters in the military, ISI ,the civilian regime and the clerics .

 

When I sent such material to Saleem , his gracious reply was

 

Re: Terror Attack on Lahore Police Training School

From:	Saleem Shahzad <saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com>
:	Gajendra Singh <kgsingh@yahoo.com>

---

Thank you sir. --- On Tue, 3/31/09, Gajendra Singh <kgsingh@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Gajendra Singh <kgsingh@yahoo.com> Subject: Terror Attack on Lahore Police Training School To: saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2009, 3:49 PM -My dear Shahzad Saleem, For historic background on your story Cheers Gajendra

 

Once when he enquired why I stopped writing for Atimes , I said that I am too blunt and honest in criticisng US and western policies .He wrote back humorously, why do I not tailor my stories like some others do .Of course he held to the highest canons of journalism , even sacrificing his life .Only Pepe Escobar , another of my favourite journalists gets away with blunt criticism of western policies .

 

Although I have served in north Africa . Middle East , Turkey and Azerbaijan and travelled widely and interacted with people , I am now only an arm chair analyst of international affairs and events . I do sometimes get a small percentage of abusive letters but run little personal risk .

 

Enter Gen Pervez Musharraf

 

I had great hopes for Pakistan and peace in the subcontinent , when Gen Pervez Musharraf  took over power in Pakistan .Young Pervez  had spent four impressionable school years in Ankara , where his father was posted as an attache .I wrote many articles on him and his policies because of the role of military in Pakistan and Turkey .

At his very first press conference soon after taking over in October ,1999 as Pakistan's chief executive , General Musharraf spotted some journalists from Turkey. Speaking in fluent Turkish, Musharraf told them that he was a great admirer of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic and its first president.  "As a model, Kemal Ataturk did a great deal for Turkey. I have his biography. We will see what I can do for Pakistan. " Apart from being more at home with Turkish in 1999 than Pakistan's national language, Urdu, Musharraf also admired Turkey's generals and the country's political model. Ataturk's legend of forging a new, vibrant, modern and secular Turkey out of the ashes of the decaying deadwood of the Ottoman Empire left an indelible mark on young Pervez, as evidenced by his remarks above.

But by 2003 it was clear that the Mohajir General was but a time server and I wrote;

"Ataturk had boldly and ruthlessly carried out westernising and modernizing reforms against religious obscurantism and dogma and forged the remnants of the Ottoman Empire with a 99 percent Muslim population into a secular republic in the 1920s.  The Ottoman Sultan was also the Caliph .Ataturk abolished both the offices. But he had kept his external ambitions in check, he did not claim former Ottoman provinces lost in World War I, and had concentrated on building a new Turkey from the bottom up and modernizing it. 

"Musharraf, a child of his times, did step down, after September 11, from the fundamentalist tiger he was riding and had helped nurture. Quite clearly he is not fully in command on the home front, with suicide bombers killing foreigners and Christians and senior officials being assassinated.  He tightens up from time to time, with some arrests of ranking Al-Qaeda members and others to please USA.  If he tried too hard, these forces, now baying against him, would conspire for his blood and threaten his US allies.

"Musharraf's  childhood Ataturk-inspired dream is unlikely to come true. Perhaps he is not ruthless enough, determined and single minded like Ataturk, or maybe there are just too many cards stacked against him. "

Fault lines in Pak polity. 

A weak and reliant (on West ) state of Pakistan was created by the British as UK archives show, to keep India, which under Nehru and Gandhi was unlikely to join western alliances , away from direct contact with south west, central and west Asia , with West controlled oil wells , the new fuel to power and dominance .Since WWII , Washington ,the new Rome till 2003 ,so  they thought , with oil money of protected Saudi dynasty and Rawalpindi with support from Israel ( Iran up to 1979) has humiliated , ruled and robbed the people of these regions of their wealth , who are now risen against Western domination as had the people of East Europe in 1990 against the Communist domination .It will be hard and long bloody battle but the people of former Ottoman Vilayats of north Africa taken over by European nations before WWI and the Arab lands of west Asia , divided and ruled after the defeat of the Ottoman forces in the WWI , will succeed in achieving freedom.

Saleem like other Pathans did not appear too enthused by the Punjabi Muslaman, who got Pakistan as a gift from London and have dominated and abused people from other provinces. Their wish to have Afghanistan and dominate it as their backyard or as strategic depth will remain a pipe dream . But till the ruling Saudi dynasty remains in power , Muslims are unlikely to make much progress , since  Riyadh only distributes Qurans, finances  Mosques , Madarsas and various kind of rightwing regimes and terror and other groups. Sign are that it might happen following the Arab uprisings across north Africa and the middle East .

Until than truth seekers like Syed Saleem Shahzad will continue to be martyrs for 'Al haq' 

. 

K.Gajendra Singh 3 June, 2011,Delhi 

K Gajendra Singh served as ambassador of India to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he was ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. Apart from postings in Dakar, Paris, Bucharest , the author spent his diplomatic career in North Africa , Middle east and Turkic countries ( ten years in Turkey in two tenures ).He spent 1976 with National Defence college , New Delhi , established the Foreign Service Institute for training of diplomats ( 1987-89), was chairman / managing director of IDPL , India's largest Drugs and Pharmaceuticals company ( 1985  and 1986 ) and while posted at Amman( 1989-92) evacuated nearly 140,000 Indian nationals who had come from Kuwait. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies.

 

 

 

 

 

NATO Transforms ‘Humanitarian Intervention’ in Libya into ‘A Feast of Blood’

NATO  Transforms 'Humanitarian Intervention' in Libya into 'A Feast of Blood'

 

In another orgy of high-tech violence against a weak nation ( Libya's defense outlay is less than $ one billion, while the nations attacking it reach around $ one trillion) ,under the cover of an ill-conceived and mis-drafted UNSC resolution 1973 .NATO , not authorized by the resolution , is being used for regime change and to destroy another independent country as was Serbia, Iraq and others.

 

http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2011/04/euro-us-bombing-for-libyan-oil.html

 

Moscow and Beijing which could have vetoed the ambiguous resolution did not do so for its own reasons, perhaps , sensing it would be another crucial nail in the Fall of the US led West , following the quagmire in Iraq and an unwinnable war in Afghanistan from which the West now wants out but with Washington wanting to leave behind its troops and bases .

 

Learning from experience , India which abstained on Resolution 1973 has come out more openly against Euro-US mayhem against Libya's civilian population with Western Special Forces on the ground in support of an opposition created for control of Libya's oil and its strategic location . 

At Addis Ababa , after the just concluded India-Africa summit , where in India has offered assistance to African nations amounting to $ 5 billion, on Libya the Addis Ababa Declaration declares; 

"We take note of UN Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 on Libya and stress that efforts to implement them should be within the spirit and letter of those resolutions. In this regard, we call for an immediate cessation of all hostilities in Libya and urge the parties in the conflict to strive towards a political solution through peaceful means and dialogue. We express support for the African Union High-Level Ad Hoc Committee initiative and the African Union roadmap for the peaceful and consensual resolution of the conflict." 

Below is a statement by Cynthia Ann McKinney , a six terms former US Congresswoman (D) and a member of the Green Party since 2007 and the latter's Presidential candidate in 2008. She was just recently in Libya. 

 

NATO: A Feast of Blood 

While serving on the House International Relations Committee from 1993 to 2003, it became clear to me that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an anachronism.  Founded in 1945 at the end of World War II, NATO was founded by the United States in response to the Soviet Union's survival as a Communist state.  NATO was the U.S. insurance policy that capitalist ownership and domination of European, Asian, and African economies would continue.  This also would ensure the survival of the then-extant global apartheid.

 

NATO is a collective security pact wherein member states pledge that an attack upon one is an attack against all.  Therefore, should the Soviet Union have attacked any European Member State, the United States military shield would be activated.  The Soviet Response was theWarsaw Pact that maintained a "cordon sanitaire" around the Russian Heartland should NATO ever attack.  Thus, the world was broken into blocs which gave rise to the "Cold War."

 

Avowed "Cold Warriors" of today still view the world in these terms and, unfortunately, cannot move past Communist China and an amputated Soviet Empire as enemy states of the U.S. whose moves any where on the planet are to be contested.  The collapse of the Soviet Unionprovided an accelerated opportunity to exert U.S. hegemony in an area of previous Russian influence.  Africa and the Eurasian landmass containing former Soviet satellite states andAfghanistan and Pakistan along with the many other "stans" of the region, have always factored prominently in the theories of "containment" or "rollback" guiding U.S. policy up to today.  

 

With that as background, last night's NATO rocket attack on Tripoli is inexplicable.  A civilian metropolitan area of around 2 million people, Tripoli sustained 22 to 25 bombings last night, rattling and breaking windows and glass and shaking the foundation of my hotel.  

 

I left my room at the Rexis Al Nasr Hotel and walked outside the hotel and I could smell the exploded bombs. There were local people everywhere milling with foreign journalists from around the world. As we stood there more bombs struck around the city. The sky flashed red with explosions and more rockets from NATO jets cut through low cloud before exploding.

 

I could taste the thick dust stirred up by the exploded bombs. I immediately thought about the depleted uranium munitions reportedly being used here--along with white phosphorus.  If depleted uranium weapons were being used what affect on the local civilians?

 

Women carrying young children ran out of the hotel. Others ran to wash the dust from their eyes.  With sirens blaring, emergency vehicles made their way to the scene of the attack.  Car alarms, set off by the repeated blasts, could be heard underneath the defiant chants of the people. 

 

Sporadic gunfire broke out and it seemed everywhere around me.  Euronews showed video of nurses and doctors chanting even at the hospitals as they treated those injured from NATO's latest installation of shock and awe.  Suddenly, the streets around my hotel became full of chanting people, car horns blowing, I could not tell how many were walking, how many were driving.  Inside the hotel, one Libyan woman carrying a baby came to me and asked me why are they doing this to us?

 

Whatever the military objectives of the attack (and I and many others question the military value of these attacks) the fact remains the air attack was launched a major city packed with hundreds of thousands of civilians.

 

I did wonder too if the any of the politicians who had authorized this air attack had themselves ever been on the receiving end of laser guided depleted uranium munitions. Had they ever seen the awful damage that these weapons do a city and its population? Perhaps if they actually been in the city of air attack and felt the concussion from these bombs and saw the mayhem caused they just might not be so inclined to authorize an attack on a civilian population.

 

I am confident that NATO would not have been so reckless with human life if they had called on to attack a major western city. Indeed, I am confident that would not be called upon ever to attack a western city. NATO only attacks (as does the US and its allies) the poor and underprivileged of the 3rd world.

 

Only the day before, at a women's event in Tripoli, one woman came up to me with tears in her eyes:  her mother is in Benghazi and she can't get back to see if her mother is OK or not.  People from the east and west of the country lived with each other, loved each other, intermarried, and now, because of NATO's "humanitarian intervention," artificial divisions are becoming hardened.  NATO's recruitment of allies in eastern Libya smacks of the same strain of cold warriorism that sought to assassinate Fidel Castro and overthrow the Cuban Revolutionwith "homegrown" Cubans willing to commit acts of terror against their former home country.  More recently, Democratic Republic of Congo has been amputated de facto after Laurent Kabila refused a request from the Clinton Administration to formally shave off the eastern part of his country.  Laurent Kabila personally recounted the meeting at which this request and refusal were delivered.  This plan to balkanize and amputate an African country (as has been done in Sudan) did not work because Kabila said "no" while Congolese around the world organized to protect the "territorial integrity" of their country.

 

I was horrified to learn that NATO allies (the Rebels) in Libya have reportedly lynched, butchered and then their darker-skinned compatriots after U.S. press reports labeled Black Libyans as "Black mercenaries."  Now, tell me this, pray tell.  How are you going to take Blacks out of Africa?  Press reports have suggested that Americans were "surprised" to see dark-skinned people in Africa.  Now, what does that tell us about them?

 

The sad fact, however, is that it is the Libyans themselves, who have been insulted, terrorized, lynched, and murdered as a result of the press reports that hyper-sensationalized this base ignorance.  Who will be held accountable for the lives lost in the bloodletting frenzy unleashed as a result of these lies?

 

Which brings me back to the lady's question:  why is this happening?  Honestly, I could not give her the educated reasoned response that she was looking for.  In my view the international public is struggling to answer "Why?".

 

 What we do know, and what is quite clear, is this:  what I experienced last night is no "humanitarian intervention."  

 

Many suspect it is about all the oil under Libya. Call me skeptical but I have to wonder why the combined armed sea, land and air forces of NATO and the US costing billions of dollars are being arraigned against a relatively small North African country and we're expected to believe its in the defense of democracy. 

 

What I have seen in long lines to get fuel is not "humanitarian intervention."  Refusal to allow purchases of medicine for the hospitals is not "humanitarian intervention."  What is most sad is that I cannot give a cogent explanation of why to people now terrified by NATO's bombs, but it is transparently clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions, is guilty of extra-judicial killings--all in the name of "humanitarian intervention."  Where is the Congress as the President exceeds his war-making authority?  Where is the "Conscience of the Congress?"

 

For those of who disagree with Dick Cheney's warning to us to prepare for war for the next generation, please support any one who will stop this madness.  Please organize and then vote for peace.  People around the world need us to stand up and speak out for ourselves and them because  Iran and Venezuela are also in the cross-hairs.  Libyans don't need NATO helicopter gunships, smart bombs, cruise missiles, and depleted uranium to settle their differences.  NATO's "humanitarian intervention" needs to be exposed for what it is with the bright, shining light of the truth.

 

As dusk descends on Tripoli, let me prepare myself with the local civilian population for some more NATO humanitarianism.

 

Stop bombing Africa and the poor of the world!