Glorified Evil

Apparently, a lot!

Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkata,  Rangoon to Yangon, and now Pretoria to Tshwane: the examples are plenty in India, Burma, Germany, Wales, South Africa, Japan, China, and Russia among others.

On one hand a name change signals empowerment. Its the reclaimation of heritage, its throwing off even the symbols of colonial rule. On the other hand, it introduces lots of bureaucratic work.   It is also a populist move by politicians. It brings pride to some people, while to others it means irrational nit-picking. To some others it means freedom from the memory of oppression under the powers that gave the alien-ised name, while someone like Shashi Tharoor might ask whether we are "so insecure in our independence that we still need to prove to ourselves that we are free" 

Muenchen not Munich … What says you?? Let me know your views.

So much for the concept of thinking out of the box.

hey hey! we are talking here of a country where the poeple who decide policy and state affairs, vote almost exclusively on party lines !! ALL republican senators voted in unison, without dissent, without any hesitation, for appointing Priscilla Owen for a lifetime position!

As in jerusalem, it seems that in US too anti-civil rights, anti-women, and anti-gay cause does bind the radical right in a harmonious unity. What an irony!

"For Your Tomorrow, we give our today" - an article about the largely forgotten role of Indian soldiers fighing under the British banner during the first and the second world wars.

Speaking of  war, I recall an essay I had written in high school on wars. The conclusion was that as long as we keep justifying wars in the name of freedom, annexation, history, religion, (and nowadays, democracy); keep on calling it war of indepence, crusades, or Operation Iraqi Freedom (for example), wars will never end. They will continue and each time we will make a new excuse. Is warring a basic instinct of mankind?

Let me quote Einstien (from an article in the APS newsletter), speaking at a one-day conference at Institute for Advanced Studies on Nov 17, 1946:
"To have security against atomic bombs and the other biological weapons, we have to prevent war, for if we cannot prevent war, every nation will use every means that is at their disposal; and in spite of all promises they make, they will do it. At the same time, so long as war is not prevented, all the governments of the nations have to prepare for war, and if you have to prepare for war, then you are in a state where you cannot abolish war."

On another note, there is this beautiful article in Salon on race.

I continue on the point of self-identification that I had touched on previously. Self identification to me seems the only way to go, especially in today’s world where people of different cultures, backgrounds and identities mix a lot.
Take the queer community as an example. In the absence of self-identification we would have to throw people into either gay/str8/bi based on some "objective" criterion. Self identification gives a person the choice of choosing for oneself what he/she wants to identify as: be it gay/straight/bi/different; and the person would have the freedom to change the identification if things change over time.
The concept of self identification helps one identify as a female even if one was born with the male genitalia and raised as such; without self-identification we might as well throw the term transgendered out of the window!
Also, there still are dominant lines : can one deny that ‘bhangra’ music does bring up turban-clad Sikhs in mind, that rap does conjure up the image of a black person, that pasta is more an italian cuisine and paratha indian….. but that does not mean that a non-desi cannot make a paratha  better than I do. To deny him/her the right to cook a paratha, and to claim that I can do it better just ‘cos I was raised in India is what I do not agree with. Thus undeniably ‘rap’ has been a part primarly of the black culture, but Eminen self-identified into it; and I think he should be allowed to; that was my point!

Self identification does not mean/imply the destruction of lines of distinction, rather the allowance to cross them, in case one wants to. It does not destroy all walls, just makes them porous to let the refreshment through; so that people inside do not suffocate.

Hey DC is celebrating the APA Pride and Heritage Month . and KhushDC is a part of the team of organizations working for it. Well, read the article in the Blade.

As I was reading the article what struck me was the description
of KhushDC as a organisation serving ‘gay’ south asians. APIQS is
also described as an organization for gay API women.

Today, often we find the use of "gay" to denote the whole gamut
of sexualities (other than the dominant heterosexuality), something
I have ranted about before.

to summarise: To what extent should speech be politically correct? and
does speech always reflect latent prejudices?

What is Sexual Orientation?  I was having a email back&forth with a couple of my friends.
It started with a comment on one of those ex-gay ministries which try to speak of love and
tolerance on the surface, but if you look deeper you will find the same message that
homosexuality is a sin and that the only way to redeem yourself in the eyes of god is by
changing.

I personally do not have any problem with people changing or marrying: more power to
them. My problem is when someone says, that change is round the corner, just run for it;
or that you are homosexual bacause of unformed relations with your parents or some
BS like that.

Anyways, back to the  original question: What iis sexual orientation? do I need to be
sleeping with a man to be gay?  Is it something that one does? or is it something
more internal. The question arises for many people who sleep  with the same sex
strongly deny being gay (giving rise to the term MSM - men who sleep with men)
while some  say they are not gay or are ex-gay just because they no longer
engage in homosexual relations. My friend formulated his thoughts very
nicely, which I am posting here (of course with his permission) :

" I think its not (something) with well-defined boundaries. I think its a "what you prefer",
with varying degrees of bisexuality defining the areas between gay/straight. When I think
of it as a preference, then "gay person with straight lifestyle", "straight person with
gay lifestyle" etc. become meaningless phrases.
Note, however, that :
- its probably not an entirely voluntary preference. That goes for many preferences,
    now that I think about it.
- Temporarily changing preferences under duress/intoxication is certainly normal.
- It can be a very inflexible preference for some people. But that goes for
   many other types of preferences too.
   
  I guess its what you would gravitate to in the absence of external forces "

I think it is beautifully written. If only more people were so clear in thought.

The development of sexual identity has different stages that all of us (from all parts
of the sexual rainbow) have to go through.Interestingly, societal oppression influences
the identity development of both target and dominant members of society (Patricia
Sullivan, "Sexual Identity Develpoment: The Importance of Target or Dominant Group
Membership" in Working with LGBT college students, ed. R. L. Sanlo(1992)) In this case,
societal oppression would refer to homophobia (or might I say queer-phobia to include
transphobia and bi-phobia), the target group refers to  queer folk and the dominant
members are heterosexual. It is when we reach the final stage of development, the
‘internalization’ that we are free of latent phobias and can truly accept those different
from us without feeling threatened. I am happy I have some friends like that.

On another note, in India, a rapist had the audacity to propose to marry his victim in a
bid to reduce his sentence. And the funny(!) part is that the court actually delayed the
sentence to hear the woman’s response to that even though the person was found guilty!

afterthought: such is the training of the male dominated society that we usually think of
men while formulating our questions, gay is used in general for all queer folk (sometimes)
etc etc. There is no term like WSW in parallel to MSM. Also the use of ‘man’ to denote
things pertaining to all humans. (eg. man proposes god disposes)