Join on 10.10.10 for an unprecedented event. Every Nation, 24 hours and You.
Across the planet, documentary filmmakers, students, and inspired citizens will record the human experience over a 24-hour period. By participating in this historic event, you will help capture the diversity of life and culture on this planet.
One Day on Earth is a documentary and new media project about the amazing diversity, conflict, tragedy, and triumph that occurs in one 24-hour period on Earth. More than a film, One Day on Earth is a multi-platform participatory media project. The flagship of this project is a feature length documentary to be released theatrically. Through the One Day on Earth platform, we will establish a community that not only watches, but participates.
[So, now pick up your movie camera (any format) and get ready to capture....... :) ]
One Day token Hunger Strike in support of Sharmila Irom’s epic struggle
Poet and activist Sharmila Irom began her epic hunger strike on November 2, 2000. This is now the tenth year of her hunger strike. Her hunger strike has one single goal: withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 (AFSPA). imposed an even more murderous act, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. This act is a harsher version of the act the British used to quell the 1942 Quit Indian Movement. This act allows not just officers but even Junior Commissioned Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers of the army to search, arrest, and even kill any person on grounds of mere “suspicion”.Yes, they can kill anyone with impunity, without fear of persecution! The armed forces have committed gross human rights violations under the cover of this act. The jawans of Assam Rifles daily arrest, beat up, torture nearly 80 to 100 people every day! Many women have suffered sexual abuse, rape, gang rape, and not one soldier has ever been prosecuted.
On November 2, 2000, the Assam Rifles (AR) gunned down 10 people at a bus stop in Malom village, near Imphal. Unknown insurgents had planted a bomb near the AR camp the previous day and, unable to locate the culprits, AR personnel hit out at random, killing many innocent citizens. Human rights organizations protested, to no avail. Shaken to the core by this injustice, poet and journalist Irom Sharmila decided to go on a hunger strike in protest.
Since then ten years have passed. The government and armed forces are adamantly refusing to withdraw the AFPSA, despite government appointed Justice Jeevan Reddy judicial commission recommending it. And Sharmila is determined that till it is withdrawn, she will continue her struggle.
This year, more than 140 organisations have decided to support Sharmila Irom’s hunger strike by organizing various programs during the week from November 2 to 7. The demands are:
1. In all states where AFPSA is in force, all cases of rape and violence against women be investigated by a independent judicial body and those responsible be prosecuted under the law of the land.
2. The AFPSA be withdrawn from Manipur and the other states where it in force.
In support of this countrywide protest, Lokayat is organizing the following program:
Program: One Day Hunger Strike in support of Sharmila Irom
A 16-year-old Australian steered her bright pink yacht out of Sydney Harbor on Sunday to start her bid to become the youngest person to sail solo and unassisted around the world.Jessica Watson's plan to make a 23,600-mile (38,000-kilometer) journey through some of the world's most treacherous waters sparked a debate in Australia about whether someone so young should be allowed to try such a potentially dangerous feat.Although she will sail solo and unassisted, she will be in constant contact with her support team via radio, e-mail and a blog."I know you are all anxious to hear from Jess, but she's a little preoccupied on her first day, so she asked me to post a quick note to let everyone know that the departure went well this morning," Julie Watson wrote on the blog.
Age of teens are time of winning the world and doing something , conquering some thing..lot adventure.....growing up with lovely earth...let be the world always like this...youthful with beauty..energetic and primarily raw..a raw earth.
Sail away Jessika..sail with your dream..all our wishes with you.
Ousted president makes surprise return to the capital, coup government responds with vicious crackdown
Eighty-six days after he was summarily kidnapped and forced out of the country by the military, and on his third attempt to return, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya appeared at the Brazilian embassy in the capital city of Tegucigalpa on Monday morning. Hondurans flooded into the streets to support his return, to which the coup regime responded by instituting a curfew. When thousands of Hondurans refused to adhere to return to their homes, the regime resorted to brute force.
Produced by Jesse Freeston.
A piece of poetry by Rumi:
get up! do not sleep! we have come close. we have already heard the dog and the rooster of that neighborhood. by god they were signs from the village of the beloved: all the flowers that we grazed on. get up! do not sleep! it is daytime. the morning star has risen and we see the footprints. it was night and the whole caravan was locked up in a Caravanserai; get up! for we have rid ourselves of the dark and of the prison.
After animation masterpieces such as“Howl's Moving Castle”, “Spirited Away” etc, Ponyo is the new animated feature from master film maker Hayao Miyazaki. Some time there are things that may be related to race and I sense it as some things are can be done only by particular race (don’t take it wrong). The movies created by Hayao Miyazaki are so fresh, so Japanese and completes with distinctively unique in style, and at the same time is universal. The creation of “Ponyo” can be only done by a Japanese.
Although creations of Moebius , Walt Disney etc. other master creator stands in different arena and also different in style and tradition.
This old man is symbol of purity. Beauty and treatments in his films are seems like visuals and resonance of some Haiku words. Of course also results of extreme hard work, focus and integrity.
Ponyo is a story about a goldfish named Ponyo who becomes friends with a young boy and decides to live among the humans. However, once Ponyo makes the decision it creates a crack in an ancient magic spell that puts the world order in danger.
That enormous pile of paper actually is even bigger and radiates with the devotion of Studio Ghibli's animators. About 320,000 pictures were drawn till the completion of the film and even though Ponyo's length is only 1 hour and 40 minutes, it used by far the most pictures a Ghibli movie ever needed.
Ponyo (100 min 54 sec): 170,653 pictures used
John Lasseter: Can you talk a little bit about how you develop your stories?
Hayao Miyazaki: My process is thinking, thinking, thinking. Thinking about my stories for a long time. If you have a better way, please let me know. (Comic-Con)
I do all my work by storyboard. As I draw the storyboards, the world gets more and more complex. As a result, my north, south, east, west kind of shift and go offbase, but it seems like my staff, as well as the audience, doesn't quite realize this has happened. (Press conference)
Here is an conversation with Hayao Miyazaki about animation
Kelts wondered why in films like Nausicaä and even in Ponyo there's a great tsunami that threatens to destroy the setting?
Miyazaki responded that people tend to think they are separate from nature; but, he doesn't believe people are separate from nature. Nature is included within people. The nature that's inside Ponyo becomes the tsunami, which is the way she reaches the town where the boy Sosuke lives. The tsunami doesn't destroy the town or hurt the people there; it's more a magical tsunami that cleanses the town and the people who live there. Miyazaki finds hope in the power of nature.
Kelts asked Miyazaki to lay out for audiences accustomed to CGI animation what the value is of hand-drawn animation?
Miyazaki responded that-since drawing by hand can be sheer drudgery-they considered the option that it might be easier to use computer graphics. They hired a young person to explore computer drawing; but, soon realized they could draw faster by hand than by computer. For Miyazaki, it's a matter of thinking that animators should be more casual about drawing animation. He thinks an animator is more free, drawing by hand. When a character is feeling downtrodden, an animator can draw the character thin and small, and when a character is feeling full of confidence, they can draw his head bigger and show his feelings. It's difficult for computers to intuit human feelings.
As everybody, every moviegoer know about Iranian films and its influences in many part of the world. Domination of Iranian movies is an usual sight in almost all film festival around the world.
Me too as a big fan of Iranian movies, watching them with uttermost interest, specially movies of Abbas Kairostami, Jafaor Panahi, Mahsin Makhmalbaf, Majid Majidi and many more. All these are part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave.
The Iranian government has refused to permit the screening some of their films in their native Iran and banned their some of movies. It is after math of Islamic revolution in Iran that created few path for new explorations, bringing rich historical Sufi influences in their films and new innovative method of film making that perused by most of Iranian film makers today. Instead of luxury and sophistication of big studios, without technical significance or technical extravaganza Iranian directors looks in to more in social realism and find some wonderful way to making a film.
Very interesting way Iranian movies are experimenting with new styles that are varied with different layers of life of many commoner of Iran. Critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum argues that disagreements and controversy over Kiarostami's movies have arisen from his style of filmmaking because what in Hollywood would count as essential narrative information is frequently missing from Kiarostami's films.
Apart from Kiarostami other his contemporary also almost began to consciously avoid and ignore what usually called as a popular narrative structure of film making. They bring out and explored those idioms and inner voices of Iranian people that hidden and suppressed under Iranian authorities and far right regime. And the best part of it they embraced a method what is called as a social realism. They used actors from ordinary life, their actor talked in bressonian way. They shoot film on real location, real situation. They are filming a scene in a documentary style but still remains far away from an objective docu-drama. What is unveiled through their film is spirit of Iranian people, inner will of Iranian people, soul of Iranian culture, above all reverberation of an universal appeal.
What we have witnessed now, the volcano already erupted in Iran in the form of mass uprising, sign of it already captured on many Iranian new wave films.
Here is a disturbing video, in perspective of a film its a tragic example of ultra realism which really gone too far, but captured something raw truth in the name of information and objective use of a technical tool .
A woman gunned down during protests in Iran
This video may not be suitable for minors.
More about Neda Agha-Soltan, the woman who killed in gun shot here
Michael Fincke is an astronaut of NASA. Michael is married to the Renita Saikia, Renita’s parents, Rupesh and Probha Saikia formerly of Assam, India resides in Houston, Texas. Tarali (Mike's daughter) was born when Mike was in the space station and officially Mike became the first astronaut to become a father while in space.
AMAZZONIA WORLD SOCIAL FORUM - BELEM DO PARA' BRASIL. THIRD DAY OF THE MEETING OF THE WORLD CIVIL SOCIETY E SOCIAL MOVEMENT TO FACE THE GLOBAL WARMING AND THE FINACIAL CRISIS Today at the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil, Jawari Indigenous people marched on the UFPA campus. Interviews with: Puinapa from Javari Valley; Katu, WSF volonteer from Basque Countries; Outtara Diakalia, African Social Forum; Anibal Quijano, sociologist from Perù; Francisca Pancha, La Via Campesina, Chile
Water is one of the big issue of the social movement around the world. In this short documentary you will find voices speaking about water collected in differents social forum
26 November, 2008. At 9.30 pm, young men armed with AK47 guns and hand grenades got down from boats at Mumbai coast. They broke up into groups, hired taxis and went to Shivaji Chatrapati Terminus, The Taj, Oberoi Trident Hotel, Nariman House. Entering the thickly crowded railway station and the five star hotels, they began firing indiscriminately, unleashing a dance of death. For nearly three days, the terrorists held several hundred people hostage in the luxury hotels. Finally, after a 60 hour operation involving a force of 477 National Security Guard personnel, one unit of marine commandos, six columns of the army and 400 members of the Mumbai police, 9 terrorists were killed and one captured alive. The bloody drama, which involved attacks in as many as 11 places in the city, left 183 people dead, and 239 wounded.
It appears that the Lashkar-e-taiba is responsible for the present attack. The objectives could be many: increasing India-Pakistan tensions thereby forcing the Pakistani army to shift its units to the India border, so as to reduce the pressure being mounted on the Taliban by the Pakistan army on the Afghanistan border; killing American and Israeli tourists and threatening India for building close political and military relations with these two terrorist states; spreading anarchy and terror.
The scale of the terror attacks left Mumbai reeling. But within two days, it recovered. No riots took place either in Mumbai or anywhere else in the country. Mumbaikars faced the tragedy with stoic and calm. They even organized a huge demonstration for peace and unity condemning terrorism.
In contrast, India’s rulers ran to America for help. They have allowed US and Israeli intelligence agencies entry into the country. The western countries led by the USA have used the opportunity to highlight the threat of global terrorism and justify the genocide unleashed by them on Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of “war on terrorism”. Now, using the same excuse, Israel has unleashed yet another genocidal war on the Palestinian people to crush their fighting spirit. India has not uttered a word condemnation of this dastardly terrorist attack.
Indeed, for India’s rulers, the 26/11 terror attacks have been a godsend. It has helped cement their growing reactionary alliance with the USA and Israel, the biggest terrorist states in the world. Taking advantage of its shock effect, they have quickly passed a black law similar to the notorious POTA to further terrorise the Indian people. By dubbing it as “India’s 9/11”, influential sections of the Indian establishment aided by the media (which profits from gory news) are whipping up war hysteria. Its drumbeats are helping drown the terrible atrocities being committed by the ruling classes on the people in every state in the country:
·Recently, in Orissa, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad brutally attacked Christians. The orgy of lootings, burnings, murder continued for nearly two and a half months, which left more than 40 dead. Forty thousand people have been driven from their homes, half of who now live in refugee camps.
·Hindu extremist organizations have carried out bombings in Parbhani in 2003, in Jalna in 2004… in Malegaon in 2008.
·On October 30, 2008, 86 died and 826 were wounded in serial bomb explosions in Guwahati and elsewhere in Lower Assam.
·The Salwa Judum army created by the Chattisgarh state has conducted a virtual campaign of killings, rape, abduction and arson on the adivasis, forcing more than two lakh people to flee their homes, so that their mineral rich lands can be handed over to giant corporations for mining.
·It is estimated that a shocking 18 lakh people are subjected to police torture every year. More than 60% of them belong to religious minorities or are Dalits. Even human rights defenders are under attack, as the case of Dr. Vinayak Sen, in jail for the last 19 months on blatantly false charges, demonstrates.
·The Central and State governments are forcibly dispossessing the peasants, adivasis and slum dwellers of their lands and homes and transferring them to foreign and Indian big corporations for setting up SEZs, mining and infrastructural projects, shopping malls, elite residential colonies, etc.; when people resist, police resort to lathicharge, firing…
·The MNS has carried out brutal attacks on North Indian workers in Maharashtra, forcing thousands to flee.
In all these and innumerable other cases where a reign of terror has been unleashed on the ordinary people, no voices are raised; no campaign is waged by politicians, intellectuals, media to bring the perpetrators to justice. But when Mumbai’s incredibly luxurious hotels are targeted, 23 foreigners are killed, it is made into a major issue! Nevertheless, it is important take a look at the forces responsible for this terror attack.
Who are the real terrorists?
Everyone condemns the terrorism of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and other such organizations, as indeed should be done. But what most people forget is that its roots lie in American economics and politics. Also never mentioned is America’s global terrorism, which is incomparably more brutal, and has led to the deaths of lakhs of innocent people.
In Afghanistan, in order to overthrow a leftist government, the US created Osama Bin Laden and the fundamentalist Taliban. US Gave them enormous amounts of funds and arms. And when the demon refused to go back into the bottle, it became the excuse to attack Afghanistan after the September 11 bombing. The attack began on 7 October, 2001. Lakhs of old men, women and children died in the invasion.
Pakistan actively collaborated with US machinations in Afghanistan. The Taliban were taught religious fundamentalism and given military training in terrorist training camps in Pakistan. As a byproduct, it led to the growth of fundamentalism and terrorist organizations in Pakistan too. These have unleashed a wave of terrorist violence in Pakistan. So much so that Benazir Bhutto herself became a victim of this violence that she had helped create.
On 20 March 2003, US invaded and occupied Iraq in order to take control of its immense oil wealth. In Iraq Lakhs died. The Iraqi people who are fighting the US occupation of their country are called terrorists by the US, and the media all over the world dutifully repeats it. Then, America has backed Israel militarily and politically in its occupation of Arab lands in Palestine. The Palestinian people, who have been transformed into refugees in their own homeland, are fighting a heroic liberation struggle despite severe Israeli repression. Yet, the media in India, instead of condemning the terrorism of US-Israel, dubs the Palestinian people as terrorists!
America has used its immense military and economic power to establish control over the wealth, natural resources and markets of numerous third world countries. It has led to massive increase in unemployment and poverty in these countries. To keep the people divided, the local rulers together with the US imperialists have promoted racism and fundamentalism. Frustration born out of unemployment and poverty, and fundamentalism has driven many youth to terrorism. Thus it is American rulers and the multinational corporations seeking to plunder entire planet earth who are primarily responsible for the growth of terrorism in the world.
Why is India a target?
In 1991, India abandoned its previous economic and foreign policies and began tailing America. It made friends with Israel and voted against Iran. And so India’s image has become that of a collaborator of the US-Israel ‘Axis of Evil’. On top of it, on December 6, 1992, without any reason, Hindu fundamentalist forces destroyed the Babri Masjid. After that there were riots in Mumbai. It was in reaction to these incidents that there occurred 12 bomb blasts in Mumbai on 12 March, 1993, in which over 300 people died. The next major wave of terrorist attacks has begun from 2002 onwards, after the BJP carried out the genocide in Gujarat in March 2002: 2 December 2002 – Ghatkopar, 6 December – Mumbai Central, 27 January 2003 – Vile Parle… the July 11, 2006 serial bomb blasts in local trains. These are all in revenge for Gujarat.
A second factor providing the breeding ground for growth of terrorism is the policy of globalization being promoted by the Indian government, which is sharpening the polarization in the country. On the one hand, the life styles of the rich are becoming more and more opulent, with their huge shopping malls, luxury cars and designer clothes. And on the other hand, a very large section of the population is being driven into deeper and deeper poverty.
Pakistan’s politics
The machinations of Pakistan’s ruling classes and US intervention have made Pakistan a very fragile state. There are multiple centre of power. The fragile democratic government, which came to power because of the powerful people’s movement, is struggling to assert its influence vis-a-vis the assertive military forces. Pakistan’s economy is in deep crisis – it is facing foreign exchange bankruptcy, inflation is running at a whopping 25%. There is rising ethnic strife, and a growing collapse of government control over many parts of Pakistan. The Pakistan government is not able to check the growth of fundamentalist organizations too; the Marriott hotel bomb blasts nearly killed the Prime Minister recently. In such circumstances, warmongering only creates conditions for the army to seize power once again, further strengthen all these divisive forces, worsen extremism, and as a reaction, aggravate the Hindutva menace in India. Actually, war can never be a solution; and in the case of India Pakistan, it is also going to be self-destructive, because of nuclear weaponisation of both countries. and
While the scale of our crises may be different, both India and Pakistan face similar problems. Therefore, instead of reduced cooperation between our democratically elected governments, we need more. Instead of cutting people-to-people contacts and other interaction between our countries, we must increase it. India must chart out an independent course. Putting our eggs in the US basket, or relying on it to mediate our relations with Pakistan, will be disastrous. The US always is guided by its short term and narrow interests. Pakistan closely allied with the US. It has pushed Pakistan to the brink of disaster. Now, India’s rulers are taking the same road, which will lead us to similar consequences… We, the people, must unite to fight and prevent this.
To defeat terrorism…
It is necessary to understand the roots of terrorism, from its global causes to local causes. At the global level, its roots lie in American imperialism’s rapaciousness. At the national level, Indo-Pak relations are responsible. While at the local level it is the growth of religious fundamentalism in society as a whole which is dividing people and creating hatred amongst them. We will have to work at all these levels if we want to seriously fight terrorism.
At the local level, people will have to unite, rising above regionalism and communalism. They must form peace committees at Mohalla level, village level, city level; be vigilant against rumour mongering; engage in cultural interactions and build close social ties across communities.
At the national level, it is in the interests of the people of India to oppose America’s global dictatorship, military invasions, murder of millions of people, global plunder by its giant corporations, its creation of breeding grounds for religious fundamentalism, its destruction of the cultural diversity of the world and the promotion of a single culture of consumerism which is making people slaves of money. Even if we are not being killed by bombs like the US is doing in Iraq, nevertheless under the sweet sounding name of globalization, our country’s rulers have allowed the US to economically and culturally invade our country. It has pushed tens of thousands of farmers into committing suicides. Lakhs of workers have lost their jobs. Millions of youth are facing the curse of unemployment. It is to divert the attention of people from these problems, divide them, that the ruling classes promote fundamentalism and terrorism. The people of India must unite, breaking the religious divide, to oppose American imperialism and globalization. We must unite to force the implementation of a people centered development model whose aim would be the well-being of the majority of the population and not the profits of a few large corporations. That is in the interests of the overwhelming majority of people of all communities.
We must also unite and fight for the implementation of a foreign policy which will not be subservient to US interests, but which will seek to build relations with our neighbors and other third world countries on a mutually beneficial basis. While taking steps to build unity amongst ourselves, we must also take steps to reach out to people in our neighboring countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh, and build cultural, educational and trade relations with them. We must begin somewhere… let us begin with little initiatives to build unity amongst ourselves, across communities… Some of us in Pune are taking the initiative to organize the following programs. Do join us.
Program 1:
Seminar on: UNDERSTANDING THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM
Main speakers: Praful Bidwai (Delhi), Prashant Bhushan (Delhi), Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad (Delhi)
Date:January 25, 2009 (Sunday)
Time:10.30 am - 5.30 pm
Venue: Lokayat Hall, opp. Syndicate Bank, Law College Road, Near Nal Stop, Pune.
The historic National Convention of the glorious vanguard of the proletariat, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has been accomplished successfully. This convention was held at Kharipati of Bhaktapur on 21-27 of November 2008.
Different voices heard through what is called as great debate.
Dharmendra Bastola said on his opinion on The Red Star as :
"The National Convention of the Party was watched by many quarters of political life from all around the world. The proletariats and the bourgeoisies, the middle class and the upper class, the people of different nationalities and regions, women and socially enforced downtrodden castes, all people had their eyes on the Convention. This convention was also deeply watched by the ruling classes of many countries: from India to the United States of America and from Japan to Jamaica. The eyes of the different people rested over the Convention because the Maoist revolution is not only linked to the rebellion against the old state, but it is also linked to the political settlement. This is not only linked to the peace process under the process of revolutionary movement, it is also liked to accomplishment of the New Democratic Revolution. This is not only linked to the future of the millions of oppressed people of Asia, Africa and Latin American countries, it is also linked to the demise of imperialism, expansionism and reaction all over the world. This is not only linked to continuous uprising of the working class in Europe and America, it is also linked to the social peace and economic stability in those countries. In total, it is not only linked to the revolutionary movement and accomplishment of the New Democratic Revolution in this country, it is deeply linked to the understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the science of revolution and the science of social transformation. The Convention has been concluded putting aside the proposals put forward by Chairman Prachanda and Comrade Kiran and demanding to draft a new document based of the tactical slogan to establish a People’s Federal Democratic National Republic."
Again Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplap, a central committee member of CPN (Maoist) said on his opinon as;
"In totality, we have our own opinion that the political program, strategy and tactics proposed by the Chairman Com. Prachanda represent reformism. If we advance ahead through these tactics, it is clear that our party will be drowned into the swamp of reformism up over its head. The only solution is that the party should advance ahead through the political program of the People’s Republic, the strategy of insurrection and the tactics of class struggle. It will accomplish the Nepalese people’s revolution, although it is risky."
Meeting organized by Indian School of Social Sciences, Media Foundation and The Asian School of Journalism, Chennai at Rani Seethai Hall, Dr. Prabhat Patnaik on The Global Economic Crisis. Dr. Patnaik is a professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and Vice-Chairman of the Planning Board of Kerala. He is one of the four members of the UN Task Force to recommend reforms of the global financial system, headed by Joseph Stiglitz.
Another voice is heard as Zapatistas Call for Worldwide Festival of Dignified Rage
To the adherents of the Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign:
To the adherents of the Zezta Internazional:
To the People of Mexico:
To the Peoples of the World: Compañeras and Compañeros:
Brother and Sisters: Once again we send you our words.
This is what we see, what we are looking at.
This is what has come to our ears, to our brown heart.
I.
Above they intend to repeat history.
They want to impose on us once again their calendar of death, their geography of destruction.
When they are not trying to strip us of our roots, they are destroying them.
They steal our work, our strength.
They leave our world, our land, our water, and our treasures without people, without life.
The cities pursue and expel us.
The countryside both kills us and dies on us.
Lies become governments and dispossession is the weapon of their armies and police.
We are the illegal, the undocumented, the undesired of the world. We are pursued.
Women, young people, children, the elderly die in death and die in life.
And there above they preach to us resignation, defeat, surrender, and abandonment.
Here below we are being left with nothing.
Except rage.
And dignity. There is no ear for our pain, that is not like what we are. We are no one. We are alone, alone with our dignity and our rage. Rage and dignity are our bridges, our languages. We must listen to each other then, learn to know each other. So that our courage and rage grows and becomes hope. So that our dignity takes root again and births another world. We have seen and heard. Our voice is small to be the echo of that word, our gaze small for so much dignified rage. The process of seeing each other, looking at each other, speaking to each other, listening to each other, is still lacking. We are others, the other. If this world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made. With no tool other than our rage, no material other than our dignity. We still must encounter each other more, know each other better. What is missing is yet to come…
II. Now, three years after the Sixth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle, the EZLN has undertaken a collective reflection, nourished by the broad horizon that our compañeros of the Other Campaign in Mexico and in the Zezta Internazional across the world have given to us. It is not little that we have seen and heard, sometimes directly, sometimes through the words and the gaze of others. The rage that we felt and the dignity that we found was so great that we think now that we are smaller then we thought before. In Mexico and on the five continents we have found what we intuited when we began our sixth step: there is another world, there is another path. If the catastrophe that is coming can be avoided and humanity is to have another opportunity, it will because these others, below and to the left, not only resist, but are already drawing the profile of something else. Something different than what is occurring above. In the impossible geometry of political power, the fundamentalists are distributed evenly: the right becomes ultra-right and the institutional left becomes the impossible cultured right. Those who make up the progressive media complain that the fanatics of the mainstream press censure them, twist their words and slander their cause, but they at the same time censure, twist the words, slander, and silence any movement that hasn’t bowed down to the dictates of their ringleaders. And without shame they condemn and acquit to the rhythm of a senseless media rating. Fanatics on all sides fight over lies dressed as truths and crimes are measured by the media time that they occupy. But this is nothing other than a pale reflection of what is happening in politics. Weariness of the cynicism and incompetence of the traditional political classes has been converted into rage. Sometimes this rage is oriented toward hoping for change in the same paths and places as always, and it is there immobilized by disillusionment or trampled by an arbitrary force. The unsettled and brutal north goes back to its old ways. When it is not sponsoring electoral fraud (like in Mexico), it is promoting, encouraging, and financing state coups (as attempted now in Bolivia and Venezuela). War continues to be its primary and favored form of international diplomacy. Iraq and Afghanistan burn, but, to the despair of those above, are not consumed. The impositions of hegemony and homogeneity on a global scale find in nations, in regions, and in small locales, their witches’ apprentices that try for that impossible historic return to a past where fanaticism was law and dogma science. Meanwhile, the governing political classes have found in the world of bright lights an adequate disguise to hide their full participation in organized crime. Sickened by so much greed, the planet begins to pay the unpayable bill of its destruction. But “natural” disasters are also class issues and their devastation is felt most by those who have nothing and are no one. Faced with this, the stupidity of Power has no limits: millions and millions of dollars are dedicated to manufacturing new weapons and installing more military bases. The Power of capital does not worry about training teachers, doctors, engineers, but rather soldiers. It doesn’t prepare constructors, but rather destructors. And those who opposed this are the pursued, incarcerated, murdered. In Mexico, farmers who have defended their land are in prison (San Salvador Atenco); in Italy those who opposed the installation of military bases are pursued and treated as terrorists; in the France of “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” humans are only free, equal, and brothers if their papers say so; in Greece being young is a vice that must be eradicated; again in Mexico, but now in that city of the same name, young people are criminalized and murdered and nothing is done because it is not on the agenda that those above dictate. Meanwhile, a legitimate referendum is converted into a shameful way for an assassin-governor to wash his hands of a situation. In the Spain of the modern European Union, publications are closed and a language, Euskera, is criminalized—they think that by killing the word they can kill those who speak it; in that Asia that is so close, the peasant demands are answered with armored injustices; in that arrogant American Union, born in the blood of migrants, the “other colors” that work there are pursued and killed; in the long wound that is Latin America, the brown blood that sustains it is despised and humiliated; in the rebellious Caribbean, a people, the Cuban people, are forced to live under an imperial embargo that is nothing other than a punishment without crime. And in all of the corners of the world’s geography, and in all of the days of its calendars, those that work, those that make things run, are plundered, despised, exploited, and repressed. But sometimes, many times, as many times as a smile sets it off again, rage looks for its own paths, new paths, other paths. And the “no” that these multiple rages raise now not only resists, but begins to propose, to become. Since our appearance in public, now almost 15 years ago, it has been our goal to be a bridge on which the many rebellions in the world can walk back and forth. Sometimes we have achieved this, sometimes we haven’t. Now we see and we feel not only the rebellious resistance that, as sister and comrade, stays at our side and encourages our steps. Now there is something that before wasn’t there, or that we weren’t able to see before. There is a creative rage. A rage that paints all of the colors of the paths of below and to the left on the five continents….
III. FOR THESE REASONS, AND AS PART OF THE ACTS COMMEMMORATING THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION, THE 15 YEARS SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AGAINST FORGETTING, THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GOOD GOVERNMENT COUNCILS, AND THE THIRD YEAR OF THE OTHER CAMPAIGN AND THE ZEZTA INTERNAZIONAL, THE MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND ELDERLY OF THE EZLN CONVOKE ALL OF THE REBELLIOUS OF MEXICO AND THE WORLD TO THE:
FIRST GLOBAL FESTIVAL OF DIGNIFIED RAGE
WITH THE THEME OF: ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER PATH: BELOW AND TO THE LEFT
TO BE CELEBRATED ON THE FOLLOWING PLACES AND DATES THE OTHER MEXICO CITY, FEDERAL DISTRICT, December 26, 27, 28, and 29, 2008. IN LIENZO CHARRO OF THE ASSOCIATION LOS CHARROS REYES DE IZTAPALAPA, Frente Popular Francisco Villa Independiente-UNOPII, Avenue Guelatao # 50, Colonia Álvaro Obregón, Delegación Iztapalapa, close to the metro station Guelatao, where an exposition will be presented. AND IN THE HEADQUARTERS OF UNÍOS, Dr. Carmona y Valle street #32, colonia Doctores, close to the metro station Cuauhtemoc, where other activities will be held.
THE CITY OF SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, CHIAPAS, IN CIDECI, located on the Camino Real de San Juan Chamula s/n, Colonia Nueva Maravilla.
SOME OF THE SUBTHEMES OF THE FESTIVAL WILL BE: AN OTHER COUNTRYSIDE
AN OTHER POLITICS
AN OTHER CITY
AN OTHER SOCIAL MOVEMENT
AN OTHER COMMUNICATION
AN OTHER HISTORY
AN OTHER ART
AN OTHER CULTURE
AN OTHER SEXUALITY
THE FESTIVAL “ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER PATH: BELOW AND TO THE LEFT” WILL HAVE THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS: 1.In Mexico City, a national and international exposition will be installed where every struggle, every experience, every rage, will have a space where it can set up and show its struggle and its courage. This way we can all see, hear, and know each other. 2.In zapatista territory, dignity and rage will become art and culture, music and song, because rebellion also dances. And with words, pain will become hope. 3.In San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, the word will go back and forth in order to give birth to new words and give strength and reason to rage. 4.The national and international groups, collectives, and organizations that participate in the festival will be only those who are invited to do so. To this end, the Sixth Commission of the EZLN has initiated consultations with political and social organizations, as well as with groups and collectives of anarchists, libertarians, alternative communication workers, human rights defenders, sexworkers, intellectuals, social activists, ex political prisoners, all adherents of the Sixth Declaration; and with groups, collectives, and organizations of other countries, all part of the Zezta Internazional. The criteria for invitations and participations will be made after these consultations. 5.For the roundtables, the EZLN will invite social organizers, thinkers, and leaders of anticapitalist projects from Mexico and around the world. The list of invitees will be released later. 6. More details about what we are thinking the festival of dignified rage could be will be made known at earliest convenience (that is, when we have an approximate idea of the problem we have gotten ourselves into). That’s all for now.
LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ATENCO! From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command, of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, September of 2008.
Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:
"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.
"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."
Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.
The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.
And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Falling for whom? NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.
Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What's this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?
It has everything to do with it. This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it's because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Here's the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened.
This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!
I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something -- NOW! Here's what you can do immediately:
1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they've made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what's the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.
2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).
3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.
When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!
Indian poor (African poor also) always is a lucrative, fashionable subject of photography/art for some art house camp and individual. Now fashion grasps them. What vogue India done in the name of photo session (vogue India august issue) with Indian poor, just an example of perverse nature of liberal new market economy, well defined proof of moral degradation in a consumer world. An attitude to just dump ethos and a tendency to create a market or capture a market leads to the shameful demonstration of creativity in the name of fashion.
How vogue India looks at poor, as a metaphor of art or dream people? The perspective of vogue India as it revealed as they conceive an idea of self imposed superiority in a domain which made them blind to an extent that they are loosing their feet on the ground. Whole demonstrations came out as a flimsy idea for a saleable “creativity” with use of poor. One billion people, 30 million middle class, so sell them anything, make them anything.
“not just tacky but downright distasteful” said Kanika Gahlaut, a columnist for the daily newspaper Mail Today that is based here, who denounced it as an “example of vulgarity.” There’s nothing “fun or funny” about putting a poor person in a mud hut in clothing designed by Alexander McQueen, she said in a telephone interview. “There are farmer suicides here, for God’s sake” she said, referring to thousands of Indian farmers who have killed themselves in the last decade because of debt.
And
This is what VOUGE INDIA editor said: Vogue India editor Priya Tanna’s message to critics of the August shoot: “Lighten up,” she said in a telephone interview. Vogue is about realizing the “power of fashion” she said, and the shoot was saying that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful,” she said. “You have to remember with fashion, you can’t take it that seriously,” Ms. Tanna said. “We weren’t trying to make a political statement or save the world,” she said.
B V Krishnamurthy wrote on Harvard business in an article “Vogue, Vuitton Marketers Don't Understand India” as: While there is nothing wrong in those earning high salaries having aspirations and getting into the rat race, flaunting such wealth in a manner that is disdainful of the suffering of millions is sure to sow the seeds of undesirable tendencies among the have-nots. Organizations, marketers and users can ignore these at their own peril.
Comment by G S Julka on article of B V Krishnamurthy as:
Most of the luxury brands make the same mistake. Mercedes came to India merely looking at a billion people. Result: It is a failure. If it was an Indian company, it would have been declared bankrupt. It has lost its net worth.
Moreover, as crucially important as material well-being is, what is at stake here is humiliation and cruelty. The individuals in the photographs might not quite grasp the cruel, humiliating implications of the Vogue photographs (although I would not want to pre-judge that), but virtually every relatively well-off reader of Vogue surely should be able to do so. How condescending are these images? "Oh, look at the poor woman and child! How fortunate that the baby can wear that charming bib!" The consequences of so cavalierly displaying such attitudes in any society are immense. That the folks at Vogue, as well as many of their readers and sycophants, seem unable to grasp that fact is truly disturbing.
A historic land struggle has been unfolding at Chengara in Pathanamthitta district, Kerala, involving about 7500 families, which includes all sections of landless people, the majority of them being Dalits and Adivasis. Landless people have claimed land in the Chengara estate, a rubber plantation, which had been leased to the Harrison Malayalam Plantation by the government of Kerala. At present, the lease is invalid and the property has lapsed back to the government. The landless people who have flocked there from all parts of Kerala demand that this government land be redistributed to them. These marginalised people have thereby demanded a say in what must be done with government land in Kerala: given the present political and economic climate, the likelihood is that this land will be taken over by the state only to be assigned unconditionally, or with minimum conditions, to the multi-nationals. The struggle is now over a year old; it began on 3 August 2007, and was led by Laaha Gopalan, a leader of the Dalit organization, the Sadhujana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi.
Throughout the past one year, the struggle has been conducted in a peaceful way. Also, its political gravity has been widely recognized, both in the national and international pro-democracy, pro-equity circles. This was probably why the Kerala High Court ordered the government, in March 2008, not to evict the people forcibly from Chengara . The Left Democratic Front government in Kerala, however, has failed to address the issues raised by the struggle in any serious way. Indeed, it has continued to espouse the position that no land remains in Kerala that may be redistributed. This, however, is a position that has been contested since long.
The present scene, however, appears more ominous. Tensions had started building earlier this month. On the first anniversary of the land struggle, which was observed on 4 August 2008, workers of the Harrison Malayalam Plantation began a road blockade that cut off food and medical supplies to people inside the plantation. In the subsequent days, unlawful detention of and violence upon male and female activists by goons have become frequent. Men going out of the plantation seeking work have been increasingly attacked and beaten up. Women have been threatened with sexual violence in overt and covert ways. Human rights’ activists were violently prevented from entering the area by goondas pretending as workers, in the full view of police and government officials. This incident was widely reported in the press in Kerala, and revealed the complicity of state authorities with the vested interests seeking to break the back of the land struggle through unlawful means.
Starvation and illness has been reported from inside the plantation but activists have been forcibly prevented from entering. Indian Vision, a Malayalam TV Channel, reported the abduction and sexual harassment of four women activists. However, no one from outside has been allowed in to investigate. Following the reports, a protest was organized at Pathanamthitta, on 11 August by dalit activists, dalit feminists and other human rights activists, but not a single activist was allowed to proceed. The media, too, is eerily silent. The day after the protest, two women who went out for provisions were attacked, who were rescued from abduction by the police. Importantly, this attempt to abduct happened in the full view of the police. What this reveals is the determination of the goondas to make the point that police presence does not deter them.
The relative absence of outright violence, until now, is no consolation. The recent goonda tactics are according to a blueprint of violence now familiar in Kerala — of the sand mafia, which creates an atmosphere or terror instead of outright violence and brings the local community to its knees. Clearly a variant of the same is being experimented with in Chengara.
We are afraid that another kind of Nandigram is awaiting us at Chengara, and in the near future. This appeal comes from those who have been engaged in anti-caste and anti-patriarchal struggles in Kerala, which have grown outside formal institutions of the state. We feel that these two axes of exclusion and violence have conjoined at Chengara, both in the blockade and in the intermittent violence there. We demand that democratic forces in Kerala rise to the occasion to challenge this denial of democracy. We demand, first of all, that the illegal road blockade at Chengara be lifted at once, and that the trade unions take necessary steps to isolate the criminal perpetrators of violence against the struggling people of Chengara. We demand that neutral teams of observers be immediately allowed into the estate to take stock of the situation, and investigate the extent of violence. We condemn the use of sexual harassment – and the threat of it – against women as a political weapon at Chengara and urge the government to take strong steps against this. We appeal to the democratic and socialist supporters of the mainstream left in Kerala to remember the histories of valiant struggles for workers’ and peasants’ rights. We appeal to all democratic people in this country and the world to join us in this struggle to live and flourish.
Issued by Rekha Raj, for the Panchami Dalit Feminist Collective, Kottayam, Kerala
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