I’ve been anti-war as long as I can remember. When I got a call from a
military recruiter in high school, I already had the clarity of
conviction to give him an unambiguous no, and he didn’t have any chance
of budging me (although he tried). Everything I’ve learned about war
since then only increased my dedication to the principle.
As the song goes: “War can’t give life. It can only take it away.”
I’ve also been a tree-hugger for as long as I remember and for me, my
anti-war ethic resonates in harmony with my opposition to the needless
killing of any living creature, including plants.
The human toll of warfare is tragic beyond accounting in lives
brutally cut short, grievous injuries suffered, cultural heritage lost
(museums, religious structures, libraries, schools) and to vital
infrastructure destroyed (hospitals, power plants, reservoirs). War as
now fought has been with us at least since the establishment of
agriculture, and as technology has advanced, its devastating abilities
have escalated. Last century was the bloodiest in human history and we
must make sure that record stands. Armed conflict at that scale with the
current arsenal would be nightmarish beyond reckoning.
Less spoken of, but gaining increasing attention, are war’s effects
on the environment. Not just active war-making, but the consequences of
all the industries, institutions and infrastructure that supports it;
what we could put together under the heading of militarism. Effects
include the ruination of habitat and farmland by battle, the killing and
disruption of wildlife, the release of lethal pollutants, the damaging
processes of weapon manufacturing, and the large-scale release of carbon
emissions. Over all this hangs the threat of a nuclear winter, the
worst environmental disaster imaginable.
The act of war makes hell out of the landscapes it smashes, sometimes
as collateral damage and sometimes as an intentional tactic. The earth
is ripped opened by explosives, trampled by tanks and heavy machinery,
strung with barbed wire, riddled with mines, littered with bullet and
shell casings, contaminated by toxins, burned and desertified.
In Laos and Cambodia to this day, farmers are injured or killed when
they run across old bomblets from cluster munitions dropped on their
country in the millions by the United States during the Vietnam War,
fifty years ago.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivers remarks at the Kennedy Center Honors Dinner in Washington, DC., on December 3, 2022. IMAGE/State Department/Freddie Everett/Public Domain
Despite calling Ukraine a “slaughterhouse” and calling for the prosecution of Russia for war crimes, the Clooney Foundation for Justice has remained completely silent on the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Amal Clooney, the internationally acclaimed
lawyer, is a liberal icon. She and her organization, the Clooney
Foundation for Justice (CFJ), never shrink from pronouncing their global
verdicts on human rights matters. And yet, despite being Lebanese and
of Palestinian descent herself, Time magazine’s 2022 Woman of the Year
has maintained complete silence on Israel’s continued bombardment of
those very countries – a crime other human rights experts have labeled a
genocide.
It has now been six months since the October 7 attack, Israel’s
wholesale destruction of Gaza and its attacks on Lebanon, yet Clooney
has made no public statement on the matter, either in public or on
social media, despite mountingcallsforhertodoso.
Condemning Enemy Nations, Ignoring Crimes of Friends
Born in Lebanon to a Druze Lebanese father and a Sunni Muslim mother
of Palestinian descent, Clooney’s family sought refuge in the United
Kingdom after the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. After practicing
law for many years in the U.K. and U.S. in 2016, she founded the CFJ
alongside her film star husband, George. “??We founded the Clooney
Foundation for Justice to hold perpetrators of mass atrocities
accountable for their crimes and to help victims in their fight for
justice,” the pair explain on their website.
Today, the CFJ works in over 40 countries. This includes many countries the U.S. treats as enemy nations or candidates for regime change. Clooney and her foundation have taken strong stances against many of those nations. She has demanded that Russia be prosecuted for war crimes. “Ukraine is, today, a slaughterhouse. Right in the heart of Europe,” she told the U.N. Security Council in 2022. The following year, the CFJ filed three cases in Germany. The cases accused Russia of many war crimes, including leveling a civilian building in a missile strike on Odesa, killing 40 people, unlawfully detaining, torturing and killing four Ukrainians in the Kharkiv region, and sexual violence and looting in the Kiev region. The CFJ is also suing the Venezuelan government over alleged human rights abuses.
UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, or MbZ, with U.S. President Joe Biden at the GCC+3 summit in Jeddah, July 2022. IMAGE/The White House, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
The
United Arab Emirates has enjoyed excellent press in the West; not that
the kingdom has stayed out of trouble in the Middle East or maintained
neutrality in the various conflicts and wars raging around them.
Far
from it. The U.A.E. has in fact instigated — and added fuel to — the
fires of many wars and conflicts in the region. The reason for its
favorable treatment in the West has to do with the enormous wealth of
the country and the competition in the West to sell the the Emiratis
high-end military equipment, from advanced arms to planes.
The
U.A.E. achieved the status it enjoys in Washington, D.C. through
extensive lobbying, generous funding and rapprochement with Israel
regardless of the latter’s war crimes in the region.
When
Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) ascended to the throne (even when his brother
Khalifa Ben Zayed was the nominal ruler) he dispatched a close aide,
Yusuf Otaiba, to Washington as ambassador to the U.S. to promote
military and intelligence relations between the countries.
Like
the former Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar before him, Otaiba quickly
reached the conclusion that the road to the heart of Congress must pass
through AIPAC, the legendary Israeli lobby. Otaiba’s generation
of Arab Gulf leaders is unburdened by any emotions or passions
regarding Palestine; and present-day Gulf despots don’t have to look
over their shoulders in anticipation of speeches by Gamal Nasser in
which the Egyptian leader would mobilize the Arab masses from the Gulf
to the ocean.
The
relationship among countries of the Gulf has never been harmonious, but
the U.S. exerted its influence immediately after the 1979 Iranian
revolution to push them into a security arrangement (the Gulf
Cooperation Council, founded in 1981) to fend off Iranian danger and
threats, alleged or real, and to distance the Gulf political order from
the Arab core regarding the Palestinian question.
A view of the bank of the Ravi River in Lahore. IMAGE/Rana Sajid Hussain/Alamy)
Erum Sattar from Pakistan and Uttam Kumar Sinha from India discuss the Shahpurkandi dam’s implications, stressing the importance of collaboration under the Indus Waters Treaty.
As the Shahpurkandi barrage
on the river Ravi in the Indian state of Punjab nears completion, there
are fears in downstream Pakistan. The dam, proposed three decades ago,
has the potential to irrigate 5,000 hectares of agricultural land in
Punjab and over 32,000 hectares in Jammu and Kashmir on the Indian side.
But the dam will stop any flow of river water to downstream Pakistan,
with newspaper headlines being largely dominated by accusations of
‘water war-mongering’.
The Ravi is part of the six rivers of the Indus basin that are governed by the Indus Waters Treaty
(IWT). Signed in 1960 between the two countries, the IWT is one of only
two major transboundary water treaties in South Asia (the other being
the 1996 Ganges treaty), considered one of the great successes of water
diplomacy.
The Third Pole invited two experts – Erum Sattar of Pakistan and
Uttam Kumar Sinha from India – to weigh in on what the development means
for the IWT as well as the long-term impacts on the Indus basin in
ecological terms.
Erum Sattar, Water law expert with a doctorate from Harvard Law School
The latest controversy over the Shahpurkandi Dam and its completion
by India is akin to a ‘nothing burger’ — a controversy that rages for
some time mainly on social media and a lot of talk about nothing.
Reasonable people should meet it by responding with the request to ‘move
along, please’, as there is nothing to see here. With that overall
perspective laid out, it is important to dive briefly into the details
of what the IWT does and does not allow.
The IWT remains to date the only treaty in the world that diverts and
divides actual rivers and not their flows or specific amounts of water.
It assigned the three western rivers of the Indus basin to Pakistan
whereas the three eastern rivers were allocated to India. The main thing
to know about this division is that it was meant to create certainty,
so that after the conclusion of the treaty, both countries would become
entitled to construct the infrastructure needed to undertake full
utilisation of the waters of the rivers allocated to them.
Because water flows downstream, any flow that India did not
previously utilise upstream within its territory would naturally flow
down to Pakistan. In the case of the present dam and controversy, this
is precisely what was happening with the flows of the Ravi that were
not, until now, diverted upstream within India.
But just because the treaty allows maximum utilisation by the two
countries of ‘their’ respective rivers does not mean that the countries
should not reach agreement and make provisions for environmental flows –
even if that means making addendums to the IWT.
As environmentalists have long pointed out, by not creating provisions for environmental flows,
the hydrology and ecology of the three downstream eastern rivers is
irreparably harmed. Moreover, the growing complexity and changing
patterns of precipitation and river flow, as a result of accelerated
glacial melt and climate change, make water management much more complex
than was understood at the time the treaty was negotiated.
Rather than focusing on India’s creation of projects within its
territory, Pakistan should take the opportunity to have a holistic
conversation about what good neighbourly conduct entails given the
realities of climate change. Pakistan should put together a proposal
under Article 7 of the treaty that creates the basis for future
cooperation along the Indus River system. It should share its best-use
ideas with India and the world immediately. Given its dependence on
judicious and forward-thinking management of the rivers of the Indus,
this is the need of the hour. Anything else is a distraction.
For the purposes of gaining a clearer understanding of the present
controversy, it is not important to dive into the intricacies of
international water law and the competing concepts of no appreciable
harm and equitable utilisation. Nor to directly address whether and to
the extent there are specific and general reservations on Pakistan’s end
as there have been through the long history of Indus negotiations about
being the lower riparian to a large upstream neighbour on both the
western and eastern rivers.
Every ‘crisis’ can be an opportunity. And right now, Pakistan as a
vital custodian of the Indus should adopt a visionary, expansionist and
positive approach. It should propose a plan focused on expanding
cooperation across the Indus River Basin for long-term sustainability
amid extreme climate change. This approach should encompass all human
users and non-human species and ecology across Pakistan, India,
Afghanistan and China. This way, Pakistan can be on the right side of
history even before international water law and perhaps other
co-riparians agree to manage the basin for present and future vitality.
Being right and visionary is important, while actively working towards
the realisation of hope for the virtuous alignment of geopolitics and
national interests.
Uttam Kumar Sinha, senior expert on transboundary rivers, author of Indus Basin Uninterrupted: A History of Territory and Politics from Alexander to Nehru
Images of Buddha’s enlightenment often portray him sitting alone under the bodhi tree,
his body emaciated from fasting. Some depictions show the Buddha’s
right hand pointing down, asking the earth goddess to bear witness to
his enlightenment.
Demonic armies or dangerous temptresses can be shown on both sides of the Buddha, demonstrating his fortitude in the face of violent threats and seduction. In some images, he may also be flanked by two male disciples while expounding his teachings.
What is missing, however, from these images are Buddhist women. What does enlightenment look like for them?
I’m a scholar of women and gender in Buddhism,
and one of the key questions driving my research is the unique ways in
which enlightenment is experienced in a female body. This led me to the Therigatha, a collection of poems written in the P?li language by female disciples of the Buddha.
“Be militant
each in your own way… Those of you who can break windows—break them.
Those of you who can still further attack the secret idol of property…do
so.” Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) spoke these lines as part of her
now-famous speech, “I Incite This Meeting to Rebellion”, on October 17,
1912.
Pankhurst, a leading figure in the British suffragette
movement, was known for her powerful and often controversial rhetoric,
which she used to mobilise support for women’s rights. Pankhurst also
employed shocking tactics like property damage and hunger strikes. These
methods were widely condemned as extremist. However, Pankhurst’s
disruptive tactics brought much-needed attention to the cause. The sheer
controversy surrounding the Suffragettes forced Parliament to
acknowledge the issue and ultimately grant women the right to vote.
The fight for gender equality has had other provocative voices. Feminist writer Andrea Dworkin brought controversy with statements like: “Under patriarchy, every woman’s son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman.” While such declarations were undoubtedly uncomfortable, they served to dismantle complacency and sparked crucial conversations about the deeply entrenched structures of patriarchy.
Emmeline Pankhurst or Andrea Dworkin are not isolated instances.
Through history, social progress has been stimulated by voices who
challenge the status quo with high-decibel provocation. My personal
favourite is Sojourner Truth (1797–1883), the African American
abolitionist and women’s rights activist, who didn’t leave behind a vast
collection of written works but her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech,
delivered at the Women’s Rights Convention in 1851 in Akron, Ohio, is a
masterpiece of provocation.
Or take Malcolm X, who said: “I don’t
even call it violence when it’s in self-defence; I call it
intelligence.” Malcolm’s early speeches were fiery and confrontational,
calling out white racism as “evil” and advocating Black self-defence.
While some found his pronouncements radical and a blatant call for
violence, he forced America to confront uncomfortable truths about its
deeply ingrained racial inequality. It prompted action, it empowered the
Black Power movement, it pushed the conversation on race to national
and international stages.
In fact, Black activists in America have
historically been very aggressive in speech. “…a Winchester rifle
should have a place of honour in every black home, and it should be used
for that protection which the law refuses to give,” said Ida B. Wells, a
pioneering African American journalist, educator, and early leader in
the civil rights movement. Wells was known for her campaign against
lynching. Her investigations into lynching and her outspoken
publications were considered highly provocative, challenging not only
the perpetrators but also the prevailing norms and laws of her time.
Many
years later, Angela Davis, an academic, philosopher, and radical
Marxist, gained global attention when she was tried and acquitted on
charges connected to a courthouse shootout. A long-time member of the
Communist Party USA, her work addresses issues like prison reform and
racial justice and continues to provoke discussions around civil rights.
Huey
P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, with which Davis was
also associated, advocated for African American self-defence (which
included violence) and was involved in several initiatives considered
provocative, including community self-help programmes and armed patrols
to monitor police behaviour in black neighbourhoods. His speeches, which
highlighted the Black Panther Party’s focus on black empowerment and
readiness to confront injustice, were seen as highly provocative,
particularly by the authorities.
Changemakers, be they reformers
or activists, religious figures or feminists, have always employed one
powerful tool: controversial, provocative speech. While their
pronouncements ruffle feathers and intimidate adversaries and even their
supporters at times, they intend to ignite the larger cause. When
wielded effectively, provocative speeches pierce through apathy,
challenge deeply held beliefs, and force people to confront a flawed
social order.
Whether Che Guevara or E.V. Ramasamy “Thanthai”
Periyar, they used carefully crafted provocation. Periyar, who took on
social evils such as caste, class, and gender inequality as well as
religious superstitions, often resorted to extremely aggressive
statements that continue to create controversies even today. Sample
this: “There is no god, there is no god, there is no god at all; the
inventor of god is a fool, the propagator of god is a scoundrel, and the
worshipper of god is a barbarian.”
Does this make Periyar a hate
monger, as a section of the right wing claims? Not necessarily, says
Karthick Ram Manoharan in his equally provocative essay “Did Periyar
call for the genocide of Brahmins?” in the latest issue of Frontline.
“In hierarchical societies, reformers challenge the status quo with
provocative and uncivil speech. Accusing them of hate speech is
ill-intentioned,” he writes. Read the article (it is free for the readers of this newsletter, but only for a while) and let us know if you understand Manoharan’s reasoning.
Did
Periyar’s statements actually harm any community? Have minority
communities faced much more actual physical damage to person and
property over the years? Does gross caste inequality demand strong,
provocative language? How does one differentiate between speech aimed to
liberate an oppressed minority and speech that seeks to further oppress
a minority? Which one is hate speech? Where do we draw the line?
Basically a full day AI course crammed into 18 mins of drawing & talking.
Target audience: Everyone. Covers questions like What is generative AI, how does it work, how do I use it, what are some of the risks & limitations. Also covers things like autonomous agents, the role of us humans, prompt engineering tips, AI-powered product development, origin of ChatGPT, different types of models, and some tips about mindset around this whole thing.
A little history will suffice to conclude that Germany has been a
problem for Europe for more than a century. The greatest attacks on
Europe’s peace have come from Germany. Let us not forget that NATO was
created to defend the “free world” from both the Soviet Union and
Germany’s authoritarian aggression. At the time, Germany was defeated
and divided, but the danger of a change in the status quo was latent.
The creation of the European Union was dominated by the same distrust of
Germany. Germany’s post-war leaders went to great lengths to give
credibility to the idea of Germany as a peaceful country and the EU
benefited enormously from Germany’s economic reconstruction, making it
the economic engine of Europe in a relatively short space of time. In
addition to its economic prosperity, Germany has established itself as
an ethical country. Angela Merkel’s initial policy in the face of the
immigration wave was a memorable lesson in historical responsibility.
All this has happened without us realizing that two ghosts haunt
Germany.
The first ghost is Russia and the defeat inflicted by Russia (then
the Soviet Union) on Germany in World War II. With Willy Brandt’s
Ostpolitik, this ghost seemed to have been neutralized forever, but it
only took the war in Ukraine to see that this was not the case. The
geostrategic objectives of the United States, which include neutralizing
Russia in order to reach out to China, have found in Germany the most
enthusiastic or slavish support. The genuine desire for peace quickly
disappeared and Germany began to prepare for a war that goes far beyond
supplying arms to Ukraine. The recent revelation of German military
plans for Crimea are indications of this.The Defense Minister Boris
Pistorius recently stated that “the EU must be ready for war before the
end of the decade.” Germany has convinced itself that it is in good
company, since it has as an ally one of the powers that defeated it in
World War II. Victory would be certain, and that is why the Minsk 1 and 2
Agreements were just smoke screen to give Ukraine time to prepare for
war. In the end, the foresight failed and, despite all the propaganda to
the contrary, Russia is winning the war and the conditions that ensured
Germany’s post-war prosperity will take a long time to rebuild, if
ever. The U.S. will withdraw from Ukraine when it suits it, just as it
did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, but Germany and Europe will
be held hostage to the consequences of such withdrawal. Germany thought
it was finally on the right side of history and has yet to realize that,
for better or worse, history has turned back to the East, where it has
actually been the longest in history. Germany and Europe itself will
only wake up from this madness when they have to explain to their
citizens that defending Taiwan militarily is part of European security.
The second phantom is the Holocaust. What is happening in Germany after October 7 is something very strange.
