By M. K. Bhadrakumar

When the wastes of Qyzylqum and Karakum blossom in early spring, the enchanting sight can pain one’s heart. But the killer deserts are deceptive in appearance, especially Qyzylqum, which is in the tract of land between the two great rivers in Central Asia – the Amu Darya and Sirdarya.

In the spring of 1220, when Genghis Khan abruptly rode out of the Qyzylqum with a few hundred Mongol horsemen to take the Amir of Bukhara by surprise, the Amir never imagined that the desert would so easily concede safe passage to a Mongol stranger. Bukhara – one of the biggest cities at that time along with Cordoba, Cairo and Baghdad – paid heavily for the desert’s treachery. Bukhara took over two centuries to recover from “God’s wrath”, which the austere Khan insisted he was administering to the slothful, opulent city for its sinful ways.

It is again early spring in the Central Asian steppes. There is a deceptive calm, but all signs are that the Great Game is bestirring from its slumber. The United States is focusing on the key Central Asian country of Kazakhstan, which straddles the Qyzylqum and the Karakum, to stage a strategic comeback in the region. Prospects are brighter than ever as Kazakhstan is edging closer to the chairmanship of the Organization of Security and Economic Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) next year. The OSCE leadership brings Kazakhstan into the forefront of the Western strategies in Eurasia – and out of Russian orbit.

The war in nearby Afghanistan provides the backdrop for the US’s proactive diplomacy. But that, too, is deceptive. It seems the US is also probing a solution to the Iran nuclear problem with Kazakhstan’s helping hand. The urgency is great and President Barack Obama has already hinted that he intends to pay a visit to Kazakhstan, the first ever to the steppes by an American president.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration is “carefully considering” the setting up of an international uranium fuel bank in Kazakhstan, which could form the exit strategy for the historic US-Iran standoff. That is why the visit by the Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to Astana, Kazakhstan, on Monday assumes exceptional importance.

In bits and pieces, a stray thought has been surfacing in the recent months in the US discourses over the situation surrounding Iran. It sought a rethink of Washington’s insistence on Iran jettisoning its pursuit of uranium enrichment as a pre-requisite of commencement of direct talks between the two countries. This was borne out of a growing realization that the US insistence was no longer tenable. A logjam has indeed developed as it became clearer by the day that within the fractious Iranian opinion there is virtual unanimity when it comes to the continuance of the country’s nuclear program, and effecting a regime change in Tehran didn’t necessarily alter Iran’s policies.

The Obama administration faces the reality that unless the impasse is broken somehow, the standoff continues. The standoff worked to Iran’s advantage only insofar as the country speeded up its nuclear program ever since the series of United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions since 2006 began forbidding Iran from enriching uranium. Iran today has installed over 5,500 centrifuges and built up a stockpile exceeding 1,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium.

It now appears that the US might cede to Iran’s nuclear program. The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday that as part of a policy review commissioned by Obama, “diplomats are discussing whether the US will eventually have to accept Iran’s insistence on carrying out the [enrichment] process, which can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons-grade material”. The newspaper assessed that the Obama administration’s message to Tehran is increasingly shaping up as “Don’t develop a nuclear weapon” – a nuanced stance that would not rule out a deal accepting Iranian enrichment as such. It pointed out that Obama’s articulations on the subject have become much less specific than those of former president George W Bush, who never minced words in crying a halt to Iran’s enrichment.

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In this interview with Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal printed in the Wednesday edition of the Finnish newsmagazine, Suomen Kuvalehti, Katri Merikallio asks him about his commitment to democracy, the free press and the future of the peace process.

Suomen Kuvalehti: How would you describe your past seven months in power?
Pushpa Kamal Dahal: Everybody knows that we are going through a very delicate and sensitive transition period. We have many challenges, but altogether I can conclude that things are going ahead step by step, facing many twists and turns, in the process of drafting a new democratic constitution.

What would be your three main challenges?
Peace, until and unless this unique and homegrown peace process is not concluded there is always the danger of instability and anarchy. We need to take this historic peace process to its logical conclusion. The second challenge is to build a consensus between all the political parties. We have broad areas of agreement on the form of democracy, human rights, rule of law, independent judiciary and freedom of press, but there are some issues where we still need to agree: what kind of federalism we need, how power will be shared between autonomous regions, differences on the issue of form of governance. The third challenge is that the people have very high expectations from the change and we have to meet them.
In some aspects fighting the war was easier than handling the democratic governance process. But both have their own characteristics, and you can’t really compare. I am fully confident that we will take the peace process forward and draft the constitution in the stipulated timeframe.
There are reports of continued intimidation, and violence is on the increase. Some of this is being blamed on your party.
I cannot agree with this statement. This is highly exaggerated. It is correct that we are having a very delicate transition period ? there are so many remnants from the previous conflict and we cannot eradicate it overnight. If you look at peace processes elsewhere in the world our peace process is much smoother. There are some unwanted activities and we are committed to punish the guilty and end impunity. In some media problems have been highly exaggerated.

What about the tensions within your own party?
To lead the revolution into a peaceful process and to hold elections and then to lead the government within a very short span of time is miraculous. But we have transformed not just our party but the whole society. Naturally there are different tendencies within my party extreme left, extreme right, vacillation tendency but overall the pragmatic more dialectic and realistic tendency is now dominant. The extremist tendency has been defeated.

If you look at the future which kind of governance model would you prefer: Korea, China or India?
I don’t want to compare ourselves with anyone, but we have to learn from the negative and positive aspects of other revolutions during the 20th century. It is our conclusion that without multiparty democracy we can’t serve the people and humanity. For now we have to cooperate that with other parliamentary parties.There should be no serious doubt about out commitment to multiparty democracy, freedom of press and rule of law. During the insurgency, I have praised the media and spoken out against the feudal autocracy trying to suppress the media.
But the Committee to Protect Journalists says Nepal is still one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists and no one has been arrested.
It is unfortunate that even during the peace process a number of journalists have been killed, but it is not correct that no one has been arrested or punished. In some cases I, myself, took the initiative to capture some people to be handed over to police custody, and the case is going in the court. In one case, in the Tarai of Birendra Sah the killing was not related to our party. Recently, there was the case of Uma Singh, and here also the accused are in jail or some are underground, they were not related to any party. It was proved that this was related to property, a family dispute. It is wrong to say that nothing has been done. It is an exaggeration. The government is fully committed to end impunity.

Yourself, how Maoist are you?
(Laughs) Very interesting question. I always understood Marxism, Leninism, Maoism as a social struggle, and that conflict analysis is the soul of social science. All the great leaders of the proletariat, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao said that nothing should be mechanically copied from one revolution or one country. We have to analyse the situation and understand the dynamics of change. If you mechanically copy what Mao did in China then you’re not a real Maoist. There are some who want to dogmatically apply what Mao did, but China itself has changed.

How about the Maoist movement in India?
Revolutions can’t be exported or imported. What they do in India is solely their responsibility. There are some communist parties in India ? some are extremely left and some extremely right. When I took the path of multiparty democracy and embarked on the peace process there was serious debate within the Maoists in India about whether they should follow the Maoists in Nepal or not. There are some people in the Maoist movement in India who oppose us and say we have abandoned revolution, but there are those who say that what Prachanda is doing is correct and that we should learn from his experience.

What are your expectations with the visit to Finland?
I am fully satisfied with the trend of cooperation. There is tremendous and big change going on in Nepal and the people have high expectations. I hope that cooperation can be enhanced particularly in education and forestry, not just in conservation but also the commercial use of forests. We also expect more help and cooperation in the constitution drafting process. We would also like to encourage investment in the IT sector.

Nepali Times

By Perri Klass, MD

Not long ago, in the clinic, a fellow pediatrician and mother asked whether we were still teaching our sons old-fashioned elevator etiquette: stand back and let the ladies off first.

We all protested that we don’t particularly like it when men pull that elevator stunt — hospital elevators tend to be packed, and the best thing to do if you’re near the door is get out promptly — but we had to admit we thought our adolescent sons should know the drill.

Once you start asking about whether there are special lessons that should be taught to boys, people jump pretty quickly from elevators to sex (or maybe that’s just the crowd I run with). Sex, after all, is a subject on which pediatricians give plenty of advice. And it becomes very tricky to formulate that advice without making some unpleasant assumptions about adolescent sexuality.

It has never been easy for adults to deal with young teenagers honestly and sensibly on this subject, and it isn’t easy now. We live with an endless parade of hypersexualized images — and a constant soundtrack of adults lamenting children’s exposure to that endless parade. There’s increasing knowledge of dating violence, including well-publicized celebrity incidents. And there’s always a new movie to see about how adolescent boys are clueless, sex-obsessed goofballs.
Stir it all together, and you may get an official worldview in which boys are viewed as potential criminals and girls as potential victims.
William Pollack, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School who wrote “Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood” (Owl Books, 1999), argues that the way we talk to boys and young men about sex often stereotypes them and hurts their feelings.

“One boy said, ‘They treat us like we’re perpetrators — we have sexual needs but we also have other needs,’ ” Dr. Pollack told me.
Somehow, there has to be a way to talk about sex and relationships beyond the anatomical details, and a way to discuss what happens in school and what happens on the cover of People magazine.

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Kenny Muhammad, known as the “Human Orchestra” performs with the New York Symphony Orchestra. He is “one of the best technical beatboxers ever.”

(Submitted by Zakir Gowani)

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – If the uninsured were a political lobbying group, they’d have more members than AARP. The National Mall couldn’t hold them if they decided to march on Washington.
But going without health insurance is still seen as a personal issue, a misfortune for many and a choice for some. People who lose coverage often struggle alone instead of turning their frustration into political action.

Illegal immigrants rallied in Washington during past immigration debates, but the uninsured linger in the background as Congress struggles with a health care overhaul that seems to have the best odds in years of passing.
That isolation could have profound repercussions.

Lawmakers already face tough choices to come up with the hundreds of billions it would cost to guarantee coverage for all. The lack of a vocal constituency won’t help. Congress might decide to cover the uninsured slowly, in stages.

The uninsured “do not provide political benefit for the aid you give them,” said Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health. “That’s one of the dilemmas in getting all this money. If I’m in Congress, and I help out farmers, they’ll help me out politically. But if I help out the uninsured, they are not likely to help members of Congress get re-elected.”
The number of uninsured has grown to an estimated 50 million people because of the recession. Even so, advocates in the halls of Congress are rarely the uninsured themselves. The most visible are groups that represent people who have insurance, usually union members and older people. In the last election, only 10 percent of registered voters said they were uninsured.

The grass-roots group Health Care for America Now plans to bring as many as 15,000 people to Washington this year to lobby Congress for guaranteed coverage. Campaign director Richard Kirsch expects most to have health insurance.

“We would never want to organize the uninsured by themselves because Americans see the problem as affordability, and that is the key thing,” he said.

Besides, added Kirsch, the uninsured are too busy scrambling to make ends meet. Many are self-employed; others are holding two or three part-time jobs. “They may not have a lot of time to be activists,” he said.

Vicki and Lyle White of Summerfield, Fla., know about such predicaments. They lost their health insurance because Lyle had to retire early after a heart attack left him unable to do his job as a custodian at Disney World. Vicki, 60, sells real estate. Her income has plunged due to the housing collapse.

“We didn’t realize that after he had the heart attack no one would want to insure him,” said Vicki. The one bright spot is that Lyle, 64, has qualified for Medicare disability benefits and expects to be getting his card in July.

But for now, the Whites have to pay out of pocket for Lyle’s visits to the cardiologist and his medications. The bills came to about $5,000 last year. That put a strain on their limited budget because they are still making payments on their house and car.

“I never thought when we got to this age that we would be in such a mess,” said Vicki, who has been married to Lyle for 43 years. “We didn’t think we would have a heart attack and it would change our life forever.”

While her own health is “pretty good,” Vicki said she suffers chronic sinus infections and hasn’t had a checkup since 2007. “I have just learned to live with it,” she said.

The Whites’ example shows how the lack of guaranteed health care access undermines middle-class families and puts them at risk, but that many of the uninsured eventually do find coverage. Lyle White has qualified for Medicare, even if the couple must still find a plan for Vicki.

Research shows that nearly half of those who lose coverage find other health insurance in four months or less. That may be another reason the uninsured have not organized an advocacy group. At least until this recession, many have been able to fix the situation themselves.

“The uninsured are a moving target,” said Cathy Schoen, a vice president of the Commonwealth Fund, a research group that studies the problems of health care costs and coverage.

But even if gaps in coverage are only temporary, they can be dangerous. “Whenever you are uninsured, you are at risk,” said Schoen. “People don’t plan very well when they are going to get sick or injured.”

Indeed, the Institute of Medicine, which provides scientific advice to the government, has found that a lack of health insurance increases the chances of bad outcomes for people with a range of common ailments, from diabetes and high blood pressure to cancer and stroke. Uninsured patients don’t get needed follow-up care, skip taking prescription medicines and put off seeking help when they develop new symptoms.

Such evidence strengthens the case for getting everybody covered right away, Schoen said. But she acknowledges the politics may get tough. “It certainly has been a concern out of our history that unorganized voices aren’t heard,” she said.

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By Sylvia Tamale

Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men and Ancestral Wives: Female Same-Sex Practices in Africa. Edited by Ruth Morgan and Saskia Wieringa. Johannesburg: Jacana, 2005

Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men & Ancestral Wives confronts the millions of Africans that have lived in denial of the existence of lesbianism on the continent with a reality shock. Its contents sit very uncomfortably within a culture that treats same-sex relationships as taboo, alien, unnatural transgressions. Not only do African societies treat any form of homoeroticism (same-sex love and desire) with disgust, considering it a grave pathological sin, but it is also listed as a criminal offence in most countries. Absurd as it may sound, if the law finds two consenting adults of the same sex making love, it would subject them to imprisonment (in countries like Uganda, for life).

Tommy Boys demonstrates the hopelessness in enforcing a “victimless crime”. The rich narratives of various lesbians from six African countries provide a rare peek into the complex personal lives of lesbian individuals.Participants were interviewed from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. Through their voices, the reader learns a great deal about the lives of African lesbians — from the way some of them play out the dominant gender roles, including violence, to the delicate ways that they make love. The narratives include captivating stories of “lesbian men” who impregnated their lovers, female sangomas (medicine people) that secretly make love to their “ancestral wives”, and exploratory “mummy-baby” boarding school relationships. Each of the ten chapters opens with a photograph from the brilliant collection of South African lesbian rights activist, Zanele Muholi, which adds to the appeal of the book.

…

The most problematic issue with Tommy Boys lies with its methodological and conceptual approach. Readers that expect “deep” sociological analysis and conceptual insights woven into the narrative descriptions will be bitterly disappointed. The fact that the book was conceptualized and primarily driven by two white women who also co-authored each of the chapters written by the black researchers, is not lost on any critical reader. For example, in the introductory chapter of the book, we are informed that, “The project which forms the basis of this book was conceptualized… around Ruth’s kitchen table when Saskia was spending a few days in Johannesburg en route to Namibia… The problem was that we could not identify sufficient African woman researchers working on female same-sex practices” (Morgan and Wieringa, 2005: 11). We are further informed that once the African researchers had been identified, both Wieringa and Morgan proceeded to conduct a training workshop for them in methodological, theoretical and analytical issues related to life history research on same-sex relations. The research itself was conducted in three quick months, in time for the 2003 International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS) confererence. The findings were subsequently disseminated in a conference session on African lesbianism organized by Wieringa and Morgan.

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RIYADH (Reuters) – A Saudi man has divorced his wife by text message, a newspaper said Thursday.

The man was in Iraq when he sent the SMS informing her she was no longer his spouse. He followed up with a telephone call to two of his relatives, the daily Arab News reported.

A court in the Red Sea city of Jeddah finalized the split — the first known divorce in Saudi Arabia by text message — after summoning the two relatives to check they had received word of the husband’s intention, the paper said.

Saudi Arabia practices a strict form of Islamic Sharia law, and clerics preside over Sharia courts as judges. Under the law a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” three times.
The Saudi man was in Iraq to participate in “what he described as ‘jihad’,” according to the Arab News. Many Saudis have gone to fight with al Qaeda militants against the Iraqi government and U.S. forces.
(Reporting by Asma Alsharif)

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Obama’s Turkey Visit
by Nuray Mert

Obama did what was expected, dispensing good luck charms for all. What he left behind is a state of delirium, a la the Hunchback of Notre Dame: “He gave me water.”

Even though some of Obama’s gestures during the visit — such as Obama reminding the young people he was chatting with of the time for Muslim prayer — have drawn a lot of interest, there is nothing extraordinary about them. Such cleverly staged acts are no new inventions. When Napoleon invaded Egypt, he took on the role of the patron of Islam. In 1857, during the Sepoy Rebellion in India, the British asked the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid to intervene as the Caliph of the Muslims to help suppress the rebellion. At the end of the 19th century, Obama’s predecessors also came to Sultan Abdülhamid II to ask him to use his authority as the Caliph to get the Muslims of the Philippines to support the United States. None of this, however, helped prevent the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

We need not go that far back in history. Throughout the Cold War, the whole Western world, under the leadership of the United States, used Islam endlessly. A part of the conspiracy called Ergenekon in Turkey is rooted in this dirty alliance.1 Then, even as the curtain finally came down on the Cold War, the radical Islamic ideology and organizations were nurtured and supported to the end — the path that led to the founding of Al Qaida. Now that radical Islam has aimed its guns at the United States and the West, the project has become pacifying it.

Some Turks may say: “The past is past. At this point in time, isn’t this the best for us? This mission turns us into a world-class actor. Would it be so bad to be part of the solution?” The problem with this line of thinking is that the project to which we are asked to contribute has nothing to do with peace and the welfare of humanity. Neither is the issue just Islam. The project is one of dividing up the world. What needs to be done, first of all, is to ask: “Why, for what, and for whom are we getting involved?” Second, remember that, in this kind of involvement, it is often countries such as ours that pay the highest price.

Look at the present state of Pakistan, which was assigned the role of helping get the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The country became a frontline of jihad, attracting radical jihadists from all over the world, which has destroyed its delicate internal social and political balances. The Pakistanis have received no other reward for the role they played in the Cold War except for a phone call after 9/11 threatening that they either join the U.S or be “bombed back to the stone age.”

Turkey has also been one of the countries in the “Green Belt.” Our mission was to form a shield of “moderate Islam” against the influences of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the region and to back the U.S. in filling the vacuum left in Central Asia with the departure of the Soviet Union. Those groups and interests in Turkey who cooperated with one another on such projects through the “deep state” back then have since started fighting one another. They still have not resolved their differences.

Leave alone interrogating this cooperation with global plunderers in the name of humanity; even at the level of realpolitik, there is still a desperate need for a long, serious questioning of these issues. Much as the Turkish government expects gains from such cooperation, there is a need to calculate what is to be lost in working with those at the summit of world power. Countries participating in these grand projects often face deep fragmentation of their internal politics.

Thinking about and dealing with the implications of this is hardly ever the concern of the world powers trying to order the world around their own interests. It is always the job of countries like Pakistan, now facing the threat of being “bombed back to the stone age” as it cannot take a firm position against the Taliban given its internal balance of power. Even before getting to this point, the political environment of the country may have already acquired a medieval quality through conflicts and internal fragmentation of society.

In politics, extreme cynicism can have a pacifying impact leading to inaction and immobilization. The acceleration of international politics is unforgiving for those slow to respond, let alone unable to act. On the other hand, it also does not help to be too reckless merely for the sake of adjusting to the speed of world politics.

Have I drawn too pessimistic a picture? The concerns I have tried to express would make better sense if we read some history and look at what is happening around us in the region at this point of historical rupture. Collectively, whatever we do, let us first abandon the Hunchback complex and stop sleep-talking: “He gave me water.”

1 Translator’s Note: Ergenekon is the term used for the last two years in Turkey to refer to the Turkish gladio, an ultra-nationalist group with strong ties to the military and security forces, currently being accused of several acts of conspiracy. Because of its strong alleged links to the state, it is also referred to as the “deep state.” Here the author is referring to the role of Ergenekon in the founding of the Turkish Hezbullah, a terrorist Islamist group (unrelated to the Lebanese Hezbullah).

Nuray Mert is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University in Turkey. She has regular columns in the Turkish dailies Radikal and Hürriyet. This article has been translated from her article “Bana Su Verdi!” (“[He] Gave Me Water”) published in Radikal on 9 April 2009. Translation by Sedef Arat-Koç, Associate Professor, Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

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Urdu began its prominence in 17th Century and reaches it apex around partition time. During those centuries, use of Farsi slowly declined and Urdu rose as a language of elite and masses. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, and Christian writers wrote volumes in Urdu.

Even Portuguese and British literary wrote Urdu poems and took part in poetic assemblies called Mushaeras. Then, Urdu was language of Indian courts, especially in North India and Hyderabad. During these Urdu centuries, newspapers and periodicals ran love story serials. These stories were written in a poetic form, called Masnavi or narrative poems, as is the case with poet Mir Hasan. In those days, his fairy tale love story of Prince Badar Munir and Princess Be-Nazeer was the talk of the town. The poet Mir Hasan 1728-1787, titled this Masnavi Sahr ul-bayan (Magic of describing). The readers of the time eagerly waited for the next installment of the story.

For Urdu and Gujarati

For full Masnavi and its translation

Here are few verses Mir Hasan that have became very famous
He describes the condition of fragile army of Mughals

Jo payade hain, so dare sar mundate naee se
Foot solders were afraid of barbers for a head-shave

savaar gir paDeN, sone meiN, charpaee se
The riders were plunging from beds in sleep
He describes the rulers and Rajas engrossed in fun

Sharab-o-kabab-o-bahar-o-nigar
Wine, kebab, spring, and damsel

Jawni-o-masti-o-bos-o-kinar
Youth, lust, kisses, and intimacy

Do it while you can

Gaya waqt phir haat aata nahiN
Once lost, time cannot be clasped

Sada aish, doraN dikhata nahiN
Time never showers luxuries, forever
Do not lose time in formalities

KaTi raat harf-o- hikayat meiN
Night slipped away in formalities

Sahar ho ga-ee bat ki bat meiN
Day broke, telling stories in story
Wealth is momentary

Kisi pas dolat yeh rehti nahiN
The wealth does not stay with any forever

Sada naw kaghaz ki behti nahiN
A paper boat does not float forever
Flowering time of life

Bars pandrah, ya ke sola ka sin
Teens of fifteen or age of sixteen

Javani ki rateN, muradoN ke din
These are nights of youth and days of fulfillments
Intimacy at supreme

laboN se mile lab dahan se dahan
Lips met lips and mouth met mouth

dilon se myle dil, badan se badan
heart met heart and chest met chest

(Submitted by Asghar Vasanwala who can be reached at asgharf@att.net)