Of the Racist Morons Bandwagon

Something that might change perceptions, hopefully:

Racism is and will always remain a central issue in most countries, which scars every aspect of economic, cultural and political life by overt or covert racism acts, either in an offensive loud bang or in a subtle manner.

In many ways racial discrimination and ethnic discrimination blur the line of accepted and unaccepted societal norms. That to subjugate others, either through perpetuation of violence or words is a phenomenon as old as time. Superiority by playing the race card to make others feel inferior is racism.

What is disconcerting are the racism facts, figures and the damage caused to the individual and society as a whole.

Facts on Racism: Our Perception
What is more disturbing than being a racist is the use of the term racist.

In the present era, politicians on both the left and right have used this term to tar their political enemies, as evident during an outburst in the session of Congress by O.E Wilson, a Republican politician from the U.S. state of South Carolina, upon which former President Jimmy Carter's assertion that

"there's an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president". The matter was cleared with an explanation and an apology. But it did bring to fore that racism is alive and kicking.

Over 62 million human beings in the last 100 years have paid a price for being racially different, tortured, subjugated and/or killed, this despite the 'advancement' in culture, science and technology.

South Africa's apartheid, treatment meted to African-Americans, holocaust victims, harassment of the Tibetans and the indiscriminate killing of untouchables and those who belong to the 'wrong unfitting tribes', has created a world of 22 million plus and counting refugees, forced to abandon their homes and means of livelihood because of rampant and unchecked ethnic cleansing.

But I wonder why are we racist?

Does an individual really believe that the proof of superiority really comes through oppression of others.

Since ancient times, people have been 'categorized' or 'stereotyped', which has made discrimination easier. The root of the problem lies in our physical or cultural differences which involves skin color, language, religion or tribe, hence, the solution too comes from this problem of being different. Accepting, and maybe celebrating differences is just one way, educating ourselves on these differences is another, and just maybe, a zero tolerance attitude towards racism as an individual and a society could pave the way for less racism.

But, then we do not live in an idealistic society.

Facts about Racism: Statistics
To give an exact figure is always difficult, for how many are affected by racism through words, action or torture. Following are a few figures that stands witness to how gruesome this widespread menace is.

Africa: The enactment of apartheid laws in South Africa in 1948, institutionalized racial discrimination in every aspect of social life. Darfur genocide alone has claimed over 400,000 lives (the conflict is still on). The artificial boundaries imposed in Africa by European colonialism and imperialism, and hunt for minerals still draws blood. Read more on Africa and dictatorships: 1960-1977.

African American: The civil war was meant to change the lives of many African Americans, it did, marginally. An unofficial finding states that between 1836 to 1879, two African Americans were lynched in the United States every week. According to the Feb 2007, Commerce Department's Census Bureau findings, over 2.1 million African-American families live below the poverty level, and is nearly the most victimized group in America. Read more on racism against African Americans and lynching of African Americans.

Holocaust: The systematic annihilation of over six million Jews by the Nazi regime during World War II bears witness to hate crimes a single racist mind could inflict. However, it was just not the Jewish community that was hounded, other undesirables such as gypsies, Polish intelligentsia, Jehovah’s Witnesses, social democrats, homosexuals, communists, partisans, trade unionists, etc too were tortured in concentration camps and killed. Find out more about holocaust.

Tibetans: It has been over 50 years that the Chinese occupation of Tibet has resulted in untold suffering and destruction to the land and people of Tibet. Over 1,207,387 have been killed, tortured, kidnapped, imprisoned or exiled. Tibetans today are forced to build a home away from home. With no external assessment, it is hard to draw a figure.

Untouchability: Untouchability though practiced in many parts of the world, has never ceased to draw gruesome incidents mainly from India and a few other Asian counties. In India alone, over 170 million men, women and children have not been able to break the shackles imposed. With no more than 10-12% in the main streamline, this entire community faces the worst form of racial discrimination, not only from society, but from the government as well as the security forces.

One of the ugliest racism facts pertain to the reality that racism sees no geography, it is rampant, and in most cases state sponsored.

The expulsion of Palestinians, systematic killing of the Kashmiri Pandits, ethnic cleansing of Hazara tribe of Afghanistan, expulsion and murder of one million Albanian Kosovars from Kosova, and the list could go on.

But this needs to stop, progress for the sake of progress with no sincerity has severe repercussions.

To turn around and pin it as 'a thing that has been happening' does not help.

Racism is not just about killing an entire population; discriminating against the one who sits next to me, because they follow a different faith and ritual, or simply have features and skin color different than mine, makes me a racist.

AHIMSA - THE ONLY WAY FORWARD

Before you discuss the resolution, let me place before you one or two things, I want you to understand two things very clearly and to consider them from the same point of view from which I am placing them before you.

I ask you to consider it from my point of view, because if you approve of it, you will be enjoined to carry out all I say. It will be a great responsibility. There are people who ask me whether I am the same man that I was in 1920, or whether there has been any change in me. You are right in asking that question.

Let me, however, hasten to assure that I am the same Gandhi as I was in 1920. I have not changed in any fundamental respect. I attach the same importance to non-violence that I did then. If at all, my emphasis on it has grown stronger. There is no real contradiction between the present resolution and my previous writings and utterances.

Occasions like the present do not occur in everybody’s and but rarely in anybody’s life. I want you to know and feel that there is nothing but purest Ahimsa1 in all that I am saying and doing today.

The draft resolution of the Working Committee is based on Ahimsa, the contemplated struggle similarly has its roots in Ahimsa. If, therefore, there is any among you who has lost faith in Ahimsa or is wearied of it, let him not vote for this resolution.

Let me explain my position clearly. God has vouchsafed to me a priceless gift in the weapon of Ahimsa. I and my Ahimsa are on our trail today.

If in the present crisis, when the earth is being scorched by the flames of Himsa2 and crying for deliverance, I failed to make use of the God given talent, God will not forgive me and I shall be judged un-wrongly of the great gift.

I must act now.

I may not hesitate and merely look on, when Russia and China are threatened.

Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a non-violent fight for India’s independence.

In a violent struggle, a successful general has been often known to effect a military coup and to set up a dictatorship. But under the Congress scheme of things, essentially non-violent as it is, there can be no room for dictatorship.

A non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself, he fights only for the freedom of his country. The Congress is unconcerned as to who will rule, when freedom is attained. The power, when it comes, will belong to the people of India, and it will be for them to decide to whom it placed in the entrusted.

May be that the reins will be placed in the hands of the Parsis, for instance-as I would love to see happen-or they may be handed to some others whose names are not heard in the Congress today.

It will not be for you then to object saying, “This community is microscopic. That party did not play its due part in the freedom’s struggle; why should it have all the power?”

Ever since its inception the Congress has kept itself meticulously free of the communal taint. It has thought always in terms of the whole nation and has acted accordingly. . .

I know how imperfect our Ahimsa is and how far away we are still from the ideal, but in Ahimsa there is no final failure or defeat. I have faith, therefore, that if, in spite of our shortcomings, the big thing does happen, it will be because God wanted to help us by crowning with success our silent, unremitting Sadhana1 for the last twenty-two years.

I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours. I read Carlyle’s French Resolution while I was in prison, and Pandit Jawaharlal has told me something about the Russian revolution.

But it is my conviction that inasmuch as these struggles were fought with the weapon of violence they failed to realize the democratic ideal.

In the democracy which I have envisaged, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. Once you realize this you will forget the differences between the Hindus and Muslims, and think of yourselves as Indians only, engaged in the common struggle for independence.

Then, there is the question of your attitude towards the British. I have noticed that there is hatred towards the British among the people. The people say they are disgusted with their behaviour.

The people make no distinction between British imperialism and the British people.

To them, the two are one - this hatred would even make them welcome the Japanese. It is most dangerous. It means that they will exchange one slavery for another. We must get rid of this feeling.

Our quarrel is not with the British people, we fight their imperialism. The proposal for the withdrawal of British power did not come out of anger. It came to enable India to play its due part at the present critical juncture. It is not a happy position for a big country like India to be merely helping with money and material obtained willy-nilly from her while the United Nations are conducting the war.

We cannot evoke the true spirit of sacrifice and velour, so long as we are not free. I know the British Government will not be able to withhold freedom from us, when we have made enough self-sacrifice.

We must, therefore, purge ourselves of hatred.

Speaking for myself, I can say that I have never felt any hatred. As a matter of fact, I feel myself to be a greater friend of the British now than ever before. One reason is that they are today in distress. My very friendship, therefore, demands that I should try to save them from their mistakes.

As I view the situation, they are on the brink of an abyss. It, therefore, becomes my duty to warn them of their danger even though it may, for the time being, anger them to the point of cutting off the friendly hand that is stretched out to help them.

People may laugh, nevertheless that is my claim.

At a time when I may have to launch the biggest struggle of my life, I may not harbour hatred against anybody. BY GANDHI

The True SUFI

What makes the Sufi?

Purity of heart;
Not the patched mantle and the lust perverse
Of those vile earth-bound men who steal his name.

He in all dregs discerns the essence pure:
In hardship ease, in tribulation joy.

The phantom sentries, who with batons drawn
Guard Beauty's place-gate and curtained bower,

Give way before him, unafraid he passes,
And showing the King's arrow, enters in.

For The People of Malaysia!

Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? 

We must come to the inevitable conclusion 

that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, 

that he takes up arms responding to

the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, 

and that he fights in order to change 

the social system that keeps all

his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery. che guevara

At the risk of seeming ridiculous, 

let me say that the true revolutionary

is guided by a great feeling of love.

It is impossible to think of 

a genuine revolutionary 

lacking this quality. 

 Ernesto Che Guevara

this probably sums up what happened in KK....

The Hidden Man - Who Are You:)

The phenomenal and the noumenal side of man. 

"Man-in-himself." 

How do we know the inner side of man? 

Can we know of the existence of consciousness 

in conditions of space not analogous to ours? 

Brain and consciousness. 

Unity of the world. 

Logical impossibility of the simultaneous 

existence of spirit and matter. Either all spirit or all matter. 

Rational and irrational actions in nature and in the life of man. 

Can rational actions exist alongside irrational? 

The world as an accidentally self-created mechanical toy. 

The impossibility of reason in a mechanical universe. 

The irreconcilability of mechanicalness with the existence of reason. 

Kant concerning "hosts." Spinoza on the knowledge of the invisible world. 

Necessity for the intellectual definition of that which can be, 

and that which cannot be, in the world of the hidden.

Tertium Organum - Dualism or Monism

Rationality and life.

Life as knowledge. Intellect and emotions. 

Emotion as an organ of knowledge. 

The evolution of emotion from the standpoint of knowledge. 

Pure and impure emotions. 

Personal and impersonal emotions. 

Personal and super-personal emotions. 

The elimination of self-elements as a means of approach to true knowledge. 

Be as little children. . . " "Blessed are the pure in heart. . . ." 

The value of morals from the standpoint of knowledge. 

The defects of intellectualism. 

Dreadnaughts as the crown of intellectual culture. 

The dangers of morality. Moral esthetics. 

Religion and art as organized forms of emotional knowledge. 

The knowledge of God and the knowledge of Beauty.

AUDACITY OF HOPE - IS ALIVE

Here's to Malaysians who are always in the business of divide and rule, the mighty storm has taken CHARGE and its only matter of time when it'll take over our shores..... for the KKKs in Malaysia, your days are a gone.

A reflection for PR and all Malaysians.......

Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama—

as prepared for deliveryElection NightTuesday, November 4th, 2008Chicago, Illinois

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he’s fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation’s next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.

And while she’s no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics – you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you’ve sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to – it belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington – it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.

It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory.

I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor’s bills, or save enough for college.

There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face.

I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.

Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world – our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security – we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

For that is the true genius of America – that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing – Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons – because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves – if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.