U.S. elections: Barack Obama, the “best face” for U.S. imperialism?

The following is from the 3 February issue of Revolution, voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. (http://revcom.us) It appeared along with an article exposing Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama’s rival for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, for, among other things, upholding white supremacy, including in her attacks on Obama.

In an article in the December issue of The Atlantic, commentator Andrew Sullivan argues that Barack Obama should be the next president of the United States (“Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters,” December 2007). Sullivan writes that a (ruling class) “consensus” agenda for endless war and increased repression will be in effect regardless of who is president. He challenges the reader to pick who could best implement all this in the face of global isolation and profound domestic alienation. And, in the process, he sheds light on the real role of elections in this society.

Those who are willing to listen in on a ruling class insider’s case for Obama, read on.

Civics 101: Your vote for president “has little to do with” basic policy decisions

First, a note on Andrew Sullivan’s credentials: Sullivan writes columns for the New York Times, Time magazine, and is a regular on the political talk shows. He is a senior editor at The Atlantic magazine. Sullivan’s defining political legacy was his tenure as editor of The New Republic, where he counted among his big achievements the promotion of the book The Bell Curve, a completely ridiculous but highly influential pseudoscientific book that claimed that Black people are genetically inferior to whites. The New Republic under his editorship played a key role in – in his words – “helping to torpedo the Clinton administration’s plans for universal health coverage.” A conservative who has differences with Christian fundamentalism (Sullivan is openly gay), he invokes Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as models.

And yes, he is supporting Barack Obama for president.

Very early in Sullivan’s article, he invokes and reveals a little ruling class secret: Your vote “has little to do with” basic policy decisions.

Listen to Sullivan: “The logic behind the candidacy of Barack Obama,” he writes, “has little to do with his policy proposals, which are very close to his Democratic rivals’ and which, with a few exceptions, exist firmly within the conventions of our politics.”

Sullivan lists, rather extensively, how such “conventions of our politics” are set for the next president, regardless of who he is. The war in Iraq? It “has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade.” “Every potential president,” writes Sullivan, “is committed to an open-ended deployment in Afghanistan and an unbending alliance with Israel.” And Sullivan doesn’t even pose as “issues” many of the most egregious outrages that people are angry about – from the abandonment of the poor and Black people of New Orleans, to the generated xenophobia and reign of terror against immigrants. The word “torture” never appears in his article.

While Sullivan’s actual projection of the ruling class “evolving consensus” is bad enough, it also includes what is likely wishful thinking on his part. For example, he postulates that this “consensus” includes permitting abortion in the first trimester – something that the leading Republican candidates have vowed to end. But the more fundamental revelation pointed to here is not that Obama’s policies are the same as those of every other “credible” candidate (which they are), but that it doesn’t really matter what his policies are.

Underlying Sullivan’s assertion that Obama’s candidacy (or anyone else’s) has “little to do with his policy proposals” is a deeper truth which is not acknowledged by Sullivan, although it drives the whole framework that he does acknowledge. The foundational thing here is that whoever is elected president of the United States presides over a system of capitalism-imperialism that has its own logic, and any president who tried to go against that would be “overruled” in one form or another quickly by the system. To take just one example: If someone got elected president and tried to withdraw U.S. military forces from all of the 130 countries with U.S. bases, this plan would be “overruled” in one form or another by the apparatus of the capitalist state (through “advice” from ruling class advisers, impeachment, “scandal,” or other forms). Why? Because the global domination of U.S. capital is projected and enforced by these military bases. That imperialist domination of the world, in turn, is key to the relative high standard of living and social stability within the U.S. If a president tried to shut down all the U.S. military bases around the world, that would be incompatible with, and cause severe disruption in the U.S. imperialist economy and in society.

Having clarified that this election “has little to do with [Obama’s] policy proposals,” and “even less to do with his ideological pedigree,” Sullivan gets to the argument for Obama, and in the course of doing so, entreats the reader into complicity with terrible crimes.

“The most effective re-branding of the U.S. since Reagan”

Obama, argues Sullivan, is “the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial – it’s central to an effective war strategy. The war on Islamist terror, after all, is two-pronged: a function of both hard power and soft power.” (By “hard power,” Sullivan means military force; by “soft power,” he means non-military dimensions of “winning hearts and minds” – in conjunction with the use of, or threat of, military power.)

Choosing whether Obama, Clinton, Edwards, McCain or anyone else would actually be the most effective “soft power” weapon in the “war on terror,” is choosing who will put the best face on the actual source of the worst global terror – U.S. imperialism. Let’s check back into reality for a moment and reflect on the horrors the “war on terror” has brought: Up to a million or more dead Iraqis. Five million Iraqis dislocated from their homes or country. Afghanistan, in ruins, controlled by either the Taleban or drug-growing Islamic fundamentalist warlords aligned with the U.S. Torture chambers from Bagram in Afghanistan to secret cells in Europe. Rendition to Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia for more U.S.-sponsored torture. Detention without trial. Guantánamo. And a world trapped in a horrific polarization between U.S. imperialist aggression, plunder, and terror, and reactionary Islamic fundamentalism that is both the target of and, in many ways, a product of the “war on terror.”

Obama’s invocation of [former U.S. president] Ronald Reagan is worth another look in the context of Sullivan’s article. Sullivan specifically argues that Obama could be the most effective president at projecting U.S. power around the world since Reagan.

Reagan’s infamous joke: “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever, we begin bombing in five minutes,” concentrated his role in history. While he rattled horrific nuclear weapons, he armed thugs to carry out terror from Nicaragua to Afghanistan, from El Salvador and Guatemala to Angola and Mozambique. Reagan fostered a war between Iraq and Iran that took the lives of a million people and backed the apartheid government of South Africa and the racist state of Israel – when both were brutally suppressing internal rebellions of the oppressed peoples within their borders.

Since controversy broke out over his pro-Reagan statements to a Nevada newspaper, Obama has sought to “clarify” what he meant. Let’s re-examine his statements.

In the interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, Obama said: “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the ’60s and ’70s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is, ‘We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.’”

Later Obama “clarified” his remarks to say that he “spent a lifetime fighting against Ronald Reagan’s policies,” while not recanting his previous comments. But, as we have seen, “policies” are not really what elections are all about. What Obama calls the “excesses” of the ’60s were really great struggles that did not go far enough. And the point remains that both Sullivan, and Obama himself, are invoking the Reagan legacy in terms promoting feel-good “clarity” and “optimism” about the crimes of U.S. imperialism.

Nobody who opposes the terrible course this country is on should want to be part of a campaign to do that.

Two scenarios

In promoting Obama for president, Sullivan poses a couple of very heavy scenarios. Sullivan writes: “Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man Barack Hussein Obama is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm… If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.”

This is an argument for who would be the best face on endless imperialist war, mass murder, and torture. Why the hell would you want to be part of choosing who could best put that over on people?

And Sullivan argues that Obama is not only a better face for the “war on terror” around the world, but also a uniquely credible face for domestic repression. What would happen, Sullivan asks, if there were “another 9/11–style attack.” He poses that “It is hard to imagine a reprise of the sudden unity and solidarity in the days after 9/11, or an outpouring of support from allies and neighbours. It is far easier to imagine an even more bitter fight over who was responsible (apart from the perpetrators) and a profound suspicion of a government forced to impose more restrictions on travel, communications, and civil liberties. The current president would be unable to command the trust, let alone the support, of half the country in such a time. He could even be blamed for provoking any attack that came.”

The context here is an argument over who would be best, in the event of “another 9/11-style attack” (or, one could add, a claim by the government that one was “planned”), to implement what Sullivan euphemistically calls “more restrictions on travel, communications, civil liberties.”

Right now, uncounted people are on secret “watch lists,” prohibited from travelling on airplanes. The most massively intrusive surveillance in human history monitors your phone calls and your Internet browsing, and makes it illegal for a librarian to tell you the government is looking at what books you check out. The president can lock up anyone, for any reason, on his say-so, without recourse to anything resembling a credible trial. And Sullivan is arguing that Obama would be best for implementing even more fascistic repression.

Once more: Why the hell would you want to be part of choosing who could best put that over on people?

The intensifying domestic “civil war”

Sullivan frames his argument for Obama in the context of what he calls an “intensifying, a non-violent civil war.” A conflict “about culture and about religion and about race.”

There is profound conflict in the U.S. over culture, religion, and race. It is characterized not by non-violence, but by one-sided violence. White supremacy that in an earlier era was enforced through lynch mobs and nooses (and note the comeback of the noose) is today enforced in the inner cities by the policeman’s gun. The religious culture war is waged by violent attacks on not only abortion clinics, but also those who work for them. And society is so permeated with violence against women in the form of rape and domestic violence against women that it is an invisible part of the “culture.”

There is also a polarization at the top of society, among the ruling class. On one side, the core around Bush (and, generally speaking, ruling class forces whose agenda is expressed by or represented by the Republican Party) is on a mission – in the literal, religious sense in many ways – to radically remake the post-“Cold War” world and to tear up the “social contract” that has more or less held U.S. society together for generations. On the other side are forces in the ruling class who are operating in the same framework, but fear doing all this too fast, too overtly, and in a way that will tear society apart (generally characterized by the leaders of the Democratic Party).

A substantial thread in Sullivan’s article includes his advice on how to manage the conflict at the top of the ruling class, including his dissatisfaction with Bush’s style and approach (among Sullivan’s complaints: Bush is “unable to do nuance”). But here, we’ll focus on Sullivan’s argument that Obama is the best face not only for U.S. imperialist war, but also for resolving the domestic “civil war”.

Obama, Sullivan writes, can take “America – finally – past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us.” And Obama can end “the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying.”

Sullivan’s own perspective is that the best course for those with fears and reservations about the direction things are heading is to adopt much of the framework established by Bush, and push for moderation within that. Sullivan sees the Baby Boomers (his repeated term for the legacy of the ’60s) as an obstacle to forging a reasonable course within the “evolving consensus.” In his article, he claims that those who oppose the U.S. “war on terror,” and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, “judged the 9/11 attacks to be a legitimate response to decades of U.S. foreign policy.”

This distortion is important to excavate. The most powerful opposition voices to the “war on terror” have never argued that 9/11 was a “legitimate response” to U.S. foreign policy. They have argued that the “war on terror” is immoral, illegal, and illegitimate; and that the people themselves must forge a new way forward in opposition to both McWorld and Jihad. For example, the Call from World Can’t Wait, signed by thousands of people including many prominent actors, authors, political activists, and others, begins: “YOUR GOVERNMENT, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights. YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and justifying it.” (The Call is available at worldcantwait.org.) Millions in this country have asked, and more should ask, “Why do they hate us so much?”

Distorting such questioning and opposition in the way Sullivan does – claiming that such opposition judges the 9/11 attacks “legitimate” – fits in with the framework established by the Bush mantra of “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.”

Sullivan, and let’s face it, he is accurately projecting what Obama is about, argues that Obama can isolate “the Baby Boomers” and get America past all that ’60s stuff. And here again, the Reagan legacy is invoked, not – actually – by Sullivan, but by Obama himself who recently pointed to Reagan’s ability to “transform how we think about ourselves as a country in fundamental ways…”

As we wrote last week, in the wake of the rebellious culture of the ’60s, “Reagan came out there with this shit-eating grin and salesman’s chuckle, and all the while he mobilized a fascist social base ready to bully anybody, and he narcotized those in the middle, and he effectively silenced and marginalized those who stood for anything decent.” (See “ ‘American Greatness’ – And Why Obama and Reagan Really DO Belong Together,” by Toby O’Ryan at revcom.us.) In this context, Obama’s constant invocation that “There is no liberal America, there is no conservative America, there is only the United States of America…” can be understood as a call for patriotic national unity – unity with the most terrible crimes being committed by the world’s sole superpower.

And again, it must be posed: Who the hell would want to “resolve” the culture wars in society this way?

Sullivan does not focus much in this essay on the great societal divide over the oppression of Black people (or other oppressed nationalities). (The relationship between Obama’s campaign and white supremacy is beyond the scope of this article, but here it can be noted that in this essay Sullivan describes “Obama’s campaign for white America: courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves.”) Sullivan does address the question of the rise of theocratic Christian religious fundamentalism. In the method typical of his article, Sullivan defines the societal divide over religion in terms that marginalize secularism, and even separation of church and state, referring to a conflict between “God-fearing Americans and the peacenik atheist hippies.”

Sullivan argues for a bigger role for religion in society and government than has been the norm up to Bush. The choice, Sullivan poses, is between “crude exploitation of sectarian loyalty and religious zeal by Bush and Rove,” and a bigger role for religion that stops short of that. Sullivan writes, “You cannot lead the United States without having a foot in both the religious and secular camps.” Whatever Sullivan’s intentions, the view of ceding a larger role to religion and denigrating secular culture (those “atheist hippies”) cedes the moral high ground to Christian fascists. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton (and before her Bill Clinton) have also promoted the illusion that by conceding ground to the Christian fundamentalists you can moderate or temper them. It is in this context that Obama’s particular brand of professed Christian beliefs fits the bill, according to Sullivan, although he acknowledges that Hillary Clinton as well is taking pains to position herself as accommodating to the rise of Christian fundamentalism.

What we really need

Underlying Sullivan’s argument that Obama is the best candidate to manage all these conflicts in the direction the ruling class wants to take things is an explicit acknowledgement that there is a sharp polarization in U.S. society that could get out of control – “the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying.”

This intensifying situation will not just “fall into” anything good for the people. The global anger at the U.S. is far from enough to bring about anything positive. That is the case within the U.S., and it is the case worldwide. Within the U.S., anger at the direction of things can take, and for many is taking, the form of rallying around patriotic Christian fascism and an attraction to the “good old days” of unquestioned white supremacy and “good vs. evil” simplistic support for U.S. wars. Around the world, far too many angry oppressed people look to the reactionary dead end of Islamic fundamentalism as a “response” to imperialism.

But the emergence of a real and visible opposition to the whole direction this country is headed, standing with and starting from the interests of humanity, can forge a new polarization within the U.S. and create a much better climate for the emergence of progressive and revolutionary movements worldwide, and can even create openings for, and forces for, revolutionary change in the U.S.

Working for that is something worth doing. And it is a lot more realistic than putting your faith in a candidacy, and a process that is part of putting “the best face” on a world of horrors!

Arundhati Roy’s Statement in YJL Confrence

I would like to caution us all against looking at this issue, in particular the issue of Taslima Nasrin, through the single lens of a battle between religious fundamentalism and secular liberalism. Taslima Nasrin herself sometimes contributes to that view. On her website, she says: “Humankind is facing an uncertain future.” In particular, the conflict is between two different ideas, secularism and fundamentalism.” To me, this conflict is basically between modern, rational, logical thinking and irrational, blind faith. It is a conflict between the future and the past, between innovation and tradition, between those who value freedom and those who do not.”

How strange it is then, that it was the West Bengal Government - led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a party that sees itself as the vanguard of secularism, modern, logical, and rational thinking - that banned Nasrin’s autobiographical novel Dwikhandita, not once, but twice. Twice the ban was successfully challenged in the Calcutta High Court. The book was published, and for four years people in Bengal read it and Taslima Nasrin lived in Calcutta. And there the matter remained - without incident.

Then Nandigram happened. Muslims and Dalits bore the brunt of the government’s attack. The CPI(M) began to worry about losing the “Muslim vote.” So it played the Taslima card. A report by Mohammed Safi Samsi in the Indian Express (December 1, 2007) tells the story.

The government launched its operation to “recapture” Nandigram at the end of October 2007:

On November 1, Path Sanket a CPI(M) magazine published an anonymous letter supporting Taslima Nasrin, adding some gratuitous insults of its own against Prophet Mohammed. On the November 8, the government banned the magazine and a member of the editorial team called printing the letter a “historic blunder.” But, of course, vernacular newspapers republished the letter. Photocopies of the letter were then distributed in Muslim-dominated localities.

On November 21 - a week after more than 60,000 people marched on the streets protesting the government’s actions in Nandigram - the little-known All India Minority Forum organized a protest that then “erupted” in violence. The army was called in. The government deported Taslima Nasrin from West Bengal.

And today, on February 13, we are all gathered here to discuss “free speech.” Not the recapturing of Nandigram or the continuing terrorizing, humiliation, and rape of the people who live there.

It seems pretty clear that the threat to free speech comes as much from chemical hubs and iron ore mines - and from the project of land grab, enclosure, and mass displacement - as it does from religious fundamentalism. To not see this is to fall into a trap that has been cleverly laid for us.

Religious fundamentalists, especially those from minority communities, are often inadvertently playing out a script that has been written for them. Their outrage, genuine though it may be, has become a dependable, predictable, and an extremely useful political device to further the agendas of others.

The principle of free speech and expression has to negotiate many, many fundamentalisms. Religious fundamentalism, ultranationalist fundamentalism, market fundamentalism, among others. Sometimes they are intertwined in the strangest ways.

Liberals often make the mistake of believing that free speech is a fundamental right given to us by the Indian constitution - and that when it is curbed either by the state or by vigilante militias and thugs, the constitution is being subverted. This is not true. Free speech is not our constitutional right. It is a contained right, beset with caveats, caveats that are always used by the powerful to control and dominate those who are powerless.

Now, we have a slew of new laws that make not just free speech but freedom itself in India a pathetic joke, a distant dream. There is the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which incorporates some of the worst provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). There is the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act, the Madhya Pradesh Control of Organized Crime Act, and the utterly draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA). Some of these laws contain provisions whose sole purpose seems to be to criminalize everybody and then leave the government free to decide at leisure whom to imprison. Under the CSPSA and the UAPA, for example, the government is free to arbitrarily ban any organization without giving any specific reason for placing the ban.

Here is how the CSPA defines an organization: ” ‘Organization’ means any combination, body or group of persons whether known by any distinctive name or not and whether registered under any relevant law or not and whether governed by any written constitution or not.”

Remember, the vaguer the provisions in the law, the wider the net it casts, the greater the threat to civil and democratic rights.

Here is how the CSPSA defines an “unlawful activity”: “Any action taken by such [banned] individual or organization whether by committing an act or by words either spoken or written or by signs or by visible representation or otherwise.”

And then there are some sub-clauses that widen the net:

(i) which constitutes a danger or menace to public order, peace or tranquility

(ii) which interferes or tends to interfere with maintenance of public order

And, remarkably

(vi) of encouraging or preaching disobedience to established law and its institutions.

In Section 8(5) it says that “Whoever commits or abets or attempts to commit or abet or plans to commit any unlawful activity shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years.”
So now they have mind readers in the Chattisgarh government, as well as seers.

How can there be even the pretense of free speech or freedom under laws like these? All over the country, not just journalists and writers, but anybody who disagrees with the government’s plans is being arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. Sometimes murdered.

Govind Kutty, the editor of People’s March, a publication banned for being sympathetic to Maoist ideology, has been arrested and imprisoned. The Maoists have as much right to the freedom of expression, as much right to place their ideology - however abhorrent the government or anybody else may believe it to be - in the public domain, in the so-called marketplace of ideas as anybody else does.

I believe that the ban on People’s March should be lifted immediately and its editor unconditionally released.

Finally, I would like to say that the battle for free speech must not turn into a battle that limits itself to the freedom of writers, journalists, and artists alone. We are not the only ones who deserve this right. A friend from Chattisgarh recently told me of a doctor who had been arrested because a prescription of his had been found in some “Naxalite kit,” whatever that means.

In Chattisgarh, 644 villages have been evacuated of their inhabitants. That’s more than 300,000 people - displacement on a mass scale, which is eventually intended to clear space for corporate mining interests. Fifty thousand people have been moved into police camps and have become recruits for the dreaded Salwa Judum (the supposedly anti-Maoist “people’s militia” created and funded by the state government). Tens of thousands of people have fled to neighboring states to escape the horror. Nobody is allowed to go back to their villages or to cultivate their land. What is freedom of expression for a farmer? The buzz in town is that a new law is on the anvil which says that if farmland has not been cultivated for two years, it can be diverted for non-agricultural purposes.

Every form of resistance, peaceful or otherwise, is being shut down by the state. Of all the cases on the anvil, the goldfish in a bowl, the dire, menacing warning to us all and to anybody who may be entertaining the idea “of encouraging or preaching disobedience to established law and its institutions” is the continued imprisonment of Dr. Binayak Sen under false charges, underpinned by blatantly fabricated evidence.

Dr. Binayak Sen, who has worked as a civil rights activist with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and a doctor in the area for more than 30 years, was arrested last May, charged under the CSPSA, the UAPA, and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He has been in prison for eight months, denied bail even by the Supreme Court.

By imprisoning someone like Binayak Sen, the government is trying to close out the option of peaceful resistance, of democratic space. It is creating a polarization along the lines of the Bush Doctrine - “If you are not with us, you are with the terrorists” - in which people only have the choice between succumbing to displacement and destitution or resisting by going underground and taking up arms. This is the beginning of either civil war or the annihilation of the poor. Once that genie is out of the bottle, it won’t go back. There are reports that the Chhattisgarh state government has asked for 70 battalions of paramilitary forces beyond the 17 battalions that are already there. A fourfold increase. I fear the worst.

And so, from this platform I would like to ask for the granting of citizenship to Taslima Nasrin, for the immediate and unconditional release of Binayak Sen, Govind Kutty, and the other journalists whose names have been mentioned at this press conference, experienced journalists and peaceful activists who understand that reporting the realities of these situations is the only hope of righting this ship that is tilting dangerously and about to tip over. If it does tip over, everybody will suffer, the poor definitely, but the rich too. There will be no hiding place. I urge those present here to pay keen attention to the specter that is looming before us. And to begin a campaign demanding the repeal of these very frightening new laws that do not merely threaten free speech, but freedom itself.

एक डॉक्टर, एक सरकार और तार-तार इंसाफ का जार-जार रुदन

डॉक्टर और असाधारण मानवाधिकारकर्ता डॉ बिनायक सेन को छत्तीसगढ़ सरकार ने पिछले नौ महीनों से अमानवीय कानूनों की आड़ में सलाखों के पीछे रखा हुआ है. उनकी कहानी दरअसल उस दरकती हुई जमीन की कहानी है जिसपर हमारे लोकतांत्रिक अधिकारों की इमारत टिकी है. शोमा चौधरी की रिपोर्ट .

दिल्ली और मुंबई की भव्यता से परे, चमचमाते मॉल्स और हिचकोले खाते शेयर बाजार की सुर्खियों से कहीं दूर एक भला इंसान जेल में अपनी रिहाई का इंतजार कर रहा है. उसके बारे में थोड़ी-बहुत खबरें आई हैं. कुछ अखबारों में, कुछ टीवी चैनलों पर. फिर भी जादू-टोने, तंत्र-मंत्र, चमत्कार, बाजार, फिल्मस्टार, एसएमएस पोल आदि से अभिभूत मीडिया में अगर डॉ बिनायक सेन का जिक्र हुआ भी होगा तो इस बात के आसार कम ही हैं कि उसने आपका ध्यान खींचा हो.

बिनायक सेन की कहानी दरअसल उस दरकती हुई जमीन की कहानी है जिस पर हमारे लोकतांत्रिक अधिकारों की इमारत खड़ी है. ये कहानी है भारत के लोक और तंत्र, शहर और गांव, विकास और इंसानी जरूरतों, अंधे कानून और प्राकृतिक न्याय के बीच आ चुकी और बढ़ रही दरार की. ये उस भारत की कहानी है जिसे जोड़ने वाली डोरी धीरे-धीरे कमजोर होती जा रही है. ये उस अन्याय की दास्तान भी है जो हजारों निर्दोष लोगों के साथ होता है और जिसकी खबर किसी को नहीं लगती. ये उस बेइंसाफी का सच भी है जो कल आपके और मेरे साथ होने का इंतजार कर रही है. और सबसे ज्यादा ये उस डरावनी हकीकत का पर्दाफाश करने वाली दास्तान है कि जब सरकार खुद को ही खतरे में बताने लगे तो साधारण लोगों के साथ क्या हो सकता है. पढ़ाई पूरी करने के बाद इस प्रतिभाशाली नौजवान के सामने करिअर के शानदार विकल्प थे. वो विदेश जा सकता था या फिर यहीं ऊंची तनख्वाह वाली कोई नौकरी कर बढ़िया जिंदगी गुजार सकता था. मगर उसने एक ऐसी मुश्किल राह चुनी जिस पर चलने की हिम्मत कम ही लोग करते हैं.

मगर सबसे पहले कहानी के तथ्य.

पेशे से बच्चों के डॉक्टर और जाने-माने क्रिश्चियन मेडिकल कॉलेज (सीएमसी), वेल्लोर से गोल्ड मेडेलिस्ट, 56 वर्षीय बिनायक सेन वो शख्स हैं जिन्होंने छत्तीसगढ़ के गरीब आदिवासियों के बीच में कुपोषण, टीबी और घातक मलेरिया से लड़ते हुए लगभग तीन दशक बिताए हैं. पढ़ाई पूरी करने के बाद इस प्रतिभाशाली नौजवान के सामने करिअर के शानदार विकल्प थे. वो विदेश जा सकता था या फिर यहीं ऊंची तनख्वाह वाली कोई नौकरी कर बढ़िया जिंदगी गुजार सकता था. मगर उसने एक ऐसी मुश्किल राह चुनी जिस पर चलने की हिम्मत कम ही लोग करते हैं. सेन ने छत्तीसगढ़ के होशंगाबाद में एक ईसाई संस्था द्वारा चलाए जा रहे ग्रामीण चिकित्सा केंद्र में अपनी सेवाएं देने का फैसला किया. यहां वो महात्मा गांधी के जीवनी लेखक मारजोरी साइकस से काफी प्रभावित हुए. उनके दिल में जनस्वास्थ्य, पर्यावरण के अनुकूल विकास और न्यायमूलक समाज का सपना पलने लगा. पढ़ाई के दौरान वेल्लोर की झुग्गियों में भ्रमण करते हुए सेन को ये अहसास हो गया था कि आजीविका, रहन-सहन और स्वास्थ्य में एक अहम संबंध है. इसका और गहराई से अध्ययन करने के लिए उन्होंने जवाहर लाल नेहरू विश्वविद्यालय से सोशल मेडिसिन में डिग्री ली और 1981 में होशंगाबाद में खान मजदूर संघ के मशहूर नेता शंकर गुहा नियोगी के साथ काम करने चले आए. यहां उन्होंने दालिराजहारा में शहीद अस्पताल की स्थापना में मदद की जिसे मजूदरों ने अपने पैसे से बनाया था. बाद में वो तिल्दा के मिशन हॉस्पिटल से जुड़ गए. 1990 में सेन ने अपनी पत्नी इलिना सेन के साथ रायपुर में रूपांतर नाम के एक एनजीओ की स्थापना की. पिछले 18 सालों से ये संगठन ग्रामीण स्वास्थ्यकर्मियों को प्रशिक्षण देने और सुदूर इलाकों में मोबाइल क्लीनिक चलाने का काम कर रहा है. वो पीपुल्स यूनियन फॉर सिविल लिबर्टीज(पीयूसीएल) नाम के मानवाधिकार संगठन से भी जुड़े जिसकी स्थापना जयप्रकाश नारायण ने की थी.

बिनायक सेन का काम कितना असाधारण है इसका अंदाजा आपको तब होता है जब आप रायपुर से डेढ़ सौ किलोमीटर दूर धमतरी जिले में जंगलों से घिरे बागरुमाला और साहेलबेरिया इलाकों में जाते हैं. यहां आकर आपको ये अहसास होता है कि एक रिटायर कर्नल के होनहार बेटे को असाधारण जुनून ही ऐसी जगह पर ला सकता था. इस इलाके में बसे छोटे-छोटे गांवों में कमार और दूसरी जनजातियों के वो लोग बसते हैं जिनका शुमार भारत के सबसे उपेक्षित लोगों में किया जा सकता है. यहां सेन अपना मंगलवार क्लीनिक चलाते थे. स्कूल, पीने के पानी, बिजली, स्वास्थ्य सुविधाओं से महरूम और अपने जंगल के परंपरागत संसाधनों से लगातार वंचित किए जा रहे इन लोगों की जुबान पर बिनायक सेन की कई कहानियां हैं. उदाहरण के लिए लोग बताते हैं कि कैसे सेन ने लग्नी की जान बचाई जिसका गर्भपात हो गया था और उसका खून रुकने का नाम नहीं ले रहा था. या किस तरह उन्होंने वन अतिक्रमण के आरोप में सामूहिक रूप से जेल में डाल दिए गए पिपरही भारही गांव के लोगों को बचाया. या फिर कैसे उन्होंने अनाज बैंकों की स्थापना में मदद की. कमार बस्ती में एक वृद्ध हमसे कहते हैं, “कुछ कीजिए. डॉक्टर को बचाइये. अब कोई ऐसा नहीं है जिसके पास हम जा सकें.”

सीएमसी वेल्लोर के निदेशक डॉ. सुरंजन भट्टाचार्य कहते हैं, “बिनायक ने एक अलग राह बनाई. वो डॉक्टरों की कई पीढ़ियों के लिए प्रेरणास्रोत हैं. उन्होंने हमारी अंतरात्मा को झिंझोड़ा. उन्होंने हमें याद दिलाया कि एक स्वस्थ समाज बनाने के लिए आजादी, खाद्य सुरक्षा, आश्रय, समानता और न्याय जैसी कई चीजों की जरूरत होती है.” 2004 में सीएमसी वेल्लोर ने सेन को अपने प्रतिष्ठित पॉल हैरीसन अवार्ड से सम्मानित किया. इसमें सेन की प्रशंसा में ये शब्द कहे गए थे, “डॉ. बिनायक सेन सत्य और सेवा के प्रति अपने समर्पण को लड़ाई के अग्रिम मोर्चे तक ले गए हैं. उन्होंने सांचों को तोड़ा है और अपने मकसद को अपनी सुरक्षा से ऊपर रखकर एक बिखरे और अन्यायपूर्ण समाज में एक डॉक्टर की संभावित भूमिका को फिर से परिभाषित किया है. सीएमसी को बिनायक सेन से जुड़े होने पर गर्व है.”

इसके बावजूद, तीन साल बाद 14 मई 2007 को राज्य सरकार ने एक मानवाधिकारकर्ता और डॉक्टर के रूप में किए गए बिनायक सेन के लंबे और समर्पित कार्य को अनदेखा कर दिया. पुलिस ने पहले तो उन्हें नक्सली नेता घोषित कर दिया और बाद में गिरफ्तार कर लिया. उन पर आपराधिक षडयंत्र, राष्ट्रदोह और आतंक के ज़रिए मिले पैसे का इस्तेमाल करने के आरोप लगाए गए. सेन की गिरफ्तारी के बाद से तीन अदालतें उन्हें जमानत देने से इनकार कर चुकी हैं. सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने 10 दिसंबर 2007 को सेन को जमानत देने से इनकार कर दिया. ये भी विडंबना ही है कि इस दिन अंतरराष्ट्रीय मानवाधिकार दिवस था. अदालत में जिरह के दौरान अतिरिक्त सॉलिसिटर जनरल गोपाल सुब्रमण्यम और छत्तीसगढ़ सरकार के वकील का तर्क था कि भारत सरकार, बिहार, छत्तीसगढ़, आंध्र प्रदेश और महाराष्ट्र में उग्रवाद की जांच कर रही है और बिनायक सेन इस नेटवर्क का एक अहम हिस्सा हैं. उनका कहना था कि सेन को ज़मानत देने से देश की सुरक्षा खतरे में पड़ सकती है. इस दावे के पक्ष में हास्यास्पद सबूत पेश किए गए. लोग बताते हैं कि कैसे सेन ने लग्नी की जान बचाई जिसका गर्भपात हो गया था और उसका खून रुकने का नाम नहीं ले रहा था. या किस तरह उन्होंने वन अतिक्रमण के आरोप में सामूहिक रूप से जेल में डाल दिए गए पिपरही भारही गांव के लोगों को बचाया. या फिर कैसे उन्होंने अनाज बैंकों की स्थापना में मदद की. कमार बस्ती में एक वृद्ध हमसे कहते हैं, “कुछ कीजिए. डॉक्टर को बचाइये. अब कोई ऐसा नहीं है जिसके पास हम जा सकें.”. ……

Listening To Grasshoppers-Genocide, Denial And Celebration

By Arundhati Roy

 (we are posting a  speech by writer activist Arundhati Roy in Instambul on the occasion of first annivarsary of martyrdom of Hrant dink. Hrant Dink was a progressive journalist in Turkey was murdered by an assassin in front of his office in Istanbul On Friday January 19, 2007. Hrant Dink,a militant defender of democratic rights and freedom was the general editor of the weekly Agos, and was of Armenian descent. He was a vocal and active defender of human rights and persistently opposed violations of the people’s rights by the authorities in Turkey. For his endeavours he was persecuted by the fascist regime and was hounded and vilified by the racist and the chauvinist media)

I never met Hrant Dink, a misfortune that will be mine for time to come. From what I know of him, of what he wrote, what he said and did, how he lived his life, I know that had I been here in Istanbul a year ago I would have been among the one hundred thousand people who walked with his coffin in dead silence through the wintry streets of this city, with banners saying, “We are all Armenians”, “We are all Hrant Dink”. Perhaps I’d have carried the one that said, “One and a half million plus one”.* [*One-and-a-half million is the number of Armenians who were systematically murdered by the Ottoman Empire in the genocide in Anatolia in the spring of 1915. The Armenians, the largest Christian minority living under Islamic Turkic rule in the area, had lived in Anatolia for more than 2,500 years.]

***
In a way, my battle is like yours. But while in Turkey there’s silence, in India, there is celebration.
***

I wonder what thoughts would have gone through my head as I walked beside his coffin. Maybe I would have heard a reprise of the voice of Araxie Barsamian, mother of my friend David Barsamian, telling the story of what happened to her and her family. She was ten years old in 1915. She remembered the swarms of grasshoppers that arrived in her village, Dubne, which was north of the historic city Dikranagert, now Diyarbakir. The village elders were alarmed, she said, because they knew in their bones that the grasshoppers were a bad omen. They were right; the end came in a few months, when the wheat in the fields was ready for harvesting. “When we left…(we were) 25 in the family,” Araxie Barsamian says. “They took all the men folks. They asked my father, ‘Where is your ammunition?’ He says, ‘I sold it.’ So they says, ‘Go get it.’ So he went to the Kurd town to get it, they beat him and took all his clothes. When he came back there-this my mother tells me story-when he came back there, naked body, he went in the jail, they cut his arms…so he die in jail. …….

Nepal: Revolution in the 21st Century

(At a recent packed meeting in London’s Conway Hall, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)’s international secretary Comrade C P Gajurel, gave a lengthy and detailed analysis of the current situation in Nepal of his party’s revolutionary strategy.

The meeting was organised by the British South Asian Solidarity Forum, which organises education and discussion on the struggles of the working people of South Asia.

Gajurel’s talk was given against a background of growing instability in Nepal since the accession of an interim assembly and government including the CPN(M), increasing mass pressure to declare a republic, and growing evidence of foreign interference. An account of his talk is given below.)

“There is no socialist country providing support for revolutionary movements in the world today. There is an absence of a socialist camp in the world.

“In Russia in 1917 a very strong working class existed (and in Europe as well) and the First World War exacerbated the crisis in Russia. Nepal lacks a strong working class and there is no war situation.

“In the 1990s imperialism declared Marxism, and communist revolutions, over, and a relic of the 20^th century, and claimed that only capitalism, not socialism could be sustained.

“We are trying to have a revolution in the 21^st Century. In Nepal we were fighting against a monarchy and a feudal system, but actually the monarchy has already been abolished.

“Actually we are fighting US imperialism. The fight against the monarchy is almost finished. The king is no longer the head of state or the army and has no mass support, but he is backed by a reactionary class and by foreign reaction.”

“There is a need for solidarity with the ongoing revolution in Nepal and in the fight against imperialism. We aware of the weakness of the trade union and working class movement in the west, but we are seeking support from communists, Maoists, progressive and democratic forces, and liberal governments.”……

Update from the Nepalese Revolution

 CP Gajurel

CP Gajurel is the Head of the International Bureau of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). He spoke on November 15th, 2007 at Goldsmith College, University of London. A resume of the talk is given below.

In Nepal, we developed the People’s War from 1996 to 2005. We went from strategic defensive to strategic offensive. Back in 1996, we had neither army nor weapons, but we launched a people’s war.

Today, our People’s Liberation Army is confined to seven camps or cantonments and 14 satellite camps. The UN has registered 31,000 fighters in our army. Yet when we started we had no army at all. We were our own army.

Nobody had military training or weapons. There was one old rifle that did not fire which we used for training. We called it our full-time rifle as it was passed from one area to the next for full-time use. We now have very sophisticated weapons which are locked up in the cantonments.

We also have a YCL militia of almost 400,000 people. They arrest corrupt people, expose scandals and punish criminals who otherwise woul