Category: Zachary

The gradual process of mending ties through sports, cultural exchanges and the historic meet presents a lesson for several sparring countries across the world. This is particularly true for India and Pakistan, as the South Asian neighbours were also partitioned from one region and share a historical, socio-cultural and linguistic inheritance, as the two Koreas do.

So the question remains of whether India and Pakistan be rid of their adamant attitudes and restart the athletic and cultural exchanges that have been on pause for years. This is a lesson they could take from the historic meeting in the Korean peninsula, which has witnessed much more violence and bloodshed than the Indian subcontinent in the last six decades. Over 12 lakh people are estimated to have been killed in the Korean War, as compared to over a lakh in the Kashmir conflict, the main bone of contention between India and Pakistan.

Will India and Pakistan Learn from the Historic Korea Summit?

My quibble is that the two Koreas are more akin to the two Punjabs or Bengals than they are to Indo-Pak.

India and Pakistan now have very different national traditions where the modern states are built on a rivalry with one another. Pakistan much more so than India but as Kabir says there is far too much blood under the bridge (I’ve butchered that saying) that the best we can hope for is normalised relations.

I don’t know much about Korean history but there is another different; unified Korea is a bit like unified Germany there is one national narrative. But think Anschluss (Austria + Germany) would it be the Catholic Hapsburg or Protestant Prussians (let’s set aside the last example of Anshluss) that would define the hypothetical Germanic state.

Similarly would Indo-Pak reunification be Akhand Bharat or the Mughals resurrected since I imagine no one has the appetite for the Raj.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8aETK5pQR4

This woman, was the most respectable electoral choice India has ever made for PM. Just compare her to PM Modi who cannot hold a candle to her charisma, intellect and pedigree. Indian democracy has gone backward in 30 years, Modi cannot even express forget defend himself because he can’t speak English. ?

Vidhi asked me to contextualise my thoughts in addition to hers. I would hazard that Indira was India’s best PM; she basically destroyed Pakistan.

If it had been Nehru or Shastri or even Modi instead of Indira there would have been an East Pakistan Wing. It took Indira’s grit and steel to shatter India’s more persistent enemy once and for all.

Ps: I just finished the video and I found it thrilling. Indira reminds me of Benazir but an even grander more formidable figure; a living Mother India.

I love the way Indira, as Durga, dispatched the arrogant white male journalist.

“It’s a question of whether I want to be PM.”

“Unlike Britain, which is a tiny country India is not.”

“The future of India is for us to decide.”

Her pithy response at the end, “because I am not guilty.”

The poncy journalist thought he would be taking Indira to task but instead she smashed him and his pretensions to smithereens!!

Picking up from sbarrakum’s comment on Sinhalese.

First page of Beowulf in Old English

This guy, Qasim Rashid, is actually an “American citizen” but like Ms. Hoda Kateb brimes with bile about the US.

I feel we are in the decadent stage of the Roman Empire where traitors are applauded in the midst.

I decry colonialism but I would never disrespect Britain (I am British after all) the way Hoda and Qasim so gleefully do to the US when Islam/Muslims are attacked.

I’ve seen this time and time again and it almost does prompt the question then if the US/UK is so bad then why don’t you go back to where you came from.

These people don’t love America; you can’t attack something or write it in that tone and claim to be a patriot.

There is also a fundamental difference between a Native American or an African American (descendant of slaves) and an immigrant American. The former two are part of the American narrative from get-go and have an unimaginable historical experience.

Immigrant Americans have either chosen to come to the US or their parents have for the most part post 1960 (if they are non-white). It is in bad taste to hate the country that gives one freedom, opportunity and refuge.

I was reading the article Vijay posted about the Search for Buddha:

In the 1680s, King Narai of Siam became interested in Christianity, and even more interested in European science, especially astronomy. Louis XIV dispatched two embassies to Siam, in 1685 and 1687, including a strong contingent of Jesuit scientists. Dolu was part of the 1687 group.

The rest of the article reads like a chick-lit detective story. However the above passage struck me.

End of History

The end of the Cold War, Star Trek, Francis Fuyukama assured us in the 90’s that History was coming to an end and very soon we would become an English speaking multi-racial world with a generic Americanised culture.

Of course Samuel Huntington saw things quite differently and he’s been proven right. All over the world there are these (last gasp?) rightist/populist push backs against globalisation.

Greco-Roman world

The last parallels I can think of is the Greco-Roman cultural ambit under initially the Macedonian (who brought Hellenism to the East) and the Romans (who later evolved into the Byzantines).

Ultimately a good marker to assess cultural hegemony is via language because language guides us in how we process the world and culture arounds us. I also see that language diffusion and adoption is usually a result of political hegemony rather than coolness factors.

Christianity & Latin

Western Europe became Latin speaking simply because it was under the Romans for as long as it was. There is no region in Europe that adopted a Vulgar Latin language that wasn’t under sustained Roman control (it never grafted onto Britain). The same goes for Christianity where it’s spread usually mirrored political control as well both in late antiquity and in the colonial era.

To fast forward there wasn’t a spontaneous adoption of Christianity in the colonial era when there were sophisticated local religious hierarchies. Christianity failed to make significant headway into Asia with the notable exception of Philippines.

Cultural Diffusion

So hard power usually precedes soft power. The third great diffuser of a civilisation beyond language and religion is culture. In yesteryear it was Shakespeare now it is Hollywood.

Bactria & Hollywood

An example of a good model of cultural diffusion vis a vis Hollywood in Asia is the spread of Hellenistic sculptural traditions into East via Bactria. The Sleeping Buddha statues are direct but unrecognisable descendants of the Classical Greek sculptures we see in the Louvre and other museums.

Hollywood is akin to this. Many good romantic and star cast films are mined for their ideas and remade in Bollywood possibly in other Asian, Arab and African cinemas (I can’t be certain). It’s interesting to see that Hollywood, as the leading hegemonic global Cinema, is moving away from “star power” to franchises (like the Avengers).

People around the world will watch Hollywood for movies like the Avengers but will watch their own cinemas for great romantic films (which ultimately is more relatable when it has local films). So Hollywood isn’t Anglicising/Americanising the world inasmuch as providing a generic platform to watch expensive action blockbusters.

What will the world look like in a millennia

Of course predicting tomorrow is hard enough but a millennia ago most of the great world civilisations were already set in place. When a culture or civilisation has planted roots into a particular geography it’s only an Act of God or sustained brutality that can evict it. Soft power has a role in blurring the boundaries between cultures but in never erasing those cultures.

Do we become American when use Facebook

We are of course all products (to varying degrees) of values of the Western Enlightenment but that in itself is now decoupling from being Western/Westernised as time wears itself on. A similar example would be that we all use Roman legal codes (to some extent) but that doesn’t make us Romanised. A more contemporary example would be that using Facebook doesn’t make us American.

Going back to the initial passage in 1680 King Narai was flirting with Christianity; in 2018 Thailand remains a staunchly Buddhist monarchy with an almost virulent (?) nationalist tradition.

https://www.facebook.com/JeremyMcLellanComedy/videos/1860109164030250/

Iranian-American Muslim fashion blogger Hoda Katebi was invited on the news to talk about her new fashion book. Naturally, they ask her about nuclear weapons and tell her she “doesn’t sound American.” I don’t think they were prepared for her answer.

Hoda is a doppelgänger for a Hijabj BritPak friend of a friend (that girl unfriended me on Facebook after my Facebook Lives last year). Ms. Katebi comes much more as Muslim American than Iranian American (she even calls herself a Muslim Iranian).

The above incident happened in Feb this year but I just learnt about it now (as always I’m slow on the uptake).

I just find the idea of an Iranian American defining themselves as Muslim (she defines herself as Muslim Iranian in America) to be a bit jarring; I’m very used to the Bahá’í or Jewish Iranian American communities being visibly and overtly religious. For the mainstream Iranian American community being Shiite and American is almost a contradiction when their two nations have had such strained relations for the past 3 decades.

Also Hoda doesn’t have an American accent; as the ethnic populations in the West grow larger, their interaction with the mainstream becomes more limited.

Even in lily-white Cambridge one gets the feeling is that there are simply less and less English people about every year. In the 80’s moving to the West meant assimilation into WASPY framework; these days moving to the West is swimming in one’s own sizeable ethnic diaspora. I miss California because one of the best Pakistani restaurants (Zareens); it’s like never leaving home.

* Tripura CM mocks Lisa Hayden because she doesn’t conform to Indian beauty standards.

* CBI wins a victory against Vijay Mallya.. His barrister, Clare Montgomery, is interesting as she belongs to Matrix Chambers, whom Cherie (Blair) Booth used to belong. Her previous client includes Augustine Pinochet and she seems eminently capable (smacks of Oxbridge even though she didn’t seem to have gone there).

* Initially I really liked the new name Prince Louis but I’ve now realised they’ve named him after Lord Mountbatten. That’s in incredible poor taste to the British Asian population; as Lord Mountbottom was as bad as Churchill when it came to India. Partition is ultimately in his conscience, speeding the division of India was probably one of the greatest human disasters in history. A very poor showing by the Royal Family and a complete insensitivity to their Asian citizen-subjects.

Forgive my obligatory Mughalophilia but I haven’t indulged Pak psychosis in a while on this blog. Too busy getting worked up over my black/AASI heritage. I have a habit from flitting/flirting with causes; my personality type is apparently ENFP the “Activist” so forgive my armchair activism..

Speaking of Pak psychosis I have a small WhatsApp group of the Pakistani Literati. For our first London meeting when I selected an IndoPak restaurant there wasn’t really much uptake, as soon as I selected a trendy Persian place everyone got into it. The Pak psych is a thing of wonder though Persianate halflings like me probably contribute it with our excessive partiality for Hijaz & Shiraz!

The whole thing about genetics has been very oriented around “whiteness.” Just as we had the historical supposition that most cultures were created by vigorous Northern races that degenerated after mixture with decadent Southern ones (which conveniently was appropriated by Euro-colonialists).

I do think in simple language. While the AASI seem to be related to the initial Negrito coastal waves that spread across Yemen, Southern Indo-Pak, parts of Malaysia, Melanesia, Papua New Guinea and the Aboriginals (hints of these genes are said to be in the Amazon); it’s important to realise that we are “brown” because of these ancestors.

The Aryans were fair & lovely; the Eastern Anatolian/ Elamitic (Iranian farmers is a misnomer) were probably olive & tanned (related to J2 population sort of look like modern day Caucasians; fair skinned but darkish colourings) but it was the AASI (the Dalit/untouchable) who gave us our swarthier complexions.

Maybe the race movement/ black lives movement in the US is needed in South Asia so that we can love our black ancestors.

It’s interesting Hollywood has an amazing and vibrant black Afram entertainment community. None of the cinemas in Latam and/or South Asian put darker skinned/Dalits front and centre.

Vijay makes a very important contribution on the Aryan-Dravidian debate and how all of it was cooked up by the British (Hindu/Muslim divide, caste system, martial races etc).

It is the absurdity and arrogance of the British to imagine they created/united India; India has always existed from the times of our AASI/Andamese/Negrito ancestors (maybe we should go back to 80’s Britain and call the AASI black so we are basically black according to one-drop rule).

Colonialism was an absurdity and travesty and did so much to hold back Hindustan (I define this from the Hindu Kush to the Indian Ocean). Even Lord Curzon mentions (again I go quoting colonial authorities; I’m such a munafiq) that Rivers are not real boundaries; India does not stop at the Indus but at her mountains (Hindu Kush, Himalaya) and oceans.

“3) Indian politics –<br />a) North South divide – North = Arya, South = Dravida or Non-Arya aka Natives”<br /><br />You are overemphasising the so-called North-South ‘Divide’ . ‘ Dravida’ referred ethonologically to the Pancha Dravida brahmins ; this included brahmins of Gujarat and Maharastra. 19th Century ametuer linguist Rev Caldwell mistakenly thought it referred to the four large south Indian languages and named the linguitic group as ‘ Dravidian family’ and as was the prevalent notion of 19th century thinkers , he conflated the linguistic group with a racial group. From a purely linguistic angle , his identification of the linguistic group is right, but wrongly named it and even more atrociouly mistook it for a race.<br /><br />It is testament to the success of the the 19th century colonial categories that western mistakes have become creed for a section of Indians.<br /><br />However , the bald ‘ Arya-Dravida’ division is prevalent only in Tamilnadu, and not in other south India states; that too it is politically hyped up. The irony is the Tamil literature knows no word called Dravida till late 19th century under colonial instruction. <br /><br />Political froth from Tamilnadu should not be mistaken as the opinion of majority of people. The majority of Hindus have refrained from taking control the social and historical narrative or even challenging the prevalent narratives which are of 19th century western provenance. That is their mistake. I don’t think the so-called ‘Out of India’ theory is the solution. One nonsense cannot be fought with another nonsense. Wherever you see nonsense , be relentless in challenging and exposing it.<br /><br />The so-called ‘arya-dravida’ divide has no histotical basis – however such toxic narartives need exposing . The narrative of “arya-dravida” divide in Tamilnadu is high decibel and aggressive – it gets more aggressive as it’s historical basis is non-existant and it is running on empty. History is made by aggressive lies in the short run – Satyameva Jayate is a pious hope