SIMON SCHAMA'S ROUGH CROSSINGS A REVIEW

Historians like to tell stories, true stories that spring from the materials that have survives from the past. Putting the events together in a seamless web of narrative involves great intellectual and physical effort. And when you read a really good historical work based on exhaustive archival research you get the feeling of drifting into another world altogether. That is why someone said:The past is a foreign country. The twentieth century has seen a number of great historians: Fernand Braudel,Lawrence Stone, Bernard Bailyn, Theodore Mommsen and Simon Schama. Of these Theodore Mommsen won the Nobel Prize and still remains the only historian so honored. He was a historian of the Roman Empire who shiofted thefovcus of research from the Empire to the Provinces. He wrote in a polished and sophisticated style that probably was considered literary by the Literature Committee of the Alfred Nobel Foundation. Thomas Mann was also a good writer and his son Golo Mann has certainly inherited his father's gift for words. The stories that historians tell about the past are regarded as true stories because the characters spring from a whole skein of written and unwritten evidence, not testimony. Unfortunately is a moment of self destruction probably evven of self delusion, historians began neglecting the basic features of thie craft in favor of abstractions like "models" "causation" "hypotheses" personification of historical epochs as "feudal" "capitalist" etc.The result was a general impoverishment of the art of history writing. Then came Hayden White who even said that history is only a "construct" like any other discourse.

The sad state of affairs did not last long. Historians soon realised that a discipline that has been around for nearly 3000 years cannot be swept aside from the intellectual herotage of mankind. The craft of writing history not only involves a commitment to truth, no matter how elusive it may be but also the ability to write in a style free from the vacuous jargon that clutters the pages of several journals. One historian who has stood apart is Simon Schama.

Trained in the University of Cambridge Simon Schama teaches at tColumbia University. He is the author of Landscape and Memory and Embarassment of Riches.He has just published another excellent book, Rough Crossings.

The American War of Independence is usually seen as a gigantic struggle against oppression and an epic saga of liberty and freedom. This patriotic interpretation cannot be cynically set aside for the simple reason that all the participants in that struggle, Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin were all influenced by the dominant intellectual ideas of the time that we now collectively call the Enlightenemnt. Yet the principle of human equality was not present in the minds of those patriots and leads to an obvious paradox: The Americns faught for their freedom and the Slaves in the US at that time faught on the side of the British. This point is ably brought out by Simon Schama in this book. After the defeat of the English and after the surrender of Cornwallis many of the slaves who faught on the side of the British escaped to Nova Scotia in Canada.

In fact conservative English judges who were called upon to deliver judgement on the status of slaves who escaped in British ports ususally set them free while liberal ideologues were less fortright in accepting the theory of monogenisis. Simon Schama has documented in great detail the lives of several slaves who faught and died in the American War of Independence.

It is a tragic fact of historyu that the triumph of the rebels meants postponing the freedom of the African American population. This book is worth readin.

IRAQI WOMEN AND CHILDERN SUFFER THE MOST

The embedded journalists from the USA and UK are doing a great disservice to their own people by consciously hiding the untold suffering of the people of Iraq in the face of American occupation. The impact of the war and the insurgency have been devastating on women and children. It is really sickening to see fat well fed Iraqi men, Quislings all of them, appear on Western TV and mouth innanities about the great job that is being done by the coalition. The pictures from Basra put paid to such extravagance. The Western media used to foment identity politics in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiaas, were quite unpreparted to see Shiaas out on the streets dancing over the burnt out sheell of the RAF chopper. The British troops retaliated with excessive force and killed 15 children and women. The Western media admits only 5 killed in the ensuing carnage.

The truth from Iraq is bitter and it is the truth of Auchwitz, Dachau and Triblinka. A holocaust is unfolding in Iraq and it is the women and children who face the brunt of it. Every night after sundown the US and their Iraqi collaborators invade the homes of people, especially Sunni homes, and in the pretext of searching for arms ransack and humiliate the people living there. Any Sunni male between 15 to 50 is carted away and several times their dead bidies turn up in the fieds around Bagdad. An unwriteen policy of ethnic cleansing in underway and the US administration is complicit in several acts of gfroos human rights violations. The US Media engaged in innanities over Rumsfeldt and the CIA has neither the time nor inclination to highlight the real situation in Iraq. The safety of the Green Zone does not permit the luxury of seeking out the truth.

The void is noaw filled by film makers who with home video, cell phones, handy cams,webcams and the like are documenting the atrocities that the USA and UK are inflicting on innocent Iraqis. Most of these film makers hide their identity as they fear both the Americans and the Insurgents who are alternatively support the US coalition or operate on their own. Children from the age of 6 suffer the psychological trauma of seeing their parents killed in front of their eyes. Symptoms of body tremors are becoming common among choldren. It is of course well known that involuntary body tremor is a sure sign of nervous breakdown. Women who have lost their husbands are being forced into prostitution in order to feed their children left fatherl;ess in a cruel and violent Iraq.

Travel from one city to another is becoming difficult because the Americans have put up road blocks everywhere. The only escape route is the desert and even their when groups are found crossing the desert they are strafed by US military helicopters. The people of Iraq have been turned into targets fror US and UK moilitary machine. One of the film makers has done a short and chilling story of a 8 year onld girl who was picked up by the American marines in the desetrs outside Baghdad. Her father was killed by the marines and the little girl herself was held for nearly 6 months by the marines until her Grandfather was able to track her down and rescue her. All the while the child was forced to view photographs of corpses and identify them. Such abuse of choldren is becoming rampant in Iraq today and are war crimes like any other.

The fact is undr Saddam Hussein women dad made great progress towars economic and social equality. The US occupation of Iraq is forcing women back into the hijab and the fact is the Americans are in alliance with Shiaa clerics who are forcing such reggressive measures.Link

KAAVYAA NEEDS ANOTHER CHANCE

What can you say of a girl of nineteen who took a single false step. That she is young. That she is ambitious. That she took a short cut to fame. Yes, you can say all this about a young Harvard sophomore called Kavyaaa Viswanathan, She is the only child a doctor parents who trained her from childhood to enter the portals of a great institution of higher learning--Harvard. She is by all accounts a bright, well groomed sophomore. Unfortunately for her her book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got aLife which was published recently by Little Brown and Co has strirred by a hornet's nest of intellectual property right issues. Simply put issues referred to as plagarism.

A few weeks back the Harvard Crimson published a story saying that Kaavyaa had lifted certain passages from another young adult writer Megan McCaffert's novels Sloppy First and Second Helping. A perusal of the two books does suggest similarities in language but there is no passage that is a straioght lift from either book. Kaavyaa has stated that she had read the two books by McCaffert and had "internalised her language". She issued a public apology and her publisher Little Brown and Co withdrew all copies of the book. I managed to get a copy as I live in a different country and even here the distributors are withdrawing all copies of her book. Kaavyaa received an advance of 500,000 US $ and she was forced to return that amont. Personally speaking I feel that this young girl has been punished enough. Her name and reputation in tatters, Kavyaa should now be left to purue her studies.

The alarming part of this entire sequence of events is that Harvard University is seriously considering action against her. We do not know what the Deans and Professors of Harvard have in their minds. But this I know that 19 is too tender an age for ones's life to be irrevocably damaged. I appeal to all those concerned to have mercy on that girl. Punisher her if you will. But dont for God's sake damage her forever

USA,IRAN AND NUCLEAR ISSUE

More tham 45 years ago Dr Henry Kissenger wrote a book which is more relevant today than it was in 1958 when Harvatrd University published it. Entitled [I]Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy[/I]this book argued the provocative thesis that the Westphalia System of having the State with its monopoly on the coercive power represented by the army and the like will not be the sole determinant of foreign policy in the nuclear age. Any state attempting to change the international status quo will perforce take the route to nulearisation. Unfortunately these insights seem to be forgotten by the very neocons whose short sighted and blindly aggressive foreign policy has led the USA to the quagmire of Iraq. Francis Fukuyama has come out strongly against the neocon agenda in his latest book. How then are we (thinking individuals) to proceed.

First, is Iran in violation of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. Honest opinion is rather divided on this question. Most agree that Iran did hide part of its research program from the UN watch dog agency. However, nuclear enrichment is not prohibited by the NPT. Therefore Iran is on solid ground on this issue.

USA agues that nuclear enrichment is a threat to the region. One look at the map will explain why Iran is furiously in favor of nuclear enrichment: Iran is ringed with a whole aray of nuclear powers"India, Pakistan, China and of course, Israel. Further the USA has forwars bases equipped with short and long rane nuclear tipped missiles at Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, Uzbegistaan and certainly Afghanistan. In such a geo political situation it is highly unrealistic on the part of the USA to expect Iran to give up its programme. This is precisely what Dr Henry Kissenger had pointed out in that brilliant book with which I began this blog. The is an undercurrent of racism in the nuclear debate that politie opinion does not quite address. The fact is that Anglo Saxon countries have enjoyed the near monopoly of the use and deployment of nuclear weapons and have shown the willingness to use shock and awe against non white peoples of the world (Iraq being the most recent victim). In such a scenario no amount of sabre rattling by Bush abd the Bushmen is going to help. Unfortunately, the USA keeps harping on the Al Qaeda factor and as far as the acqusition of the bomb is concerned even Muslim states will not permit non state actors like Alqaeda to acquire the nuclear weapons. This fundamental point is not understood by the present US Administration.

Does the USA hope, realistically speaking, to attak Iran and get away unscathed. The country has not forgotten the horrors of CIA sponsored coups and countercoups during the long years of the Shah's reign. THe unkindest cut of all: yes let me remind all of you: THE USA ARMED AND ENCOURAGED SADDAM HUSSEIN DURING THE TEN YEAR WAR WITH IRAN IN WHICH US SUPPLIED CHEMICAL WEAPONS TO SADDAM HUSSEIN. With such a background and history is Iran ever going to consider the USA a dis interested party. Rigtly or wrongly Iranians feel that the USA is creating a climate for a war using the same sort of bogey created around Iraq during the run up to the War three years back. The world has not forgotten the fact that the USA shot down a civillian passenger plane belonging to Iran killing more than 200 passengers on board. Iranians are familiar with the vacuous noises from Washington DC and it is extremelu unlikely that they will take US threats seriously. The world knowns that USA will not attak a nucleatr power and hence the Iranians aspire for nuclear capacity just short of weaponisation. See how Bush and the Bushmen are silent over NOrth Korea.

There is another factor. There is another undeclared nuclear power in the region and no one can be insensitive to Iranian fears that that power which has with impunity violated UN resolutions is capable of doing the bidding on behalf of the US establishment.

The fact is that the Iranians cooperated with the American in their war against Afghanistan and also gave tactical support during the offensive against Saddam Hussein. Iran was in an economic crisis a few years back but thanks to the soaring oil prices the Iranians are well on the way to economic recovery."