Peace Watch » Entries tagged with "Kashmir"
Hollywood Film “Lost Command” And Kashmir
PUNCHLINE “Lost Command” Lessons From Hollywood Movie Z. G. Muhammad ‘The Colonisers or the Occupiers how so big military powers they may be cannot stand before the people’s might. They are bound to meet their Waterloo.’ That was the first lesson; I learnt as a teenager, not from the books on history but a Hollywood film. I was a film buff. In the mid-sixties and seventies, there was a hardly a Hollywood film on the Second World War, Vietnam War and about struggling Africans that I might not have watched in cinemas and learnt a lesson that no tutor or leader was able to teach me. Some of the films on the Vietnam War in the seventies like ‘Coming Home’ and ‘The Dear Hunter’ that broadly said that United States involvement in the Vietnam was … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Pakistan Taking Kashmir To UN?
PUNCHLINE Back To Old Battleground By Z.G. Muhammad Sixty seven years after their birth, India and Pakistan, have failed to resolve their disputes. The relations between the two continue to be on a short fuse. Under the weight of their own inaction, the protracted composite dialogue and back channel confabulations started in 2003 for settling their disputes have once again come to cropper. During past fifteen months, notwithstanding, nudging from Washington and Beijing and the two countries agreeing to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Kashmir-Talk
Resettlement Of Migrants and J &K Constitution
Displacements and Settlements Z.G. MUHAMMAD Sometimes even a single column news item on the back page contains far bigger a message than the screaming front page headlines and calls for a wider and serious debate. Some days back, a hundred and fifty word statement by an advocacy group welcoming initiatives of the government for return of Kashmiri Pandits talked about five major displacements that took place in Jammu and Kashmir after the birth of India and Pakistan as independent dominions. It has also called for ‘major initiatives for honourable return of all those displaced in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1989. Since 1990, only displacement in ‘dominant’ and ‘populist’ discourse has been that of the Kashmir Pandits. It has been categorized as ‘internal displacement’ as overwhelming majority of this community … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Of A Dream Merchant And His Goals
Of Dreams and Goals By Z. G. Muhammad It is not a political enemy’s dig at his arch-enemy. It is not an opponent’s last-ditch attempt to challenge political ideology of a leader. Calling a leader as ‘dream merchant’ is in fact an acknowledgment of his greatness- all great people dream high. I have no idea, what might have crossed the mind of the scion of the Abdullah family when he used this phrase for Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Nevertheless, he deserves kudos for naming the octogenarian leader, who has been on the political scene of Jammu and Kashmir for over fifty-five years as ‘dream merchant.’—it is the highest honor that could be bestowed on a leader. When, I read phrase ‘dream merchant’ in the screaming headlines, the famous speech of Martin Luther … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk
The Politics of Boycotts in J&K
Z.G. MUHAMMAD Everyone has right to his dreams- even pipe dreams. Jamal – the great hashish smoker in our locality too had his dreams. Many times, sitting on shop fronts, he soliloquized and made his dream of becoming the chief executive of the state and replacing the “tailor’s son”, known to passersby and dizzy friends sharing his pipe. Jamal committed no sin, anyone can dream of becoming the chief executive- And for wishing to be the chief executive or getting a berth in temple of “democracy” there is no need for stoking a debate or conjuring discourses that are not holistically in conformity with the with historical realities and run contrary to the established ‘Kashmir narrative.’ ‘Is boycotting the elections right politics or participation in 2014 Assembly election is the correct option.’ … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Of Spin-doctors, Machiavellians and Kashmir
By Z. G. Muhammad Spin-doctors have a field day in Kashmir. Summer 2013, belongs to them. The phrase, first used by New York Times in its editorial is now part of global political jargon. According to New York Times columnist, William Safari ‘spin’ is ‘deliberate shading of news perception.’ Moreover, for decades the spin-doctors have been playing the role of ‘putting slants on information when it is presented to public or in press.’ The spin-doctors have been there through out history, as someone has rightly said the first spin-doctor was the Serpent in the Bible for convincing Adam and Eve that Apples were next big thing. In modern political lexicon, they are called PR pundits but their role in many situations is to put an ‘optimistic face’ in worsening situation. The spin-doctors coin … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take
Who Are They To Tell You This
Books And ‘National Narratives’ Z.G. MUHAMMAD Four new books, published from Srinagar during May vied for space in my small work place. Out of them, two have been written inside the Central Jail, Srinagar by two prisoners Dr. Muhammad Shafi Khan Shariati and Dr. Muhammad Qasim. Both convicted for life. Ess Ahmed Pirzada and Shabnam Qayoom have authored the other two. The book by Dr. Muhammad Shafi Khan Shariati is an Urdu translation of controversial book ‘The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order’ by Samuel P Huntington. Translated into almost every important language in the world the book has been for past two decades at the centre of discussion in academia, passageways of power in the West and the Muslim World. Seen as gospel for Muslim bashing the adversaries of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Editor's Take, Kashmir-Talk