Shunya's Notes

The World Is What It Is

Patrick French has written an authorized biography of VS Naipaul: The World Is What It Is. Outlook India has published three extracts—the first from French's introduction to the book; the second charting how Naipaul's views on India evolved and changed over 30 years; and the third from a later chapter, in which Naipaul loses one wife (Pat) and gains another (Nadira), even as he discards his mistress (Margaret). Here is the tantalizing last paragraph from the third extract, reflecting the complex, turbulent, and messy nature of his relationships:

And then there was Margaret. To avoid the awkwardness of telling her about his marriage, Vidia remained silent; she learned the news of Nadira's existence from the newspapers. Margaret was distraught, a broken woman, but she was not wholly surprised. She had realised at the end of 1995 that something was wrong, and that Pat's death would alter her position. She had long thought that Vidia would not end his life without going back to someone of his own ethnic background. In her view, perhaps rightly, she knew him better than anyone else had ever known him, or would know him. She saw she had become superfluous, believing Vidia needed a woman for sex and to do things for him, but not for any deeper support. And even a decade after their relationship had come to its sad end, Margaret would still write that her years with him had been the most terrible and wonderful of her life, and that he had taught her everything she knew, mentally and physically.

Also read Robern McCrum's essay on meeting Naipaul to talk about this biography.

The Truth About Autism

As with many disorders of the brain, the gap between the reality and perception of autism can be large. Amanda Baggs is at the forefront of a movement that’s forcing researchers to rethink autism. Do watch the video referenced in the article below.

The YouTube clip opens with a woman facing away from the camera, rocking back and forth, flapping her hands awkwardly, and emitting an eerie hum. She then performs strange repetitive behaviors: slapping a piece of paper against a window, running a hand lengthwise over a computer keyboard, twisting the knob of a drawer. She bats a necklace with her hand and nuzzles her face against the pages of a book. And you find yourself thinking: Who's shooting this footage of the handicapped lady, and why do I always get sucked into watching the latest viral video?

But then the words "A Translation" appear on a black screen, and for the next five minutes, 27-year-old Amanda Baggs — who is autistic and doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's going on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software application, she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have a "constant conversation" with her surroundings. These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language," Baggs explains, and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.

And you find yourself thinking: She might have a point.

More here. Amanda also keeps a blog.

Avnery on the Candidates

Uri Avnery, writer, peace activist, and an Israeli Jew with a refined moral conscience, evaluates the remaining US presidential candidates—McCain, Clinton, Obama—including their attitudes to Israel.

Here a Jew will pop the classic question: Is it good for the Jews?

The people who claim to speak for the American Jews, the "leaders" who were not elected by anyone, the chiefs of the fetid "organizations", are conducting a dirty campaign of defamation and sly hints against [Obama]. If his middle name is Hussein and he is black, he must be an "Arab-lover". Also, he did not distance himself enough from the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.

The same "leaders" are in bed with the most loathsome racists in the US, obscurantist fundamentalists and blood-stained neo-cons. But most American Jews know that their place is not there. The unholy alliance with those types will inevitably come home to roost. The Jews have to be where they have always been: in the progressive camp, striving for equality and the separation between state and religion.

It must be asked: Is it good for Israel?

All three candidates have groveled at the feet of AIPAC. The fawning of all three before the Israeli leadership is disgusting. They all show a lack of integrity. But I know that they have no choice. That's how it is in the USA.

In spite of this, Obama succeeded in getting out one courageous sentence. Speaking before a mainly Jewish audience in Cleveland, he said: "There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel, you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel."

More here.

A Sunday in São Paulo

I often think of Brazil as the most diverse, complex, and beautiful country in the Americas, and I am fortunate to have traveled through many parts of it. Its wild nature is famous enough and its society is an intricate patchwork of global and indigenous cultures. In June 2001, I spent a Sunday walking the streets of São Paulo, a city that strongly reminds me of Bombay. It is the most energetic and cosmopolitan metropolis of Brazil, its financial and entertainment hub, and a city of great opportunity and strife. Of Brazil, I wrote in an essay:

Futebol, sun, sand, sex, hard bodies, music, dance, tropical fruits, and drinks—picture-postcard Brazil. But there is plenty to ruffle this youth-worshiping light-heartedness and hedonistic living in the present: extreme wealth disparity, urban violence, corruption, unemployment, illiteracy, high birth rate, cast off children, the horror of growing old. Children are ubiquitous in Brazil—half the population is under twenty. Evangelists strive for their souls in small towns and big cities ... Yet, Brazil has also made important strides. Communication, roads, transportation, housing projects, drinking water, and sanitation have come a long way. Multiple races and traditions coexist reasonably well. Villages and large cities rarely betray the kind of crushing poverty one finds in many other developing countries.

Here is some footage from my Sunday in São Paulo, with ordinary people, downtown, Liberdade (Japan town), evangelical Christians, soccer fever, street musicians/performers, sleaze district, prostitutes, the homeless, etc. The most hilarious part is that of a Japanese-Brazilian man in a public square, bursting spontaneously into dance—which later morphs into martial art moves—all to atrocious Christian pop!

(Music soundtrack by Adriana Calcanhotto, Cesaria Evora, Jerry Mulligan, Jane Duboc, Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, and Gilberto Gil.)

A Child of God

I ran into her in Dharamsala, home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile. She was a pilgrim at the festival of Buddha Purnima, which celebrates the Buddha's enlightenment.

I don’t know her story. I regret not speaking to her, or even inquiring about her. I confess I was too dumbstruck, able only to take this photo from across the road, approach her to drop some coins in her bowl, and slip away.

Her teeth and hair suggest she is young. Is she a victim of fire or chemicals (accidental or criminal)? Does she have a family? How does she regard herself? What is a typical day in her life?

Lights, Camera, Action

I am pleased to announce a brand new channel on Shunya — Videos!

Videos should complement the other two channels: Articles and Photos. We will produce original videos besides linking to others on the web. Initially, the original videos will come from the 75+ hours of footage I've taken around the world, most during 2000-05—I've already posted the first five. When appropriate, I'll also showcase some of my favorite music from each region, as I did in the White Desert video. Text captions will be minimal, just enough for context. It's too bad my day job is not as much fun and no one has yet offered to turn my hobbies into a vocation. So a labor of love this remains.

This is also the 200th post on Shunya's Notes in sixteen months. Stay tuned for many more!

Hedges on the New Atheists

Chris Hedges, journalist and war correspondent, on why New Atheists like Hitchens and Harris are as dangerous as Christian fundamentalists:

I think a lot of their popularity stems from a legitimate anger on the part of a lot of Americans toward the intolerance and chauvinism of the radical religious right in this country. Unfortunately, what they've done is offer a Utopian belief system that is as self-delusional as that offered by Christian fundamentalists. They adopt many of the foundational belief systems of fundamentalists. For example, they believe that the human species is marching forward, that there is an advancement toward some kind of collective moral progress -- that we are moving towards, if not a Utopian, certainly a better, more perfected human society. That's fundamental to the Christian right, and it's also fundamental to the New Atheists.

You know, there is nothing in human nature or in human history that points to the idea that we are moving anywhere. Technology and science, though they are cumulative and have improved, in many ways, the lives of people within the industrialized nations, have also unleashed the most horrific forms of violence and death, and let's not forget, environmental degradation, in human history. So, there's nothing intrinsically moral about science. Science is morally neutral. It serves the good and the bad. I mean, industrial killing is a product of technological advance, just as is penicillin and modern medicine. So I think that I find the faith that these people place in science and reason as a route toward human salvation to be as delusional as the faith the Christian right places in miracles and angels.

In other words, material progress without moral progress—the two have no obvious correlation—only raises the stakes for humanity. The New Atheists conflate the two, thus creating a justification for a neo-con imperial agenda. Read the transcript of the full interview here.

Gandhis of Olive Country

Another path to peace? Palestinians revel in Gandhi and the non-violent struggle (Aimee Ginsberg in Outlook India):

I'm sitting with Robert Hirschfield at the corner ice-cream shop, tall windows facing the street, steaming mint tea in our glass mugs. Outside, a large group of angry young PLO supporters are waving their fists and their kaffiyas, shouting slogans against the Hamas' massacre of 14 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) members in Gaza. We are in Ramallah, the interim capital of Palestine, two American Jewish writers, and I am thinking we are crazy. Hirschfield, 68, is comfortable. He has been travelling through Palestine for a month now, researching his book on Palestinian non-violence.

He likes it here. "There is an aliveness, an open and present friendliness, a warmth," he says. Outside, the shouting gets louder. I, sorry to say, think of Daniel Pearl; Hirschfield of Mahatma Gandhi.

It was the visit of Arun Gandhi—the Mahatma's grandson—to Palestine in 2004 that first caught Hirschfield's interest. "In the United States," Hirschfield says, "Palestinians are seldom portrayed as anything other than terrorists. Sure the terror is real, and Israel must defend herself. But why stigmatise the whole of the Palestinian people?" It was this point Arun Gandhi addressed ... "Imagine yourselves marching by the thousands behind your leaders, demanding the right to be treated as human beings," he had asked a large audience of Palestinians and their Israeli sympathisers. "Sit at the roadblocks and sing your songs. March to the wall and dance your dances."

No mass march followed this perhaps naive plea, but Arun's message was absorbed, part of a continuing Palestinian debate on the viability of a nonviolent (NV) resolution to the Israeli occupation.

More here. Also read about Mubarak Awad, the man who brought Gandhian methods to Palestine.

A Memorial: My Lai, 1968

Forty years ago today the people of a little village in Vietnam, called My Lai, were subjected to unspeakable atrocities at the hands of a group of young soldiers who were there to prosecute America's war against communism. The massacre was ended by the heroic actions of a 24 year old helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, who stepped in to save the villagers, backed by his 18 year old gunner, Lawrence Colburn, and their 20 year old Crew Chief, Glenn Andreotta.

According to the Seattle Times, these were the conditions:

AFTER THREE MONTHS in Vietnam, Charlie Company (Task Force Barker, 11th Brigade, Americal Division), had suffered 28 casualties, including five killed, and was down to 105 men. All the casualties were from mines, booby traps and snipers rather than battles in which troops could clearly identify an enemy. The day after a booby trap killed a popular sergeant, Charlie Company was given orders to invade an area believed to be a North Vietnamese stronghold. Though it is generally agreed commanders ordered soldiers to destroy the villages and "neutralize" the area, there is controversy over whether the directive included killing civilians. The U.S. military's official report found that "from 16-19 March 1968, U.S. Army troops massacred a large number of noncombatants in two hamlets of Son My Village, Quang Ngai Province, Republic of Vietnam. The precise number of Vietnamese killed cannot be determined but was at least 175 and may exceed 400." Later reports tallied 504.

In the spirit of not forgetting, not papering over what war really does to people—civilians and soldiers, both—here are the words of Lawrence Colburn, recalling that day:

Slaughter in America

A recent Humane Society sting operation at a California slaughterhouse brought to light some very cruel treatment of farm animals (see the investigator's video; viewer discretion advised). The media attention caused a minor outrage and the largest beef recall in the history of the nation. Many wondered if cruelty is all that rare in the American meat business. Donations to animal rights groups followed (not unlike the spike in donations to charities following ads of emaciated children in god forsaken countries). Guilt assuaged, let's do pork chops for dinner.

Curiously enough, what bothered people most was the cruelty itself, and the nutritional safety of meat from downer cattle. In other words, if all USDA rules were followed, in letter and spirit, the complaints would dissolve and people would go back to maintaining their equanimity about the industrial-scale raising, killing, and processing of animals for food and things. Notably, the USDA—US department of agriculture—regulates this industry. This is on par with agriculture? What does this reveal about the American society's relationship with animals? How many little Eichmanns now thrive among us, within us?

Nearly ten billion mammals and birds are slaughtered each year in the US alone (a million per hour). How are they processed? The time-lapse footage below from the visually resplendent film, Baraka, has some details for chickens, mixed-in with scenes from modern life (a more disturbing one here. Also check out cartoonist Mark Fiore's, Doreen the Downer.)

On Nuclear Energy

A compelling presentation on why nuclear energy must be a significant part of a clean energy solution (Gwyneth Cravens and Rip Anderson). What's needed next is a slick production -- "An Inconvenient Truth, Part II" -- to tie it all together using more charismatic presenters.

White Desert, Egypt

The Western Desert, a vast expanse that starts at the western bank of the Nile and continues well into Libya, is the desert of deserts. Covering a total of 2.8 million sq km and bordered by Libya in the west, Sudan in the south and the Mediterranean in the north, it is a world of desolation and beauty -- and one of the few places in Egypt where you can go for days at a time without seeing a soul. Five isolated but thriving oases dot this otherwise uninhabited expanse: Kharga, Dakhla, Farafra, Bahariyya, and to the north-west of these, Siwa.  (—LP, Egypt).

In Jan 2003, Usha and I traveled through four of the five Oases in Egypt's Western Desert (or Eastern Sahara), including a special excursion to the hauntingly beautiful White Desert, known for its otherworldly white chalk rock formations. In Farafra, we hired a 4x4, camping gear, a driver who doubled as a cook, and drove about 50 km over shifting sands.

Usha, with her keen eye for detail, spotted seashells in the sand, a thrilling discovery for us. It is one thing to know that the Sahara was once below the sea, another to see proof of it. Also visible are remains of ancient lava flows—bits of lava rock rolled around for millions of years, eventually turning into lots of black spheroids, inch-wide in diameter. Our "tent" had two right-angled walls (to act as windbreakers) and no roof. We saw a gazillion stars and the white rocks looked beautiful in the moonlight. But even four blankets didn't feel enough when the temperature dropped to near freezing that night. Here are some scenes from the trip, set to some music I like from north Africa.

A funny aside: The book Sahara, describes "four major ethnic groups of the Sahara, including the [Muslim] Tuareg, whose men rather than the women wear veils ... Tuareg women tell the men that 'a child can sleep in the womb for years, or even forever.'"

This [provides a cheating] wife a welcome and convenient pretext for representing to her husband in a respectable light any increase in the family that may have taken place in his absence.

Ghost Town in the Levant

Scenes from my visit to Quneitra, Syria, 2001. (Wikipedia on Quneitra.)

Teotihuacan, Mexico City

In early first century CE, Teotihuacan was just a hamlet. Its population then grew as people from the Valley of Mexico began arriving there. With a larger labor force at its disposal, the local rulers grew richer and devised a master plan for a new city with the great building projects of the pyramids of the sun and the moon. The plan was inspired by the Aztec conception of the universe, and indeed, as the place where the universe itself originated. It also made Teotihuacan the grandest city in Mesoamerica during the Classic Period.

Teotihuacan's control of the obsidian mines at Otumba and Pachuca allowed it to centralize the production of obsidian goods, some for domestic sale, the rest for export. With this, and its monopoly on the distribution of Thin Orange pottery, Teotihuacan developed a trading system that embraced almost every region of Mesoamerica, including places as far away as the Maya area, the modern state of Guerrero, and the area around the Gulf of Mexico.

Teotihuacan's metropolitan feel, its trading system, and the religious prestige it accrued from its giant pyramids and related ceremonies, attracted a floating population that enriched the quality of life in the great city. At its peak between 150—450 CE, it stretched over 30 square km and had a population of between 150,000 and 250,000.

After flourishing for centuries, Teotihuacan collapsed c. 750 CE, partly due to adverse pressures from the new population centers that sprang up on the Mexican plateau. However, evidence of fire, and the systematic, devastating ways in which the buildings lining the Avenue of the Dead were destroyed point to the main cause of its collapse being internal rebellions. [—Preceding text adapted from a display at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia (Mexico pics).]

Here is a ten minute video from my second trip to Teotihuacan in July 2002, along with Mexico City footage from the Zocalo, Plaza Garibaldi, and the excellent Museo Nacional de Antropologia, which contains many artifacts from Teotihuacan. 

Halloween in the Castro

Here is some anthropologically curious footage I shot in the Castro district of San Francisco on Halloween night, years before the famous event was forced to downsize due to a violent incident in 2006.