Chomsky & Co. on Nandigram
From The Hindu:
To Our Friends in Bengal
News travels to us that events in West Bengal have overtaken the optimism that some of us have experienced during trips to the state. We are concerned about the rancour that has divided the public space, created what appear to be unbridgeable gaps between people who share similar values. It is this that distresses us. We hear from people on both sides of this chasm, and we are trying to make some sense of the events and the dynamics. Obviously, our distance prevents us from saying anything definitive.
We continue to trust that the people of Bengal will not allow their differences on some issues to tear apart the important experiments undertaken in the State (land reforms, local self-government).
We send our fullest solidarity to the peasants who have been forcibly dispossessed. We understand that the government has promised not to build a chemical hub in the area around Nandigram. We understand that those who had been dispossessed by the violence are now being allowed back to their homes, without recrimination. We understand that there is now talk of reconciliation. This is what we favour.
The balance of forces in the world is such that it would be impetuous to split the Left. We are faced with a world power that has demolished one state (Iraq) and is now threatening another (Iran). This is not the time for division when the basis of division no longer appears to exist.
Signatories
Noam Chomsky, author, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; Tariq Ali, author, Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope and editor, New Left Review; Howard Zinn, author, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress; Susan George, author, Another World is Possible if, and Fellow, Transnational Institute; Victoria Brittain, co-author, Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back, former editor, Guardian; Walden Bello, author, Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire, and Chair, Akbayan, the fastest growing party in the Philippines; Mahmood Mamdani, author, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and the Roots of Terror; Akeel Bilgrami, author, Politics and the Moral Psychology of Identity; Richard Falk, author, The Costs of War: International Law, the UN and World Order After Iraq; Jean Bricmont, author, Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War; Michael Albert, author, Parecon: Life After Capitalism, and editor, ZNET; Stephen Shalom, author, Imperial Alibis: Rationalizing US Intervention After the Cold War; Charles Derber, author, People Before Profit: The New Globalization in an Age of Terror, Big Money and Economic Crisis; Vijay Prashad, author, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.
Here are links first to a report and then to an intelligent debate on the left, including pointed criticism of the role of the state and the ruling party cadre.
Update: Response to the above letter by Mahashweta Devi and others.
Oh great! Nandigram at last, but only following the lead of some white people! No condemnation?
How about Taslima Nasreen?
Comment by Anjaan Singh — November 25, 2007 @ 8:12 am
Anjaan:
You are wrong.
Tariq Ali, Walden Bello, Vijay Prashad and Victoria Brittain are not “white people”. They are Pakistani, Filipino, and Indian. You might wonder about someone named Victoria Brittain: she is from Bengal.
Waris.
Comment by waris — November 26, 2007 @ 10:25 am
I think Anjaan Singh might have been a little more nuanced in his/her comment, but there’s little doubt that Waris is responding in the most limited and literal sense possible. I don’t know about all the signatories, but Victoria Brittain looks pretty white to me (even if she is really from Bengal). In any case, whether someone’s skin color is black, brown, or white is irrelevant in this debate. Tariq Ali, if I’m not mistaken, is British-Pakistani, and Vijay Prashad is from an elite Indian background and, if I’m not mistaken, a permanent resident of the United States. They have a stake in the white-dominated US and UK. I’m not sure whether that’s what Anjaan was trying to get at. Although they are distinguished scholars and writers, it is not altogether surprisinig that these signatories’ concerns seem largely removed from the reality of the peasants in Nandigram — and, in that sense, utterly academic. The signatories are effectively saying the peasants of Nandigram must share in the world’s burden of resisting those who were put in office (or at least allowed to take office) by American voters. That is offensively self-absorbed. American and British citizens/ permanent residents can fight their own battles at home, make their democracies work, and remove the “rancor” from their “public space”. They should leave the peasants of Bengal alone if they can’t actually support their right to live securely on their land, and practice their way of life. Especially if they call themselves leftist.
Comment by moi — April 25, 2008 @ 9:03 am