Biases of the American Press

jay,

i don`t see how you can continue after reading anNy`s post.

:O)

Cyra Reply # 136

``anNY...enough of the emotional melodrama already!``

cyra..doll..must we be nasty?

Eklavya # 132

``The ability to interact with such a diverse, knowledgeable, and intelligent group of people is nothing short of pure miracle.``

I agree wholeheartedly with your post and especially the above Sir. Its incredible being part of a community such as this. If u can, please mail me at annythedud@yahoo.com. (this is what chowk does..i`m asking an INDIAN to mail me!!nothing short of a miracle I assure you)

I still find it hard to believe you`re an Indian though :0)

Jay # 137

When I started interacting at chowk some time back, I would view bilal ahmed sahabs posts with much suspicion and incredulity. Like, could he be for real? Itnee tameez aur saleeqa was hard to digest. It was only when we had a teacher to take our literature class last semester that I understood his kind of people. Iftikhar Shafi a teacher of the English department at the University of Karachi in his mid 20`s (I think) taught us literature for 6 months. The man was so incredibly humble, nice (for desperate want of better words) we couldn`t stop staring- it was like an Indian movie (no offence here) where every single individual in the class was touched by his goodness, even the idiotic political activists we have in our class. He is some where in the U.S now, conducting research on sufism and may he be happy wherever he is. People like you and me consider people like him and bilal sahab freaks. We fight and diss each other thinking of only our goal, nation, religion and ideology. Would it ever cross your mind that a post by you which is derogatory towards Pakistan will make many momentarily miserable and for the more jazbatee like me, more or less dampen the day? I`m not being sappy and emotional here at all; just trying to make you understand like I did, not very long ago that it is people like Bilal sahab and Sir Shafi who lend some sanity to this otherwise budtameez world. And to say mean things like `senseless expressions of indignations` and `damp squids` is not a very nice thing to do. You say people like them have sold their souls. Atleast its not soiled with hate like yours and mine, haanjee?

scout,

I go away from Chowk for a few days & whats this I see? youre going to leave chowk?!! Are you crazy?!! Who the heck is going to check Saxena now? Do you know how many times you have gouged out his family jewels with one slash of your keyboard? Never mind that rakshash grows new ones like sharks do when they lose their teeth.

I`m sorry I teased you about him. I was just giving you guys a taste of your own medicine when you were teasing ylh.

Listen, if moderates start leaving Chowk, then this place will be occupied only by bigots. A few of my posts to harimau are being censored by Chowk staff. I may disagree with the logic behind their censorship, but I have to respect their privilege & perogative to do so, as they own this site. Despite that, its a great place for all to read, write & think.

Please reconsider. Chowk will be unbearable without my cute little jalapeno kid sister.

anNY 131

ABUSE AND VIOLENCE,

There are a few on the chowk, who believe in `civilised` exchange on the chowk, these are the ones from the west who have sold their soul. In all of the indian languages there is a rich vocabulary of abuses, they provide the relief for the tensions, with out leading to physical violence. The so called black turned whites with the help of industrial grade bleach, verbal abuse like like it is to their cultural heros, is terrible, but they have no problems in killing a few with remote controlled bombs in bagdad, no hurt sense of civility when a man is sent to prison for 25 years for stealing a pizza, provided he has been called `sir`, and then locked up. In india, he would have been abused, given a kick and sent home. That is barbaric. It is types of bilal ahmed who are trying to establish a western style of exchange on an essentially indo-pak forum with their senseless expressions of indignations. If they had cared to reflect back into their past, into their early surrounds they would have realised what they are talking about is the white mans shallow values. It is pathetic to see these individuals coming to the arena of heated exchanges with their damp sqibbs, they should stick with the poetry threads and try to get some flavours off the brown sugar preparations. What is on chowk is the indo pak style, the mud slinging and posturing, never real violence. Men killed in the so called three indo pak wars is less than what the great white men of US knock off at homes in a year, the culture and style of exchange, the allegedly civilised on the forum are trying to foster on chowk.

I lost track of the original topic, may be later.

regards

jay

anNY...enough of the emotional melodrama already!

re india and iran

SO there is something to be said for the term ``indo-aryan`` eh?

Next thing you know, Pakistan`s mullah class will claim that the Shiites were Hindus all along!

In all fairness, the Taleban must be given credit for bringing everybody worth the name on one side (Pakistan and the Saudis being the exceptions). Who could`ve thought that Iran, USA, Russia, France, and India will all be allies for a little bit?

re ferozk

Buddy, I thought the Mormons had cut you off from the internet or your good wife had put some sense in you!

Anyway, I agree with just about everything you said in the last post with this exception:

``Sig, the current tete a tete is nothing more than Freudian attempt to determine who is the ``big boy`` in Asia. ``

On this one I think a little more than Freud and Jung are involved. I trust this is an effort to balance the military discomfort with acute economic needs. Heck, I am the last one who wants a conflict with China. America`s economy will take a serious hit if that happens.

re scout

Your opinions and mine are more often divergent than not. But please don`t leave. Philosophy and politics like we discuss here are but mere efforts to shed some light in the massive darkness and all of us play our part in our God given capacities. One less effort is one less flicker of light. So, in the words of Firaq,

``Tum judaa hoge to ho jaaegi yeh raat pahaar,

Raat ke raat thahr jao ke kuchch raat kate``

We are all travellers in darkness at some point. Keep us company.

anNY,

What a passionate and sincere post :)

One of the reasons I have so admired scout is that she is one outspoken, clear-headed, take-no-nonsense Muslim and Pakistani. Her passion, like yours, is mostly of the best kind. When people bring such passion to the table, there is bound to be both light and heat on any subject. That is part of the attraction! :)

Despite your generous words, I must confess I face the same difficulties that you do. Sometimes I lose patience, and can`t avoid the cheap momentary thrill that comes from indulging in one-up-man-ship, sarcasm, and scoring points (Sometime back, Professor Ahmad had a wonderful post requesting poeple to avoid such mistakes). For example, I just wrote a `sexist` post on another board!! (What can I say, I am ashamed, and expect to be hammered for it :)

anNY, please use Chowk both to learn and to have fun. The ability to interact with such a diverse, knowledgeable, and intelligent group of people is nothing short of pure miracle. Sometimes I think I must be the only non-expert here!

Think of it this way: what you see as conflict may well be the most productive and key aspect of our interaction. Afterall, if we were all agreeing with one another here, we would be wasting time regurgitating one another`s prejudices, right? We can all learn from every one, and our best teachers may be people we don`t often agree with.

Now, guess who made that point about conflict being useful most forcefully sometime back? :)

JAY!!

Jay # 125 in reply to Scout # 113

``Islam has survived so many centuries with out you, so will Pakistan, but one less Pakistani, is

one less to bash and we miss it.``

Eklavya # 124

Sir it is patronizing men like Mr. Jay up there that make me bang the keys on my keyboard so hard the entire table starts shaking...unlike you I cant get myself to ignore or skim posts by annoying men and women like him… it is then that I waste precious energy fuming; ranting and raving about obnoxious Indians who are in as much mud as we are but due to an incredible public relation campaign, propaganda (call it what you like) are now acting like they own the world…at this age wasting precious energy on a discussion board comes very naturally to me:) but you are right…bigotry has its charms and I fall victim to it very many times myself…it comes from the conditioning of many years to hate all things Indians….this is something I had written on the sad shia sunni divide in my part of the world (2 main muslim sects)just a few days ago and which applies.

``…I don’t grudge them this unfair bias because they like millions of others have been fed a staple diet that results in such strong negativity; they cannot under any circumstances be blamed for it. In my more honest moments I compare this unreasonable utterly stupid bias to mine against all things Indian. Since I have been a child a feeling of venomous hatred for all Indians plagues the inner recesses of my soul. Now that I am an adult and interact with some Indian nationals who are good people in the truest sense of the word I try to put it to a side but am not able to do so for even a few minutes. It is a handicap. Very few are able to rise above it but for every individual that falls victim to this hatred, there is a good man who will overpower and thwart it. And that goodness my father says, is what keeps the world moving...``

Say Mr. Eklavya, you make a lot of sense…u sure you`re an Indian? :)

wow!!

scout, you must be the only person on Chowk who has won the respect of people with ALL shades of opinion, Hindu-Muslim, Indian-Pakistani, young-and not-so-young, `hand-wringing Hindu apologists` and `Jihadi warriors!`

Hats off to you, lady! :)

friends, thanks for the kind words, email me if you`d like, jannat_bibi@yahoo.com

Scout!

I havent been following this thread and I didnt know what was going on here. Please do not lose heart. There are some good people on Chowk who really enjoy interacting with you and for me it is always a pleasure to see your posts. You are one of the very few voices of integrity, pragmatism, and passion; all combined in one. Chowk is sanner only because of few people like you. I request you to change your mind and be our friend again.

Chowk Staff:

Ki ho rahaya eh bhai? tusi kurri naraz kar ditti haygee.

scout, if you are reading this, here`s a NYT article you should look over. Would you agree this is as Pro-Pakistan an article as there can be give the circumstances?

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/09/world/09AFGH.html

IMO, biases mostly exist at the individual level. At the institutional level, the best Western newspapers all make at least some effort to be objective.

As far as I know, Barbara Crossette has never in her life written anything positive on India (except in her travel books - she also writes poor quality travel books). I have learnt to simply ignore her. Afterall, it takes all kinds to make this world of ours, right? :)

Scout,

you are significant on chowk, a muslim female on indo=pak bashing is an asset to both sides. If at all there is going to be a bridge across the trenches, it will be built by simple people like you, not the ones with sofistry and verbosity.

After the frontier post burning chowk has changed the censorship policy, it is looking more into the contents, its provocative nature than specific abusive words or personal insults.

There is no need to take chowk so seriously, nor yourself as so important, it is just innocous fun, a cyberspace paki bashing from the UK of the seventies. Islam has survived so many centuries with out you, so will pakistan, but one less pakistani, is one less to bash and we miss it.

regards and best wishes.

Jay.

Scout,

May I add my voice to that of anNy # 121.

Like darkness, bigotry has its charms, and most of us fall for it from time to time. Some of it is, as Farzana would say, Garam Khoon, some mere silliness, but the rest is the uncomfortable reality that must be confronted if we are to become a better people. Won`t you have it expressed upfront than hidden away under a heavy rug?

You have been a pleasure to read. Please stay.

anNY #121,

I have used the following simple trick to deal with the same problem [ofcourse, my problems mostly arise when reading folks on `your side` :)].

After I read a couple of posting from an individual, I get a broad picture of the intellectual calibre and make-up of a person. I ask: (1) Is this person raising real issues relevant to modern living, or is he (she) merely fighting ghosts residing in his/her mind? (2) Is he (she) proposing modern solutions to these issues, or merely repeating stuff that has failed to work for thousands of years? Having done that, I decide whom to read very carefully, whose words to merely skim through, and whose posts to not bother reading at all beyond a couple of lines. There are some people with whom I mostly have strong disagreements with but read because they are Indians, and for me, it is important to know what Indians think.

Ofcourse, people can move from category to category :) But this simple approach has brought me PARTLIAL success in not wasting my time and emotional energy on Chowk. Ofcourse, if you do not find ANY thing to agree with ANYone on the `enemy side,` then you might want to question your own stand on some of the issues!

Happy reading :)