Sunday 6 October 2019

Gloria Steinem scotomizing Akeel Bilgrami

An erudite friend of mine once spoke of Akeel Bilgrami as a Sufi grievously scotomized by Analytical Philosophy. I had no idea what he meant but have recently come to my own conclusions about what must have happened.

This is because I read an article by Gloria Steinem and Bilgrami deploring the Gates Foundation's decision to give Narendra Modi a prize. One may ask- what prompted this award? Was there any ulterior motive? A cynic might reply that Gates was unhappy that Indians associate him with Rahul Gandhi- with whom he went to stay in a village some years ago. NDTV would repeatedly play a segment of Gates saying 'In the villages, no one knows my name. But they all know Rahul's name.' Gates meant that his association with the Gandhi dynasty would enable his Foundation to do more good in India. Since then, a lot has changed in India. Rahul is seen as an entitled cretin. Modi is seen as 'Vikas Purush'- the guy who does last mile delivery of equitable development. Thus Gates- who founded  a company which employs plenty of Indians and which sells to plenty more Indians- is, very shrewdly, jumping on the Modi bandwagon. It is also likely that his Foundation will work directly with the Indian Government- rather than fraudsters like Arif Naqvi- so as to meet its goals.

Steinem and Bilgrami are blissfully unaware of this background. They hate Modi and thus think the Gates Foundation has done something despicable. But do either of the pair have any good reason to revile the Indian Prime Minister? Or are they deliberately shutting their eyes to facts which are common knowledge?

 Let us see-
It is one thing for a political leader to come to power in his country by exploiting the darkest nationalistic instincts of its electorate.
So, Steinem and Bilgrami think people have 'dark nationalistic instincts'. It so happens they are speaking of Indian people who are certainly darker than Europeans. Steinem is a White woman who was born and brought up in a deeply racist country. As for Bilgrami, an Ashraf Muslim, there is a long tradition, in Islam, of despising Indians not just because they were kaffirs but also because they were 'black as crows'. Even within Ashraf Indian Islam, this attitude persisted. Several of Bilgrami's own more distinguished ancestors have displayed this prejudice. However, this biographical detail does not entirely explain his alliance with Steinem in this matter. I refer again to my erudite friend's comment on 'scotomization'. Can 'Analtickle Philosophy' clarify this matter?

 Speaking generally, Democracies under the Rule of Law are able to check authoritarian or otherwise illegal malpractices on the part of the Executive. These are justiciable matters and jurisdiction is local. That is why Democracies don't interfere in the internal affairs of each other. However, if some Democracies are superior to others- for e.g. if darkies have 'darker nationalistic instincts' than White people- then it would make sense for people from a predominantly White Democracy to seek to intervene in the internal matters of another Democracy peopled by those of darker skin.

It is certainly true that Indians have rejected the rule of a corrupt Italian lady so as to elect a much swarthier Gujerati gentleman. Steinem and Bilgrami are resigned to this outcome. What can one do? Them darkies are like that only. Still, it is one thing for darkies to behave in a bestial manner in their own dark sub-continent. It is quite another for White folk to make a fuss over those darkies when they visit Enlightened lands where darkies are obliged to keep a check on their 'darker instincts' and to, at the very least, dissemble compliance with the Moral Code of their Racial Superiors.
It is quite another thing for such a man to be awarded an international prize and embraced as a statesman by the most powerful and influential country in the world.
Why? Is it coz Modi is darker skinned than Trump or Gates? Would it have been acceptable for Obama to embrace him- as in fact he did?

Notice that Steinem & Bilgrami lay a lot of stress on 'power & influence'. Apparently, if you don't have either of these things, you are welcome to give prizes to psycopaths because you are a nobody. What you do does not matter. On the other hand, it is wrong for the most powerful and influential country- no matter what crimes it committed to gain that title- to embrace a statesman from a poorer country.

The sentiment these two elderly shitheads are expressing is nothing new. Churchill was aghast that a 'half naked fakir' should be invited to meet the King Emperor. An elderly white woman like Steinem no doubt feels terribly outraged to see a colored man hugging the President of the United States. An Ashraf Muslim like Bilgrami may be equally indignant that India's Prime Minister is a kaffir from a modest socio-economic background. This being the case, Steinem and Bilgrami are welcome to express their racist views because, after all, they are doing it in a veiled way- and that is all that the law requires. However, what is egregious about their manner of expressing their disgusting prejudices is the veneer of intellectuality- the use of words like paradox- and the pretense of some factual basis for their calumnies.
The former reflects a familiar and vexing paradox of democracy – its deliberate subversion from within.
Steinem and Bilgrami may be 'vexed' and may consider it a great paradox that Voters ignore their own utterly cretinous contributions to public discourse. But why do they think 'deliberate subversion from within' can't be resisted? Surely, Democracy under the Rule of Law has legal instruments to deal with subversion and sedition and deliberate attempts to overturn Democratic processes? Why can't Steinem or Bilgrami point to justiciable issues such that 'subversion' is checked? What is the reason for their defeatism? Do they really not believe Democracy can thrive with proper Mechanism Design? Is it genuinely inevitable that Democracy- at least when practiced by darker folk with yet 'darker nationalistic instincts'- will get scuttled by 'Paradoxes'?
The latter is entirely gratuitous and speaks to the collapse of any sense of international political morality.
Suppose Steinem and Bilgrami slip on a banana peel, while sauntering hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, by the light of the silvery moon, and injure their respective stink-bones. Will they say that this mishap was an entirely gratuitous, wholly deliberate, subversion of the Law of Gravity which speaks to the collapse of any sense of Cosmic morality?

Steinem & Bilgrami may not like Modi. They may feel greatly aggrieved that he has met with such a rousing reception in the USA while they themselves are regarded as cretins by their own students. However, they need to show that there is some objective basis for this prejudice of theirs. Sadly, they are too stupid and ignorant to do so.
The Gates Foundation has announced it is bestowing a prestigious annual award on prime minister Narendra Modi of India.
The prize is for "working to tackle the issues contributing to global inequity," by helping poor people get toilets rather than have to defecate in the open. It is a fact that Modi has done precisely that. Steinem and Bilgrami may like talking shite in public, but they are not currently defecating in the open. They have toilets and, what's more, have received expert instruction in how to use them. I do not say, they are always successful in using them correctly. Still, no expense has been spared in educating them in this matter. Why are they so incensed against Modi for his bid to secure an equal access to toilets for very poor people? Is it because those poor people are dark and have 'darker nationalistic instincts'? Do Steinem and Bilgrami believe that if dark people get to have toilets then their nationalistic instincts will take a yet darker turn?
And in advance of the UN general assembly meeting in New York, Donald Trump flew down to Houston, Texas, to welcome him at an event charmingly dubbed the “Howdy Modi” rally.
Why? Indian Americans are wealthy and their votes matter. Trump was on the stump. He also made nice with Imran Khan because a lot of Pakistani Americans are wealthy and they too have votes. What is wrong in that?
 The Gates Foundation’s award to Modi for starting a sanitation scheme in India seems rather like giving a prize to Mussolini for making the trains run on time.
How? Helping a poor person build an outhouse so her family does not have to shit in the open is an example of the redistribution of wealth and the expansion of needs based entitlements. Trains are supposed to run on time. If they don't the Director of the Railway should be sacked. If Mussolini had given free train tickets to poor people, then he would have deserved a prize. Indeed, if Mussolini had concentrated on improving the life-chances of Italians- rather than fucking up those of Albanians and Ethiopians and Greeks at a huge cost to the Italian Exchequer- he would have deserved a Nobel Peace Prize precisely because he would have turned away from external aggression.
Yet it was less than 15 years ago that Modi was denied a visa to the US, the only person in the world ever to have been banned under the International Religious Freedom Act.
But, this was done as a quid pro quo to the then Indian Administration! The reason this Act has never been used against anyone else is because no other country pretended a leading Opposition politician had committed so heinous a crime and that their own Courts were powerless to do anything about it! Sonia's corrupt regime pushed the Americans and the Europeans to take this action even though it undermined Indian Sovereignty. Sonia herself, having enriched her entire family in a brazen manner, called Modi a 'Merchant of Death' and her minions and sycophants cooked up some bogus evidence. But the Supreme Court found that the Government's witnesses were lying. Thus they had to give Modi a clean chit. Steinem herself once worked with an Indian Chief Justice back in the Fifties. She should know that the Indian Bench would have convicted Modi if he had been guilty of what was alleged. Perhaps, Steinem is now senile. But what about Bilgrami?

Once Sonia's Government collapsed under the weight of its own corruption and incompetence, the Americans changed their tune. No doubt, if Modi pressures them, they will start indicting Congress leaders for financial crimes. But, Modi is not going to take that route. Why? It undermines Indian sovereignty and reduces the standing of the Indian Supreme Court. Crimes committed in India by Indians are exclusively the concern of the Indian Bench. Modi was thoroughly investigated under the previous Administration which cooked up a lot of fake evidence, but the Supreme Court was obliged to acquit him. However, a colleague of his- a lady Doctor who was wholly occupied treating riot victims in a hospital, was falsely convicted of running around distributing swords and baying for blood. Once the Government changed, that evidence was proved to be wholly fabricated. Witnesses who saw the lady Doctor looking after patients, not chopping off heads as was alleged, came forward and their testimony was accepted.

Steinem and Bilgrami are obstinately repeating 'fake news'. They have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. It is no wonder they have lost all moral authority or even the semblance of scholarly repute. As for the International Religious Freedom Act, it has only been used successfully once- against Vietnam. But that was over a decade ago. It is now quite useless.
That’s because in 2002, when he was chief minister of Gujarat, Modi helped create the conditions for a three-day anti-Muslim riot that resulted in rape, murder and the burning of homes. It has been widely described as state terrorism and ethnic cleansing.
It has been falsely described as such. Modi, with the help of Defense Minister George Fernandes- a Christian Leftist- put an end to the riots by getting the Army to fire upon irate Hindus. There was no ethnic cleansing. The Muslim population of Gujarat went up under Modi because Muslims from other parts of India were attracted there. Indeed, some ex-pat Muslim entrepreneurs relocated to Gujarat to take advantage of the booming economy.

Steinem and Bilgrami were listening to, and are now spreading, fake news. Why do they not admit that- as some Pakistani scholars claim- under George W Bush over a billion Muslims were massacred in America? Is it because they live in the US and can't deny that nothing of the sort happened? Steinem may have no reason to visit India. Bilgrami is of Indian origin. Surely he must know that there has been no mass exodus of Muslims from Gujerat?

Now, as prime minister of India, Modi presides over a culture where acts of hate against Muslims occur daily across the nation, and also against Dalits, the lowest group in the Hindu caste system.
This is crazy. It's like saying 'Hitler encouraged atrocities against Jews and Prussian Junkers'. No doubt, some Junkers were killed, but Hitler wanted them on side.
 It is plausible to say that, since Modi comes from an organization which spoke of the need to combat Muslim aggression, he has an anti-Muslim bias. It is not plausible to say he is against Dalits because his organization wants to recruit Dalits and Adivasis- seeing both as the most active and reliable bulwark against Muslim aggression.
There is a massive record of their humiliation, including repeated sexualised violence against women and young girls from those groups, and frequent lynchings of men, echoing a dark period in the history of the US.
When was this not the case? What is different under Modi is that the Supreme Court's roll back of the draconian Anti Dalit Atrocity Act has been speedily reversed by the Legislature.  Muslims, by contrast, do feel insecure. But, this is true all over the world and has to do with fears and anxieties provoked by outfits like Al Qaeda and ISIS. No doubt, some blame attaches to the complacency and corruption, but also downright criminality, of 'mainstream' Muslim politicians and 'intellectuals' in India. Bilgrami, however, is not a criminal. But he is doing his community no favors by attaching his name to this racist screed which laments the 'darker nationalistic instincts' of a dark people- most of whom are 'kaffirs' to boot.
Not only are these barbarities rarely prosecuted, but those who attempt to intervene to stop them are often punished.
This is not true. It is a different matter that convictions are not secured and that policemen are often in sympathy with lynch mobs. However, the solution is better policing and more thorough preparation of the prosecution's case.
India has historically had a robust free press, but now Modi’s government harasses and closes down media that are critical of his regime.
This is wholly false. The authors are referring to justiciable matters. The difficulty faced by the anti-Modi gang is that they can repeat allegations in plenty but have no evidence which will stand up in Court of any wrongdoing. Thus they pretend that the Indian judiciary does not exist and thus some International forum should condemn Modi solely on the basis of their own hearsay evidence.

On the other hand, as Bilgrami Sahib can personally testify, Modi has sent out teams of deadly assassins to target Liberal Intellectuals like himself by emailing him links to their atrociously illiterate blogposts. I can assure you that anyone who completes reading one of my own posts will immediately suffer a catastrophic brain haemmorhage. That is why I never read over what I myself write- but this in keeping with Indian best practice, as Bilgrami's own oeuvre amply demonstrates.
The same goes for unions, human rights law firms and academics.
Unions? The BJP, like other parties, has a big Union presence. Nobody goes against organized labor, though of course everybody ignores it in practice. Human Rights law firms are struggling, it is true, but that's coz they are crap and Indians won't pay for them to keep going. Thus they have to rely on foreign charity by claiming to be combating Fascism, or Nazism, or the Spanish Inquisition.
Academics are a joke. Their job is to raise the blood pressure of middle aged fat fucks like myself and enrage us sufficiently to go vote for Modi or Trump or BoJo.
His perverse demonetisation scheme has deprived the poor and middle class of savings, and in addition to selling off natural resources to global businesses, he is all set to privatise the railways and public transport on which average citizens depend.
Sheer nonsense! If the poor and middle class had been deprived of their savings they would have voted against Modi. Natural resources were sold off by previous governments. Nobody in their right mind would buy the Indian railways. Private operators on some 20 or 30 routes may be welcomed but this is no panacea. Modi is actually much more bearish on this sort of thing than Manmohan was.
Most recently, Modi has defied the constitution of India by revoking the autonomy it afforded Jammu and Kashmir.
Nonsense! The Supreme Court does not think he has done anything unprecedented or improper. That is why they didn't give the matter urgent attention. It is likely however that they will have some pertinent observations to make so as to dispel certain anxieties which have been aroused.
Why? Because the incessant violence of its military occupation of that region, 70% of whose citizens are Muslim, is quite naturally being resisted by them.
The incessant violence of Muslims- including Pakistani infiltrators- is being resisted by the Indian army. The Hindus in Jammu are sick and tired of Muslim gangsters from the Valley running the show. Ladakh too is happy to go its own way. The Muslims of the Valley may continue to feel aggrieved- the place has turned into a 'spite slum' kept alive on Central subventions and foreign remittances- but their ability to ethnically cleanse the area has been sharply curtailed. Indian Muslims rejoice at this outcome.
He has imposed severe restrictions on internet communication there, thus creating a virtual prison governed by well-armed members of the Indian army.
What is the consequence of these actions? The answer is that Imran Khan does not get to see the 'blood-bath' he so eagerly anticipates. The Muslims of the Valley are welcome to emigrate. Even a 'virtual prison' does not keep the gates flung wide open.
So, has the US government officially criticised this unblushing brutalisation of the people of India?
Has the US condemned Gloria Steinem's, widely reported and wholly unconscionable, repeated anal rape of Akeel Bilgrami? The poor man has, all too evidently, had his brains buggered to buggery by her incessant assaults. It is widely reported, by me, that Bilgrami is now signing his name to deeply racist screeds which fulmine against the 'darker nationalistic instincts' of darker people.

Why is the US government not officially criticizing Gloria Steinem's unblushing brutalisation of a person from India? The answer is that the US gun lobby wants to sell Steinem all sorts of armaments so she can fulfill her vile ambition to anally violate billions of darker people who, she tells us, have 'darker nationalistic instincts'. I need hardly point out that this has been a recurring feature of US history. Martha Washington used to anally rape Native Americans. Susan B Anthony fucked several million Mexicans to death. Hilary Clinton- but let us give Hilary a pass coz, truth be told, I quite enjoyed what she did to me.
On the contrary, under Trump it has pitched the sale of arms to India in order to compete with Russia. And Modi has been paraded as a feted guest in Houston and New York.
America pitched the sale of arms to India under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Clinton,  two different types of Bush, Obama and now Trump. It has always competed with Russia in this market. Modi has been paraded and feted more than Manmohan because Modi is more popular and charismatic.
In the light of this record of wrongdoing, the Gates Foundation’s award to Modi for starting a sanitation scheme in India seems rather like giving a prize to Mussolini for making the trains run on time.
The scheme, in any case, does little to provide sanitation for the most impoverished segments of the population who need it most, and it does nothing to undermine, let alone address, the fact that the most degrading forms of sanitation labour have for centuries been assigned to the lowest rungs in the caste hierarchy.
No. The scheme does a lot for the most impoverished. Manual scavenging is against the law but it is a matter for the State Governments, not the Center, as per the Constitution of India. Still, Modi's washing the feet of sanitation workers at the Kumbh Mela is no substitute for the enforcement of the law.

But such details aside, it is bizarre that a prize intended for those who uplift the poorest has gone to the seediest tormentor of the poorest and most marginalised people of India.
It is even more bizarre that Gloria Steinem is receiving the Buffet-Gates prize for not anally raping Bilgrami when she has been doing nothing else- using a rolled up paperback copy of one of her door-stoppers- for trillions of years in brazen defiance of fourteen quadrillion UN general resolutions!

When will this madness end? Won't someone think of the children?!
We write this opinion piece as citizens of these two biggest and most diverse democracies in the world, the US and India, who have spent years living and working in each other’s countries.
Why does not Gloria not mention that she is making her living by shoving her works up the rectum of a man from another country? I have not personally witnessed any of Gloria's lectures but it is widely reported, by me, that she stands at the lectern vigorously cramming her various publications up poor old Bilgrami's back side. No doubt this is the reason the man now looks quite fair skinned and is thus less subject to 'darker nationalistic instincts'. Still, it is a terrible price to pay.
Governance, in the honourable traditions of liberty and democracy of both our nations, was never intended to begin with: “I, the president” or “I, the prime minister”, as is now increasingly the case. It begins, rather, with: “We, the people”.
Yes, yes. America's constitution enforced slavery and ethnic cleansing under the rubric of working the will of 'We, the People'. Prior to 1965, darker people like Bilgrami were kept out of America by racist immigration quotas. Since then America has greatly changed but only because people like Steinem have been buggering Bilgramis so as to check their 'darker nationalistic instincts'.
So, we ourselves can declare our support for the International Religious Freedom Act and explicitly recoil from both Prime Minister Modi and President Trump’s anti-Muslim bias.
Why not recoil from Imran Khan? What about Chairman Xi? Are they light complexioned enough not to be subject to 'darker nationalistic instincts'?

More to the point, why does Bilgrami, instead of babbling about 'enchantment', not recoil from Steinem's incessant, widely reported (by me) assaults upon his anus? Does he not understand that Steinemism is an auto-cephalic Religion? He can gain protection under the act she mentions unless it is completely useless, in which case why mention it at all?
And we can oppose their shared glorification of an unequal past by vowing to make India and the US live up to their democratic promise.
Yes, yes. Take vows by all means. However what is important is that Steinem desist from, as is widely reported, sodomizing Akeel Bilgrami just coz he's a darkie and thus has 'darker nationalistic instincts'. Give the old boy a break. Turn your attentions to Amartya Sen and then get into a cat fight with Martha Nussbaum which can be broadcast on Pay for View. You know you want to. Just do it already.


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