India’s 26/11 – religion no bar
A year ago, after the three-day siege of Mumbai ended and people took to the streets with candles and banners, a group of young Muslim men, carrying a hand-written poster, walked quietly with the surging crowds.
Seeing them, people began to clap spontaneously, applauding their assertion that Islam was a religion of peace, and not terrorism.
Since then, people in Mumbai, which has witnessed some of the worst communal riots in the country in the past, have come together in their grief, crossing barriers erected by politicians in the name of religion.
Some have accused the media of not highlighting enough, the fact that the militants asked their hostages what religion and then killed non-Muslims.
Others have speculated that the few thousands of Jews left in India would leave the country because six Jews were killed in the attack on Chabad House.
But in Mumbai today, just days after the explosive report on the Babri Masjid demolition was made public, there is a sense of community and togetherness. A big difference from 1992, when riots between Hindus and Muslims that followed the demolition killed hundreds.
And so today, multi-faith prayer services are being held everywhere in the city and there are countless stories of inter-faith friendships that blossomed in the days after the attacks.
Kevin Rudd: Re-reassuring Indians?
The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, currently in India, is expected to address concerns in India over attacks on Indian students.The issue blew up in May this year after a spate of attacks on Indian students amid allegations of racism.The Australian leaders have been defending the safeguards and measures taken since then, but every time there is a fresh attack the media goes to town with the issue.With over 80,000 students enrolling in Australian every year the attacks, whatever their nature, have hardly dampened the outflow of students.Rudd won’t be the first to offer a reassurance and given the regularity with which incidents are reported it doesn’t look like he would be the last.Indian students continue to be interested in Australian education.Is this because they can sense that the issue is has been blown out of proportion?Or are they voting with their feet on the state of Indian education system?Are we still sold out over the lure of a ‘foreign degree’ and willing to run the risks for it?
An Indian national man has been charged with sexually molesting two girls 11 and 12 in my home town in Australia
So is this going to get headlines in India. I think not
What were you doing on 9/11?
September 11, 2001 — I was at university attending a freshers’ welcome bash in New Delhi.
That was a time before cell phones had become affordable and news travelled slowly.
There were murmurs of an attack, something about the U.S. and a trade center but I didn’t pay much attention.
“Is Osama coming?” someone sniggered, about a senior who shares his name with the infamous al Qaeda chief.
“Osama is sleeping in the hostel. Why are you bothering him?”
Back at the hostel, my roommate asked me if I had heard the news.
“Go look, it’s on TV. They ploughed planes into a building.”
While 9/11 was horrific, I think too much is being made out of it even now after 8 years. Its time for Americans to get over it and not let their everyday life still be ruled by just one event.
Attacks on Indians in Australia: racist or recessionist?
A spate of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney has seen the Indian media accuse Australia of being a racist nation.
Newspaper articles warning of a culture of “curry bashings” in Australia have sparked off debate and people around the world have spoken out against the attacks in online forums.
Some insist the majority of attacks may have been purely criminal.
As an Indian studying in the U.S. for the past three years, I am yet to come across any instance of Indians being targeted on the basis of their race.
I have never heard my American friends say anything against Indians or students of any other nationality.
Does that mean Indians are safer in New York than in Melbourne?
The attacks on Indians did take place in Australia, but then they could have happened anywhere.
1. Australia is one from the less racist countries in the world, from the most opened and tolerant countries in the world.
2. The terrorist attacks in New York increased the xenophobia and they racist attacks not only against Muslims but against Jews, Sighs and other foreigners.
3. The rapid change of the synthesis of Australian population, only 35% of Australians said that they come from English ancestors ( 2006 census) and less than 18% of Australians are Anglicans created worries to extreme nationalists.
4. The international financial crisis increased the unemployment and local labors saw that they lost their job not only of cause the financial crisis but because migrants work harder for less money and worst conditions and they took the jobs.
5. last years the number of foreign students increased rapidly , hundred of thousands of foreign students, while the government has allowed them to work many hours per semester. Foreign students work with very low wages in very bad conditions and of cause the financial crisis they have created huge problems to local unskilled, low income labors. It is the unskilled, non educated people who become racists and attack the students or migrants.
6. For these reasons and much more has created a dangerous combination of conditions which expressed not only with racist attacks but with many other ways, including the increase of criminal attacks.
7. There are many studies mainly from Western Sydney University and from Australian National University about the race discrimination in Australia and especially in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. We know from these studies that the race discrimination exist and for some ethnic groups as Lebanese in Sydney or Muslims or Asians is very high, higher than the race discrimination against blacks in USA .
8. Unfortunately, Australian governments, Federal or states, Liberal or ALP instead to try to support the victims of race discrimination, instead to try to minimize the race discrimination they try to limit migrant’s role in Australia. The attacks against multiculturalism from federal governments, Liberal and ALP, the citizenship test are sound proves.
9. There is a study from the Western Sydney University about the attacks against Muslims, you can find it in a report of the Australian Human Rights Commission, from this study we learned that more than 90% of attacks against Muslims comes from Anglos, although they are less than 35% of the population, according to 2006 census.
10. Without doubt most racist attacks comes from extrem nationalists, white supremacists etc.
11. Unfortunately many migrants or foreign students do not trust the police and they do not report the attacks at all or on time, this is not helpful at all, we can not expect from the police to stop the attacks when we do not inform them for the attacks.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide
from Global News Journal:
Breaking the news in Mumbai – literally
The concept of a televised war was born in January 1991, when news networks reported live on the missiles slamming into Baghdad and millions watched from the comfort of their living rooms as tracer fire lit the sky above Iraq's capital. A decade later, the world watched in minute-by-minute horror as the twin towers came crashing down in New York.
Now, with the ferocious militant attacks in Mumbai, we have arrived in "the age of celebrity terrorism". Paul Cornish of Chatham House argues that apart from killing scores of people, what the Mumbai gunmen wanted was "an exaggerated and preferably extreme reaction on the part of governments, the media and public opinion".
It's too early to tell if governments will respond with extreme reaction, but the saturation coverage of the drama in the world's media would suggest that, at least on this level, the killers were successful.
"Almost within minutes, television screens showed harrowing scenes of pools of blood where people had died or been injured, hotels ablaze, Indian army snipers firing at distant targets, and CCTV images of the attackers," Cornish writes.
On the contrary I think because of the non-stop coverage of the incident by media..india got the over whelming support from countries accros the globe.
Heaven rains down tears on Mumbai
The Heavens rained down tears of sorrow on Mumbai on Saturday morning as the death toll from the attacks on the proud city climbed steadily.
The unseasonal rain marked the third day of the siege of the city’s landmark Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.
I have spent the past three days covering the story day-and-night and sitting here in the rain on Saturday morning watching the flames pour from the 105-year old Heritage Building and listening to gunshots, I have to wonder why this has gone on for so long.
I’m sitting well back from the lobby area by the famous Gateway of India and even here occasional bullets are hitting TV trucks and whistling overhead.
When I arrived here on foot at around 1030 on Wednesday evening I certainly did not imagine I would still be here nearly 60 hours later.
During the long vigil the gunfire and grenade explosions have been intermittent with fierce gun-battles for a few minutes then long periods of silence.
As far as I have been able to tell the battles have been widely spread around the Heritage section of the hotel and the outbreak of fire have been similarly widespread.
the original blog is a poignant writeup and brings the situation at ground ZERO LIVE BEFORE OUR EYES
The nightmare on television screens is real
Just returned from the Oberoi where hundreds are still inside – Indians, foreigners, cooks and cleaners. London in 2005, Mumbai trains 2006.
Each time I follow the same movements – learn what, locate where, retrieve family, check team, do phoners, make frantic calls with London desks.
And then reflect… strangely I was in both hotels just hours before Wednesday’s attacks.
Heavy security at the Taj in place since Islamabad Marriot bombing had just been lifted. As I entered to pick up a cake at 6 p.m., I pushed my way around a metal detector. I was in a hurry, the security guard gave me a knowing glance.
At 6:30 p.m. I was at the Oberoi – I walked in for a haircut (I have a thing for the hotel’s traditional barber shop). In the lobby two heavily decorated Maharashtra police officers chatting. One carrying a wooden baton with shiny metal tips. How odd it looked – what would it be used for I wondered… a marching band?
As I waited for an elevator down to the shop, I listened in on three French women chatting about shopping – the barber shop was its usual calm – one of the quietest places in the city – and just 15 minutes in and out.
As I made my way home through Mumbai’s insane traffic I could feel my blood pressure rising… it happens every day.
speaking from a civilian perspective, i must say i’m so disappointed in Muslims. They allow this sort of terrorism to spread throughout their commumities and do nothing but try to defend their religion after these deadly deeds are done. They condem them sure, but what do they do after the fact. Nothing! It’s the responsibility of the Muslims to control and stop this fanaticism amongst their people. To sit back and continue with their lives and cry over their youth giving their lives for some crazy group, is just a bad as picking up a gun and participating in the henious acts. There’s no way i will ever respect this Muslim religion.
Great work.The examples mentioned show that the common man has little to do with the nuances created by politicians in order to save their seats and fundamentalists that wish to bring the world to an end.India stands united by the side of all those who have lost loved ones.Vande Mataram.