Letters
Editors: In the Summer 2003 issue of Dissent, Martha Nussbaum ("Genocide in Gujarat: The International Community Looks Away") provides "Jai Sri Ram" as an example of a "Hindu-right slogan" and...
...To Letter Writers • We welcome succinct letters from our readers...
...These people are radical Islamists and Baathists...
...We are unable to acknowledge letters...
...in traditional terms, his sweetness and playfulness are surely more marked...
...Before we support a war, even a war against a man as evil as Saddam Hussein, we have every right to consider the other struggles we're engaged in and what the likely effects of a war would be on them: the peaceful alternatives for spreading democracy in the region...
...He appears to support the war in Afghanistan, even so...
...Let me also mention that the acceptance of a "diversity of tactics" was a key factor in the gradual self-isolation of one of the biggest movements of recent times, the global justice movement, so my strong chapter on a total commitment to strategic nonviolence remains highly relevant...
...But again, the Hindu right represents Hanuman as aggressive, and an ally of their campaign for ethnic purity...
...They believe in random murder...
...Jai Sri Ram" ("Hail Ram") is indeed a religious invocation used by million of sincere religious people, with pious and peaceable intent...
...These are people who (except for a few infiltrators) are fighting for the new and attractive Iraq that the Governing Council has been trying to prepare and has already announced in the proposed new constitution...
...It is also a slogan shouted by members of the Hindu right when they are killing innocent Muslim citizens or urging others to do so...
...the consequences of empowering deeply untrustworthy men like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld...
...It is revealing that Berman chooses to focus on such bad reasons to resist the war...
...The terrorist guerrillas number in the thousands, apparently...
...Editors: Although I am very pleased by Ken Brociner's generally positive review of my book ("Strategy for Success?," Winter 2004), I want to comment on his two basic criticisms...
...We accept e-mail submissions to editors@dissentmagazine.org , but request that you provide a street address and phone number...
...We reserve the right to edit letters down to fit our space and to choose which shall be printed...
...Jai Sri Ram is a very common term that millions of Hindus use worldwide to glorify their beloved God Ram...
...whether the massive increases in military spending, and the inevitable deepening of our economic dependence on them, are healthy in the long run...
...If the left opposed the war against Iraq out of an unreflective hatred of George Bush, why did so much of it support his war against Afghanistan...
...Hindus worship Sri Hanuman as the greatest devotee of God and try to emulate his devotion...
...This is dangerous nonsense...
...As a practicing Hindu, born and raised in India, I was not aware of the fact that Jai Sri Ram is a "Hindu-right slogan" until I read this article...
...whether our moral obligations to Afghanistan have been sufficiently discharged by the installation of a mayor in Kabul and a general retreat from the rest of the country...
...They are fascists—that is the correct word for them...
...Sri Hanuman acted as the chief of armies of Lord Ram and is the very emblem of strength, chivalry, loyalty, and devotion to Lord Ram...
...the democratic costs of selling the war deceptively, since that is likely to be intrinsic to the project...
...Hindus consider Sri Hanuman as an incarnation of Lord Shiva, who appeared on earth in the form of a monkey, as the son of the wind God Vayu also known as Pavan Dev...
...whether the tremendous resources allocated to the war might be spent to far greater humanitarian effect elsewhere...
...There is no guarantee that the partisans of a free and liberal Iraq will win...
...Chris Young points out, all too correctly, the incompetence of the Bush administration...
...To describe Sri Hanuman as "an aggressive monkey god" would be a great insult to many Hindus to say the very least...
...Therefore he must believe that sometimes it is correct to support a war in spite of the leadership—even a "wicked and incompetent" leadership...
...Let us think seriously about the consequences of allowing the anti-fascists of Iraq to lose this present war...
...Abhijit Bagal's letter, for which I have great sympathy, nicely demonstrates one of the main theses of my article: that the Hindu right has coopted and distorted a traditionally peaceful and pluralistic religion for political purposes...
...neither had I known about the existence of a personality classification of Hindu Gods...
...I have news to report...
...Editors: In the Summer 2003 issue of Dissent, Martha Nussbaum ("Genocide in Gujarat: The International Community Looks Away") provides "Jai Sri Ram" as an example of a "Hindu-right slogan" and characterizes Jai Hanuman as an "aggressive monkey god...
...It is incred'ble to me that we should have to debate such a thing...
...Nevertheless, my call for the creation of direct links between social movements and the electoral process via the development of a network of Egalitarian Democratic Clubs, when combined with challenges within Democratic primaries, a renewed commitment to strategic nonviolence, and a new vision based on "planning through the market" does add up to a "new package that has never been tried...
...We must stand with these people—just as we must stand with the anti-fascists of Afghanistan...
...If the left opposed the war because it is cynical about Arabs and democracy, then why does it repeatedly insist that the United States push Egypt, for example, on human rights—and voice opposition to more than two billion dollars worth of annual foreign aid so long as the corrupt Egyptian government resists...
...The usage of these terms for Hindu Gods shows a blatant disregard for, and, hurts the religious sentiments of millions of Hindus worldwide...
...Berman needs more lucid drinking buddies...
...It is surely the Hindu right itself that dishonors the Hindu religion by using such terms to goad people on to acts of violence, not a person like me who reports their activities with regret and moral condemnation...
...But because we have a long lead time for each issue, you have to send us your letter within three weeks of getting an issue of Dissent in order to get it into the next issue...
...In his piece, "A Friendly Drink in a Time of War" (Winter 2004), Paul Berman puts a nice twist on an old DISSENT / Spring 2004 109 rhetorical trick: instead of simply arguing against a straw man, prop him up in a bar and chew him out...
...Second, I am chagrined that Brociner would so strongly insist that I am claiming originality for the book...
...Hanuman is a god who has many faces, and it is indeed true that aggressiveness is only one of these...
...These divisions are reflected in the views of key movement leaders as well as in the theories of several highly visible left intellectuals...
...Letters will not be returned to senders unless they are accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelopes...
...Letters must be no more than 500 words, typed, double-spaced, and carry the full address and name of the sender...
...Even people who resisted the war in Afghanistan treat reports of American casualties there differently from the casualties in Iraq— an implicit concession, surely, that whatever the merits of that war, casualties suffered in it are more justifiable than casualties in Iraq...
...The war between these two sides is going on right now...
...First, I don't think it is living in a time warp to conclude that there continue to be nonproductive divisions among leftists, and more passion about Marxism, than he believes...
...I agree...
...For if he thinks the case against the war was as frivolous as that, it's no wonder he supported it...
...On the other side are many thousands of Iraqi police and other Iraqis who are working with the coalition authorities...
...110 DISSENT / Spring 2004...
...Mobs do in fact shout "Jai Hanuman" while they are murdering, raping, and torturing...
...At the end of the first chapter I explicitly state that "all the pieces are there for a strong egalitarian movement," and then go on to say that they have been "obscured and distorted by the inclusion of self-defeating methods that should not be part of the picture...
...and so on...
...It is a desperate war...
...Chris Young says that we ought to "think seriously about consequences...
...He worries, though, that the Bush administration, in its wicked incompetence, will lack the wisdom "to avert a civil war" in Iraq...
...Berman seems to think that calling a person or a state "fascist" relieves him of the obligation to think seriously about consequences...
...the likelihood that such a wicked and incompetent administration has the wisdom, political capital, or discipline to realize a democratic vision for Iraq and to avert a civil war there...
...There is already a civil war in Iraq...
Vol. 51 • April 2004 • No. 2
