CULTURAL SUICIDE

Last we had filed a despatch on the tradition of loan waivers in ancient civilisations. We talked about the evidence on the ground in the shape of the Hammurabi Tablets and the Rosetta Stone...The physical relics are not just so many zeroes at a Sotheby auction, but are authentic indicators of the evolution of human thought- the natural progression- the Gangotri of Ideas that must be remembered if we want peace on Earth and goodwill towards men... 

Today we walk through visuals of a recurring tragedy that refuses to graduate into farce: destruction of heritage:

Mushil Hasan, Deputy Director of the National Museum of Iraq sits in despair after the April 2003 US attack on the Museum

Euphrates! Tigris! Here we come!

Why do soldiers do it all over? Why do they rape, loot, marauder the way it happens? It’s not good to generalise, maybe they don't, but here we see American soldiers supervise the scraping of gold from the walls of Baghdad Museum strictly for commerce:

US soldiers supervise the scraping of gold

Our Goan Mami quizzes us: What is the most sublime sacrifice that can be performed by a human being- it’s laying down your life, extinguishing your Self- for the sake of your fellow-beings- for Society! And pray at whose door have we generously laid this supreme sacrifice? Jawans, that is soldiers- who are among the least educated sections of Society!

Granted Mami, but what do you say to the following statements made by a true-blue Ivy League Political Science degree holder, who presided over the abovesaid misdeeds, outdoing the Afghan Taliban?

“Stuff happens…freedom is untidy” …and here is a sample of bright American wit:

One vase too many...

” … it’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times, and you think, “My goodness, were there that many vases?” (Laughter) Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?”

-Remarks made by Donald Rumsfield, two time Defense Secretary of the United States…By the way the Americans ostensibly went to unearth Weapons of Mass Destruction, which were nowhere in sight! The blow was dealt at the very fount of human civilisation, that is Babylon..

There are wheels within wheels in the sordid story. Coinciding with the plunder of the Iraqi relics, lobbies of artifact collectors and antique sellers began pleading with the US Government to midwife abandonment of Iraqi antique export safeguards. In fact three Cultural Advisers to the White House resigned in protest against these intentions! It's about money, honey, as the Americans say...

Tablets bearing catalogue marking of Baghdad 

Museum put up for sale by antique sellers.

On the other hand, notwithstanding his Islamic badge, Saddam Hussein owned up the Babylonian heritage. He called himself the son of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylonia, “and had the legend ‘To King Nebuchadnezzar in the reign of Saddam Hussein’ inscribed on bricks inserted into the walls of the ancient city of Babylon during a reconstruction project he initiated..”

Public knowledge of the artifacts is so hazy, Assange and Friends are still wondering what happened to the original Hammurabi Code- it was always in French custody, at Louvre. Had it fallen in American hands, you can imagine what they would have taken it for! Representation of Hammurabi's..... ahem...this is a family blog..beg your pardon..

Left: Gold plaque, now in New York

Right: Safe at Louvre Museum, Paris:

Hammurabi's Code on a basalt stele (pillar) dates back to 1772 BC and is easily the most priceless Mesopotamian artifact, bearing as it does the earliest recorded human law code, including eye-for-eye-tooth-for-tooth. As we wrote in the last post on debt-relief, there is a reference to cancellation of farmers' debts on the exhibit...

And heyyy...,we don’t spare our own heritage too:

Al-Omari mosque in Deraa dating to 1090 AD destroyed by ISIS forces in April 2014.

The larger Bamiyan Buddha before and after. The three Buddhas representing Gandhar Style date to 500 AD and are located on the famous Silk Route

And the Cake goes to…Bamiyan! Islamist scholars maintained that the religion does not support such acts, even Gen. Musharraf came out strongly against the boorish behaviour of Taliban. Chandmari at Bamiyan has been a favourite past time throughout history. According to …ahem..Wikipedia:

“In 1221 with the advent of Genghis Khan a terrible disaster befell Bamiyan (monastery) nevertheless, the statues were spared. Later, the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, tried to use heavy artillery to destroy the statues. Another attempt to destroy the Bamiyan statues was made by the 18th century Persian king Nader Afshar, directing cannon fire at them.” Poor statues!  The task was finally wrapped up by the Taliban in 2007.

Diwan-e-khas: indestructible beauty: as it stands today

(http://jaddeyekabir.com/2012/06/29/the-destruction-of-delhi-dalrymple)

And what happened in Delhi in 1857, particularly to the Red Fort, has been ably chronicled by William Dalrymple in Last Mughal. Governor-General Lord Canning had by then turned his back on things Indian. James Fergusson, by whose name the eponymous College goes, was however passionate about preserving this rare heritage., to which Amir Khusrau sang the familiar ode ‘Agar Firdaus bar roo-e zaminast…’

Dalrymple writes:

“All the gilded domes and most of the detachable marble fittings were stripped and sold off by the Prize Agents.  As Fergusson noted “when we took possession of the palace, everyone seems to have looted after the most independent fashion.  Among others, a Captain (afterwards Sir) John Jones [who had blown in the Lahore Gate during the capture of the Fort] tore up a great part, but had the happy idea to get his loot in marble as table tops.  Two of these he brought home and sold to the Government for 500 pounds, and were placed in the India Museum.”…(according to measuringworth.com, founded by Williamson & Officer, Professors of Economics at University of Illinois, the Income Value of that sum is over £ 4,50,000 in 2013) 

“… fragments looted included the rightly celebrated “Orpheus panel” of pietra dura inlay which Shah Jahan had placed behind his Peacock Throne…

“Canning had already given orders to destroy the Delhi walls and defences, but Lawrence managed to get the orders rescinded, arguing that there was insufficient gunpowder in Delhi to blow up several miles of walls…”(http://jaddeyekabir.com/2012/06/29/the-destruction-of-delhi-dalrymple/)

Is there absolutely nothing we can do for these orphaned relics- before all heritage falls to the industry of haters and looters? Sorry, in India Courts have shown indulgence to the vandals, for in these areas, we consider ourselves living in History, and so- how do you try a time-traveller? The mobs are not vandals, they are the 'gau, brahman pratipalak' (*) None else than an Allahabad High Court Judge has upheld his clansmen’s right to ‘right perceived wrongs’, just read the Babri Judgement 2010 -in EPW, not anywhere else, written by Supriya Verma and Jaya Menon of JNU. You'll read that the High Court addresses the fictitious spot as 'Ram-janmabhomi', and the factual mosque, as the 'disputed structure'- so hilarious, were it not tragic..Thus blessed by the High Court, the administration and the ASI establish the existence of  temple over temple over temple on the plot, whereas the reality on the ground is a singular magrib wall. This is the prophetic context of Dushyant Kumar's sher, over which Junior and the writer were scratching their heads:

Ek Kabristan me ghar mil raha hai,
Jisme tehkanon me tehkhane lage hain..

..friend I have at last found an abode in a graveyard, where there are basements within basements..! 

The culturist vandal doth drive us underground..!

There have been well intentioned initiatives such as the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property, UNESCO Declaration of 2003 etc. One of the earliest initiatives was undertaken in 1933 by French activist Raphael Lemkin who formally defined the heinous activities as ‘cultural genocide’. He wrote - “an attack targeting a collectivity can also take the form of systematic and organized destruction of the art and cultural heritage in which the unique genius and achievement of a collectivity are revealed in fields of science, arts and literature. The contribution of any particular collectivity to world culture as a whole, forms the wealth of all of humanity, even while exhibiting unique characteristics (see http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/madrid1933-english.htm)

The least mankind can do is to ensure that each country has a legislation ‘in place’ in accordance with the international conventions. A Standard Operative Procedure has been prescribed in certain affected countries, like shifting, in an emergency, museum pieces to specially constructed vaults which can be maintained by an International Foundation. Should be a key component of Disaster Management plans. Yah!….we know…!...enactment of a law is useless, but at least the law of the land may restrain Defence Secretaries from inviting invading armies to rape the heritage of humankind..

(*) apologies to Pu La Deshpande: this is taken from his observation on the Sangh's Fuhrerphilia: "the Sangh seems to think Hitler was a 'gau-brahman-pratipalak Raja'," he'd say..

RBI's AGRI DEBT RELIEF : HAMMURABI'S CODE

HAMMURABI CODE

Loan waiver schemes of the Government have always attracted adverse notice especially from well-meaning bankers, though no one registers similar protests when dues from the high and mighty like a ‘healthy’ politician heading a sick business known as P*rti Group are compromised. Errors of judgment made by Bankers are buried in Board Notes (all available in original with Banks, not to worry, Adv. Prashant) but waiver of small loans is headline material!

Looking at Loan Waiver Schemes, we observe only the tip of the iceberg- less than 10% of the whole. Concealment of the submerged 90% has shades of a Capitalist Conspiracy, not conceived consciously by human perpetrators, but by a self-perpetuating System. We explain that in detail below, but how many know this: Waiver of Agricultural Loans finds honorable mention in two of the most well-known ancient administrative codes unearthed, namely the Hammurabi Code of 1772 BC and Rosetta Stone Inscription of 196 BC…can you beat that!? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose- the more things change more they remain the same, you know…

ROSETTA STONE: THREE WAY EXPRESSION LED
TO DECIPHERING OF EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC CODE

Analysing the problem objectively, let’s see RBI statistics of 31^st March 2013, giving sectoral percentages of NPA in the respective sectors’ total loan: Industry 16%, Services 10%, Retail 5.5%, Agriculture 8.2%. The figures of NPA include written off NPA, so that Agriculture’s percentage cannot be questioned on ground of waivers. Thus holding Agriculture Debt Relief as a causative factor in low recovery rates is absurd. Just find out how many farmers committed suicide last year and how many darlings of Indian business did that. The activity called agriculture has such miserable returns, in spite being a basic human necessity, that the Government and the Society has to, not carrying it too far,  periodically write off agricultural debts in order to prevent these sections from rising in revolt. Maoist nightmares of the wilier amongst Indian politicians...You may not be aware of the disaffection, or may not have felt the under-currents, but just rise over the cacophony of media wisdom, and you’ll be left aghast at our blindness. Common wisdom is but the sum total of what the entrenched sections of society want us to believe. One day all News Channels will blare in unison about the meager defence-spend of India (though India is the largest arms importer in the comity of nations), one day about firing across the LOC, the third day about sartorial preferences of Modi and another day about the impending pregnancy of a movie starlet.…Obviously, if it’s a felicitous chorus, it has to be orchestrated by invisible hands…you must watch the series on 'paid news' to have an insight into the working of the Indian Press- the muck is deeper than you can imagine- politicians, journos and papers have been actually named in this bold series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NTnEqKzu6Q. If few people know about it, what is it but a conspiracy of silence on the part of media- good old DD and Prasar Bharati are leading the campaign against media corruption...

One small voice drowned in the Chorus is that of an International Society called the Committee for the Cancellation of the Third World Debt (the CADTM -Comité pour l’annulation de la dette du Tiers Monde), headed by Dr. Eric Toussaint, Belgian Social scientist and a critic of World Bank. They are a party to the multi-billion dollar Argentine Sovereign Debt Case being fought in a New York Court against NML Capital and others. Can some hedge funds stake claim to known and unknown  resources of an entire society because a General once came under the influence of the Fund? The EPW carries an article on the case in the 27-05-2014 issue in the HT Parekh Finance Column which says:

"A series of events since the early 1980s have pushed developing countries to restructure their economies and integrate themselves with global markets. These policy shifts have made them highly vulnerable to external changes. One such story is that of Argentina which from the mid-1970s has gone from crisis to crisis and is now facing legal pressure from US holders of old Argentine debt."

Eric Toussaint who spearheads the CADTM is deep into the subject of debt (not into debt) and has documented the history thereof. In his article ‘The Long Tradition of Debt Cancellation in Mesopotamia and Egypt from 3000 to 1000 BC’ he talks about the periodic cancellation of debts owed by farmers and temple societies, giving references from the historical Hammurabi’s Code.  He writes:

If peasants were unable to pay off their debts, they could also find themselves reduced to the condition of serfs or slaves; indebtedness could also lead to members of their family being made slaves. In order to ensure social peace and stability, and especially to prevent peasants’ living conditions from deteriorating, the authorities periodically cancelled all debt and restored peasants’ rights.” (sounds like yesterday's newspaper)

Other literary sources from contemporary Mesopotamia also indicate that between 2400 and 1700 BC, regular 'Clean Slate' proclamations were issued, and were referred in Sumerian as acts of 'amargi', 'endurarum' and 'misharum', the first two terms standing for 'freedom', and the third, for 'justice'.(*) The debt cancellation proclamations were not applicable to commercial or business loans, and the fiats spelt out the manner in which private lenders were to be compensated, how decrees were to be enforced etc. A money-lender refusing to part with property title evidence, even though the debt had been repaid in full was to be put to death…

The foregoing paragraphs possibly speculate about the motives of the rulers behind debt cancellation, which could be seen as calculated to assist propagation of an unjust social system. This article was not at all meant to speculate and adjudicate on the ideological merits of the historical cancellation of debt. What is said about debt by us above may point to the ideological inclination of the writer, but the following truth holds regardless of anybody’s inclinations: that you’d be horribly wrong if you believe that the Indian Government commits an unprecedented travesty of financial justice when it gives a hand to the farmer for cleaning up whatever measly and contemptible little personal balance-sheet she has. Globally, the State, whatever its ideology, has been acknowledging for 5000 years, the fact that farmers periodically require loan subsidy, given the adverse circumstances under which they produce, or are compelled by society to produce, sustenance essential to our survival. 

*****

(*) Biblical jurisprudence has always been against lending for interest. Mosaic Law prohibits interest and all loans are considered remitted after 7 years, save those to foreigners (Exodus 22:25) Under Islamic laws consuming one coin of interest is considered worse than 36 acts of adultery. The savage restrictions are said to be on account of the Prophet's belief that they undermine the Brotherhood. The New Testament however, over time, gradually moves towards a practical view, replacing the the term 'interest' with 'usury' (Deuteronomy Ch 23). No less a person than Albert Einstein has been critical of the phenomenon of 'compounding' of interest!

WILLIAM BLAKE'S DEFILED SANCTUARY

The phrase ‘Power of Context’ was learnt by us in the course of a ‘conclAve’ hosted by mckinsey & Co. and it stuck to our thought process like a drooly lollypop, sticking persistently to this  finger or that. A favourite instance was quoted by us in our first post on Kipling. Now it dawns upon us that as an intellectual past-time, the very opposite is equally if not more fertile, and can be termed ‘Futility of Context’! Something akin to the disappointment that befell you when indulging in the ancient past time of the sub-continent- listening to Hindi movie songs on the radio. The best of songs would often remain unseen by the listener before TV reared it’s ugly head, he, he, he…we’d place the song approvingly in an imaginary context, till we saw it on the screen, and wheww…. the comedown could be heart-breaking…for in all possibility the best of the songs would be actually be sung by a jerk in the stupidest of situations. Futility of context. Apna context apni jeb me rakho, sez your inner voice when one sees a song such as this, or this:. Of course after the advent of TV one learnt that by default, all Hindi film songs are, unlike the Victorian child, to be heard, not seen, he, he, he.....funny ehhh !? We're not amused...

  

The phenomenon struck us recently in the course of researching a favourite poem by William Blake. It’s a sort of sister-verse to the one which appears across the mysterious graphic that forms part of your blog's mast-head now…DD Kosambi loved it, we mean the poetry...yes- Bring me my bow of burning gold…It’s not difficult to guess the context of this beauty by Blake- it’s written against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution in England, poet entreating Jesus to visit the English shores and restore Heaven in place of those ‘satanic mills’.

The other one, ‘Defiled Sanctuary’ was first encountered by us mocking in the Preface to Volume 2 of Bertrand Russell’s autobiography, and the latter he himself wrote, he, he, he..Here goes:

I saw a chapel all of gold, That none did dare to enter in,

And many weeping stood without, Weeping, mourning, worshipping.

I saw a serpent rise between,The white pillars of the door,

And he forc'd and forc'd and forc'd, Till down the golden hinges tore.

And along the pavement sweet, Set with pearls and rubies bright,

All his slimy length he drew,Till upon the altar white

Vomiting his poison out, On the bread and on the wine.

So I turn'd into a sty, And laid me down among the swine.

A gasp never fails to escape us, experiencing the sensational power that Plain-Jane words could be capable of, placed in magical hands…

Coming to its ‘Context’, it seems different people writing in different eras have viewed it differently. Left to our own devices, we’d have considered it apt to be quoted in the context of the Babri Mosque demolition. Fits to eerie perfection…Unfortunately, textbook wisdom says the construct indicates Blake’s hatred for the rich and powerful Church of the day, which excluded the hoi-polloi, depicted in the poem as weeping, mourning, worshipping..Blake sort of looks upon the snake as his Messiah.. Another school of thought considers it also containing sexual imagery...wow...I sayyy...you could expect that thought process from Hollywood normally…no?

Russell, the original ‘quoter’, might approve the Babri angle of ours, whatever might the 'quotee' have had in his mind. Here is what he says about the poem, writing to wife’s cousin Gilbert Murray, contemporary literary observer:

“And do you not know, when a Philistine breaks in upon a delicate imaginary world, the oscillations backwards and forwards between the exquisite mood one is loath to lose and rage against the wretch who is desecrating one’s Holy of Holies? Do you know Blake’s Defiled Sanctuary beginning ‘I saw a chapel all of gold’ and ending  ‘And laid me down among the swine’? This is from a worshipper of Bachchus who had been unable to combat his Pentheus?”

(Pentheus, according to Greek mythology was the austere and puritan son of Spartan King Thebes, who disapproved of his mother’s hedonistic worship of Dionysus, and she, with her sister kills Pentheus after a drunken binge. Apparently the snake could be Pentheus or could be his antagonist, the mother Agave: they make tequila from Agave, you know...).

In fact it'll not be a bad idea to have a game called "What's the Right Context?" Here is Julain Assange’s take on the poetry:

“One can see how Blake's insight here resonated with Russell's desired self perception. But what if Russell not only flees from desecration revealed but is the dramatic figure of causation and revelation? Russell is the actor of change. Russell is the serpent and vomiting out his poison into the transubstantiated body of Christ, an interpretation that would have pleased both Russell and his enemies in the British and American theocracies. Now I say unto you -- arise serpents! Tear the hinges from their doors, stand above the alter (sick, he, he) white and vomit out your poison till deceit crumbles and sets free the dove..”

[Julian Assange http://re-iq.blogspot.in/2006/09/defiled-sanctuary.html]

No prizes for guessing what Assange fancies himself in the allegory! But his hiss is worse than his bite...

This is good ol' Babri Mosque in the first decade of the 20th century (AD that is).  We'd have created a collage on the lines of the Jerusalem above, were it not for the last word in the Defiled Sanctuary, which IK should be loth to juxtaposing on a mosque.. whew...Also,we can't name here who the snake is in today's context...it's an official and respectable Naag now...! These are difficult times, you know.. 

FUTURE OF 'READING': BIBLIOINCERTIA

We recently read journalist and writer Dnyanada Deshpande speculate on the future of Marathi literature, and what she writes applies to the future of literature in general. She talks about the unpredictable forms and contours 'literature' is assuming (बृहत्कथा on blogspot). People have long speculated on the future of the wonderful thing called 'BOOK'. Biblioincertia, apposed to Bibliophilia is the Latin word for 'uncertainty about books', which was invented with the help of an online Latin-English dictionary by an idiot a few seconds back. One manifestation of the phenomenon of Biblioincertia is the attention received by the successive quarterly financials of Barnes and Noble, the American book-selling chain. Here is a report appearing in thepessimist.com. We recall, when Maulana and YT visited New York last (he,he,he only once we did that), we visited B&N stores in order to use their excellent loos, there being few public washrooms in Eastern USA in general.

REPORT: http://thepessimist.com/2013/06/26/bad-news-digest-june-26-2013/:

ORIGINAL CAPTION: :Barnes & Noble, a chain of public bathrooms that also apparently sells “books” (like movies, but for pale nerds who cry a lot!), might have overestimated America’s thirst for fine literature. In other news, Idiocracy is starting to look more and more like a documentary.

IK on movie Idiocracy:

Luke Wilson, average guy of present times gets transported to the 26th century as a result of an Army experiment gone awry. By then, the average IQ of the population had gone down to 40, because couples with high IQs have been out-bred by the fecund low IQ population. thepessimist believes that the tryst with 26th century has advanced to the 21st !


ABSENCE OF PLANNING SHOWS: HOSPITAL IN USA CIRCA 2500 AD FEATURED IN MOVIE IDIOCRACY