Violence - an old response, mine

On 10 June 2007 I received a forward with the subject line "these are the worlds most wicked people - Have No Words To Describe".

The email had seven photographs of a six or seven year old-looking boy being punished, perhaps for 'stealing', by making a jeep run over his hands. The images were brutal. But the fact that the script on the pictures which was in Arabic and photos indicated that there was an obvious reference made to Islam. This made me to look at other details in the forward. The forward showed that the mail had originated on 21 July 2006 , almost a year before, and had been forwarded to 213 people before it reached me. The mail created a series of thoughts in me and I decided to give a response and emailed the response to all the 213 email addresses on the very day I received the email. There was only one reply with two words "Thank You"

The recent violence in Mumbai and the subsequent demand for retaliation reminded me of the email and the response I had written and thought I must reproduce it here.

It has been a little difficult to make this post here, because, for the last three years that I have been experimenting with blogs in education, I have kept this blog strictly for 'academic' purposes and have tried to refrain from my 'personal views on contemporary issues' creeping in here. Hence, it is with a lot of hesitation, that I am making this post.

If you are a person who completely supports violence in the name of nation, religion, better society, better future, 'enough is enough rhetoric', then in your own interest and that of mine you may avoid reading further.

Following is the response I emailed on 10 June 2007 to the 213 emails I had found in the forward.

-------------------
HI all
I received this following email forward asking me/us to condemn 'violence in the name of religion'. If we are to condemn only Islam and Islamic countries for it, I think we are victimizing Islam, thereby perpetuating our own hidden agenda of becoming self-proclaimed promoters of our religion at the cost of other religions.

We also need to condemn violence in the name of religion that happens in the case of Bush who attacked Iraq in the name of God (by which he obviously meant a Christian god) and by extension all self-declared American wars, and victimization of Islamic counties by the US. Closer home we need to condemn violence that happened in south canara in the name of cow protection/slaughter, Vadodara incident where Hindutva forces ransacked university campus, even when there are constitutional provisions to address ones grievances.

Instead of condemning violence in other religions it is important that we condemn violence carried by the religious and community leaders of our own religions and communities- Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jains. If we do not condemn violence by our own religions, then, let us accept that we too are communal deep within us.

Violence has different expressions. When it happens in the name of religion we call it religious-sponsored or communal. But what about domestic violence against women and children, what about the violence in the name of dresscode, better grades, Indian culture, linguistic identity, beyond-the-reach-of the-poor education that we see in our institutions and society, displacement in the name of industrialization, dams, IT that we keep tolerating? Shall we also condemn that?

Violence in any form, in all places, and in all times should be condemned- most importantly in our immediate places- house, schools and colleges, neighborhood, city in our own little ways.

As we become conscious of physical violence we also need to become aware of psychological violence. While it is easy to represent physical violence through photographs like the ones sent to me, it is extremely difficult to represent as well as understand invisible violence in the form of psychological violence. The immediate examples that come to my mind are one of parent imposed violence on children and the other management-teacher-imposed violence in schools, through assignments, exams, nicknames, passing remarks which create wounds that are difficult to heal.

The psychological violence we inflict on other communities, people by stereotyping or calling names is also a issue to be worried about. By visual violence i refer to the huge banners, buntings that 'decorate' all our public places put up by political parties, religious groups in the name of morhcas, conferences, rallies. They also need to be paid attention to and condemned.

May I now request you to spread this nuanced understanding of violence with the same enthusiasm with which you forward some unknown landscapes of the US or Canada or the morphed faces of our cricket players post-world cup?


Anil Pinto