Freedom Cafe

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

The Adventure Begins with a Hiccup

As my friends know, I will be spending the next year in Malaysia doing a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant. I will be expanding what I post up on my blog from my random political thoughts, reviews, and other things to also talk about my experiences in Malaysia this upcoming year.

January 2-4, 2008
Friday-Sunday
So today was the beginning of my adventure to Malaysia. I went to bed really late last night (6am)—or late, I suppose—because I was busy packing and wrapping up some final things that I needed to get done. So I finally got out of bed around 11:30am and got ready to go to Jummah prayers at the Sligh Mosque. I got ready, made sure that all of my things were packed, and headed off to the mosque with my entire family (Pops, Mom, Naumaan, and Irfaan) except for Zeeshan (who is currently visiting Pakistan).

So we ended up getting to the mosque a bit late, listened to the tail end of the khutbha, prayed, and then did namaz jinaza for some brother who had passed away. Following the prayers, I talked with some friends and then headed over to Philly Steak for some lunch.

At Philly Steak, I got to hang out with some of my friends—Ali, Yousaf, Toyin—and gorge on some halal American food. I was pretty hungry and wolfed down some of a philly steak and a spicy gyro. It was a nice meal and I was glad to hang out with some friends and family before heading off on my trip.

By 4pm, it was time to begin the long-awaited epic journey to Malaysia. We drove from Temple Terrace (where the restaurant was located) out to Tampa International Airport. We got there around 4:30 and I attempted to do an e-check in at the Delta counter. Unfortunately, the machine couldn’t find my reservations so I had to go to the agonizingly slow Delta check-in line. It took the better part of an hour before I finally got to check in my bags and got my boarding pass for the first leg of my journey. This relatively minor inconvenience was just a harbinger to much larger problems that were to come. But at that moment, I was just happy to have my ticket to LAX and said my final good-byes to my family and went over to my terminal.

My flight left Tampa on time at 7pm. From the beginning of the flight I knew it was going to be an quite the trip. After I had just sat down in my aisle seat a tall, blond bombshell walked up to me and said she needed to get into her window seat. One look at her fur-like sweater, curvaceous body, and gaudy jewelry lit up my material goldigging-dar. I could tell this girl was high maintenance and it seemed fitting that she would be on a flight to LA. Almost immediately I could tell that she was in a highly agitated mood. I did my best to ignore her and attempted to keep my head down and read from the book I had brought along (I’ve been reading the rather dense The Brothers Karmazov by Fyodr Dostoyevsky). But then she asked me if I would change seats with her. The immediate thought that ran through my mind was, “Damn, all these attractive girls will ask for—and get—anything they wamt.” And I, being no different, said “sure, you can have my seat.” She seemed really relieved that she was sitting in the aisle and then went on to explain to me that she had difficulty flying. She said that she always felt queasy and that she usually just took some medicine to help her before she flew. I introduced myself and she told me her name was Cynthia and that she had gone to undergrad at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. One thing led to another and we ended up talking about a wide-range of issues. The biggest shock came to me when she told me that she was in the fifth year of PhD program in Social Psychology at the University of California-Santa Barbara. She was refreshingly intelligent and really killed the stereotype that I had assigned to her. In fact she was a bright liberal who made sure to clarify to me—unasked—that her sweater was not fur but just imitation. I had a generally pleasant conversation with her, took a short nap, and finally arrived at LAX around 12pm (EST).

Once I got off the plane, I saw that it was about 9:20pm (WST) and felt confident that I would be able to get to my 11:10pm flight to Taipei with no difficulty. However, this would definitely not be the case. I first had to make the long walk from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. Once there, I went to the China Airlines representative and asked to have my boarding card printed. The sweet little Chinese girl responded that there was no record of my reservation in their computer. I explained to her that my flight was confirmed and even showed her my confirmation print-out. She searched her computers but finally said that I would have to go back to Delta and have them fix the problem with my ticket.

At this point, it was starting to near 10pm and I knew that I would have to run back to the Domestic terminal to get my ticket issue fixed. So I ran back to the terminal—while lugging along my 25lbs backpack and laptop case—and spoke to a Delta representative. She looked up the information on her computer, said that the whole issue was a misunderstanding, and printed out a confirmation ticket that I would show to China Airlines to clear this issue up.

So I then ran back to the international terminal and saw that the China Airlines people were about to close their ticketing counters. I ran to the same Chinese women—or so I thought—and gave her my new updated ticket from Delta. She went through her computer again and said that there was still no record of my booking. Furthermore, after seeing that I thought she was the same girl I had spoken to earlier, she made a point to say that, “I’m not the same person you talked to earlier, I can go get her if you would like.” So this was my strike two on stereotypes for the day—although I must say that these two Chinese women looked a lot alike. Anyhow, the other Chinese girl came and spoke to me about calling up her manager to fix the ticket issue. A couple of minutes later, her manager came, took my info to Delta, and returned with the same point that there was no record of my flight booking and that I would not be able to board the plane.

So at this point I was starting to feel desperate. I asked the Chinese lady what were options. She basically said that I could either go back to Delta to try and fix the flight issue or I could buy a ticket for the flight. So my options were pretty crappy. I could either: a) go argue with Delta and miss my flight, which would then mean I have to stay in LA for at least a day in a location tbd, or b) pay for a ticket that had already been paid for me. I did not want to stay in LA so I decided to just buy a ticket for the flight. It is only at this point that the Chinese women told me that the flight was fully booked and that I would have to fly on stand-by.

At this point I’m starting to think that it is not in fate to get to KL. I told her I would wait and sometime close to 11pm she said that she would sell me a ticket. I then paid for the flight to KL (with a flight change at Taipei) for the cheap price of $815. This would have been a great price for a flight—that is, of course, if I didn’t have to pay for the same flight twice (technically once, since the Fulbright program bought my original ticket). After having paid for the flight, I ran over to security, surreptitiously skipped a bunch of people and got through security by 11:15pm. I believe I was the last person to board the flight and it finally took off around midnight.

The flight from LAX to Taipei was thankfully uneventful. I sat next to an attractive Hispanic woman who was traveling on to Thailand. The flight was quite long—something like 14 and a half hours—and we ended up arriving in Taipei around 6:30am on the January fourth. I uneventfully switched planes to my flight for KL and we departed around 8:40am.

I arrived in KL after a 4 hour and 45 minute flight (and as a side note, I sat next to a pretty Asian woman on this flight) to a sea of palm trees. Flying into the airport I was amazed at the endless rows of palm trees on the horizon. The KL airport itself was huge and it took a bit of time to travel from our landing zone to the baggage carousel. Once I got through customs and picked up my bag I was supposed to be met by a representative from MACEE (Malaysian-American Commission On Educational Exchange). However, as with everything else on this trip thus far, there was a slight hitch to my plans. The slight hitch, of course, being that no one was there to pick me up. Apparently it seems that it was in my destiny to run into as many difficulties as possible before finally settling into Malaysia.

Anyhow, a car service individual helped me try to connect with the hotel, MACEE, or any of the other Fulbrighter’s who were already in town. After an hour of trying to reach someone, I decided I might as well just get a taxi to the hotel. The car service guy was trying to get me to pay him 150 Ringit ($43) for a cab ride to the hotel. I declined this pretty ridiculous price and found a taxi driver who gave me a better rate (80 Ringit or $23) which was still pretty expensive.

So my taxi driver from the airport, Razali, was a pretty colorful fellow. He was obviously a practicing Muslim and told me some anecdotes about Malaysia and some other small talk. The ride from the airport to the Dorsett Regency Hotel was maybe 45minutes and I finally got checked in around 5pm in the afternoon.

At this point I was utterly exhausted, but I wanted to take a shower and get my things situated. Afterwards, I called up some of the other ETA’s and we decided to head out to find an Indian restaurant at the MidValley mall. We took the metro there and then meandered in search of this elusive restaurant. Allegedly it was supposed to be some of the best Indian food in Malaysia but apparently the shop had just moved to a different location. Instead, we ended up just eating some subpar Malaysian food and took a cab back to the hotel. I finally called it a night a little after 10pm and finally got some much needed rest.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Sunday, December 07, 2008

The Attack on Mumbai

The heinous terrorist attack in Mumbai has received a great deal of media exposure and coverage. This attack has been dubbed “India’s 911” by a sensationalist press that has served to aggrandize the terrorists’ actions and conflate this attack with the global War on Terror. Key questions about this event remain unanswered. Is Pakistan behind the attack? That’s doubtful. Do the perpetrators of this attack have some sort of ties to extremist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba? Perhaps, but that doesn’t implicate Islamabad. What is more important to explore than speculating on the specific group responsible for this attack is the causes of this action and what political ramifications it will have.

India itself is a land of contradictions. It is the world’s largest democracy, but the majority of its people suffer from endemic poverty. Over 1.1 billion people call it home, but many groups in society have been marginalized and ignored. India has constantly been plagued by terrorism, but it has also perpetrated acts of terror in Kashmir. This recent attack in India has been claimed by a nascent terrorist organization—called the Deccan Mujahedeen—that is probably a ghost organization “created” solely for this attack. However, what are the grievances alleged by this organization and how will their crime impact India?

This act of terrorism, while completely unjustifiable, has been blamed on radical Islamists who have a wide-range of grievances. The disparities between Muslims—which make up close to 14% of the population—and Hindus—which make up around 80% of the population—in India are vast and are increasingly a cause of conflict. According to the government-sponsored Sachar Commission Report of November 2006, four out of every ten Muslims in India’s cities—and three out of 10 in the countryside—are living below the poverty line. Generally speaking, Muslim Indians have shorter life spans, lower literacy levels, and lower-paying jobs. Muslims face constant discrimination in education, housing, and employment. On top of being treated as second-class citizens and a constantly suspect subaltern group in society, issues such as the destruction of the Ayodha Mosque, the massacres in Gujrat, and the brutal military occupation of Kashmir have deeply affected Muslims in India. If India continues to ignore these grievances the likelihood of the growth of home-grown militants will increase.

The impact of this event is still reverberating across Indian society. On the political level, this terrorist attack could not have come at a more inopportune time for the Congress Party. When Congress came to power in 2004, they made revoking the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act their top priority. This act—similar to the American Patriot Act—was revoked that year but the Mumbai attack has renewed discussion on it. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which under Atal Bihari Vajpayee had passed this act, has renewed its support for it and has denounced Congress for being “soft on terrorism.” With general elections only a few months away, the BJP could galvanize its right-wing Hindu support base to try to defeat Congress in the upcoming elections. The idea that the government must respond to terrorist attacks by increasing the internal security apparatus is wrong. These actions will just lead to a more repressive state and a clamp-down on civil liberties. India should instead tackle problems such as poverty, lack of education, and unemployment because these issues feed the desperation that can lead to extremism and ultimately terror.

This terrorist attack has also complicated relations between India and Pakistan. It seems rather convenient for Indian to blame Pakistan anytime it has a domestic terrorist attack that involves Muslims. The allegation against Pakistan seems utterly baseless considering the strong denunciation by the Pakistani government and their offer to cooperate with India. Furthermore, Pakistan faces tremendous problems of its own—such as the growth of an indigenous Taliban movement, terrorist attacks against Pakistan, and internal economic problems—that it is trying to fix and stoking tensions with India is definitely not in their best interests. In fact, Pakistan has been aggressively pushing for a détente with India and this terrorist attack occurred during a peace negotiation visit by the Pakistani Foreign Minster to New Delhi. This attack has caused the distracted international media to focus on manufactured tensions between India and Pakistan rather than the root causes of this attack.

One of the important issues raised by this event are its international implications. The media has dubbed this attack India’s “911” which has unfortunately obfuscated a deeper understanding of this event. The media constantly raises the issue of a “911”—whether it is s terrorist attack in the UK, Spain, or Indonesia—type attack anytime there is some senseless act of terrorism. This is done by the media for a variety of reason. One reason is because it creates a simplified narrative, a “good vs. bad” story that is viscerally understandable for an audience. This allows for the audience to moralize the event which then provides justification for whatever actions the governments take during and after the event. Furthermore, it plays up the notion of international terrorism in general, and radical Islamist terrorism in particular, as an existential threat that must be both feared and destroyed. This gross simplification plays into the illusory idea of a “clash of civilizations” in which a “barbaric other” does senseless acts of terrorism for no apparent reason. While this may be able to get ratings for the media and provide cover for government actions, this simplifies a complex narrative and reduces these events to random acts of terrorism. This allows for the justification and continuation of the global War on Terror because all countries around the world have faced these attacks and governments have responded in kind. India has become a victim of terrorism and therefore has received global sympathy for its loss. Needless to say, India’s actions in Kashmir and its treatment of Muslims are ignored throughout this news coverage in favor of painting a simplistic victimization picture. Terrorism gets all of the media attention. State-sponsored acts of terrorism are ignored as are more pressing causes of conflict such as poverty, access to education, and underdevelopment. This skewed narrative will ensure that terrorism will not abate.

The full impact of the Mumbai attack will be seen in the coming months. These tragic acts of terrorism do have causes that need to be urgently addressed. India should not respond by becoming a greater national security-state; instead, it should aggressively tackle the problems that are ripping it apart. It would be wise to recall Gandhi’s sage reflection that “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”

For further reading:

1. Behind the Mumbai Massacre: India’s Muslims in Crisis, Time Magazine, Aryn Baker 11-27-08
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1862650,00.html?xid=rss-world

2. The Assault on Mumbai, Counterpunch, Tariq Ali, 11-27-08
http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq11272008.html

3. Mumbai, the NYT’s Revisionism, and Lessons Not Learned, Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald, 11-28-08
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/28/nyt/index.html

4. Blood in Mumbai, Washington Post, Dileep Padgaonkar, 11-28-08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/27/AR2008112702049.html

5. Mumbai May Derail India-Pakistan Peace Progress, Washington Post, Shuja Nawaz, 11-28-08
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/needtoknow/2008/11/mumbai_may_derail_india-pakist.html

6. The age of ‘celebrity terrorism’, BBC News, Paul Cornish, 11-30-08
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7755684.stm

7. Muslims -- India's new 'untouchables', LA Times, Asra Nomani, 12-1-08
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-nomani1-2008dec01,0,4043886.story

8. Toll from Deadly, Coordinated Mumabi Attacks Tops 170, Two Top Indian Officials Resign, Tensions Rise Between India and Pakistan, DemocracyNow!, 12-1-08
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/1/toll_from_deadly_coordinated_mumbai_attacks

9. A Shadow Falls on Mumbai, The Progressive, Amitabh Pal, The Progressive, 12-1-08
http://www.progressive.org/mag/wxap120108.html

10. A Statement by Concerned Citizens of India and Pakistan, Press Release, 12-2-08
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/02-15

Freedom Cafe

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

The Adventure Begins with a Hiccup

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Top 20 Articles of 2008

Sunday, December 07, 2008

The Attack on Mumbai

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