Windows on the current global crisis
The politics of acculturation

You are visitor number (per WebCounter) to our site! - please send us your feedback

Here are a diversity of views on (the aftermath of) September 11 that aim to reflect the analyses, attitudes, feelings both spoken and unspoken, from around the world. Given prominence are perspectives that clearly state their presuppositions and work out the implications (even to the extreme but) in a manner that enriches the evolving discussion making it easier for dissenting perceptions to respond constructively. With my having chosen to live and work in the United States (till now...) for its intellectual and personal freedoms, there is inevitably a greater focus on the debates over the policies here. For the same reason, more space is being provided for voices (including European ones) that are being sidelined by the mainstream American media. This page offers the 'raw' real-life materials and a controversial space for a possible convergence not only between seemingly incompatible religious traditions but also between faith and secular thought. Whatever the intrinsic interest of the studies in comparative religion and the humanities in other areas of this web-site, they have little value for future generations unless they are sufficiently informed by the dangerous conflicts of our times and provide us with the conceptual apparatus and a growing community of participants, committed to dialogue, who are willing to apply these tools to the current global crisis. Indeed, looking back into my past, it seems increasingly clear that all these researches, with little respect for boundaries between disciplines nor for the exigencies of an academic career, were impelled from the very beginning by the premonition of such a dire crisis.

Religious perspectives

Buddhist

David R. Loy, "A new holy war against evil? A Buddhist Response"

Christian

Ira Rifkin, "Embracing latter-day crusaders: Bush’s support for missionaries risks wrath of wary Muslims" (MSNBC: 10 Dec. 01)

Jim Avila, "Christian leader condemns Islam" (MSNBC: 16 Nov 01)

René Girard, "What's playing out today is a mimetic rivalry on a planetary scale" (French, Le Monde)

Frank Burch Brown,

Hindu

Rajiv Malhotra, The Asymmetric Dialog of Civilizations (Sulekha column: 03 Dec 01)

Sunthar Visuvalingam, On invoking the "Song of God" (Bhagavad-Gîtâ) to sanction a 'just' war

Rajiv Malhotra, "Gita on Fighting Terrorism" (Nov. 5th, 2001; Sulekha column - reader's comments are also interesting...)

Sunthar Visuvalingam, "Wendy Doniger and the Interpretation of Hindu Mythology - Krishna in the Mahâbhârata" (10/7/2001)

 

Jewish

 Hillel Halkin, The Return of Anti-Semitism: To be against Israel is to be against the Jews (WSJ: 5 Feb 02)

"French Jews: Eyal Sivan's dangerous confusion" by a collective group (Le Monde: 17 Dec. 01)

Maurice Szafran, "Political diabolization" (Le Monde: 17 Dec. 01)

Eyal Sivan, "The dangerous confusion of French Jews" (Le Monde: 07 Dec 01)

Seth Lipsky, "They Don't Want to Save Your Soul: In defense of fundamentalist Jews" (WSJ: 05 Dec 01) - different kinds of fundamentalisms?

Ruth R. Wisse, "The Brilliant Failure of Jewish Foreign Policy" (Azure • WINTER 5761 / 2001)

David Biale, "Bound to Israel" (Tikkun: Sep/Oct 2001 issue)

Rabbi Michael Lerner, "Where the Violence comes from: Newer version of A World out of Touch" (Tikkun: 16 Sep. 01)

Muslim

Francis Fukuyama & Nadav Samin, "Can Any Good Come Of Radical Islam? A modernizing force? Maybe" (WSJ: 12 Sep 02)

Alain Fraichon review of 2 books by Olivier Roy: Globalized Islam and The Illusions of September 11 (Le Monde: 12 Sep. 02)

Fethi Benslama, "Islam: what humiliation?" (French; Le Monde: 27 Nov. 01)

David Plotz, "The Shiite-Sunni switch" (Slate/MSNBC: 19 Nov. 01)

Zafar A. Hasan, "Realities of Ramadan" (MSNBC: 15 Nov. 01)

Karen Armstrong, "Understanding Islam" (MSNBC: 29 Oct 01)

Robert Wright, "The evolution of tolerance: Is it possible to be both Muslim and modern?" (MSNBC: 27 Oct. 01)

Sue Lackey, "The ‘New Wahhabi’ movement" (MSNBC: 17 Oct. 01)

Iqbal A. Ansari, "Terrorism cannot work: Muslims must explore passive resistance" (Times of India: 17 Oct. 01)

Mustafa Saed, "An uneasy tolerance" (MSNBC: 03 Oct. 01)

Hanna Rosin and John Mintz, "Muslim Leaders Struggle With Mixed Messages" (Washington Post: 02 Oct 01)

Ira Rifkin, "One nation under Islam" (MSNBC: 27 Sep. 01) -
 

Esoteric/Divinatory

Tarot cards on the Lightning-Stricken Tower and on Judgment

A-religious perspectives

Politics of Culture

Casa Asia round-table on "The Impact of 9/11 on Asia"

Robert Redford, "Hollywood shouldn't be the propaganda instrument of Washington" (French; Le Monde: 13 Dec 01)

Youssef Chahine interview on "America  at war" (French; Le Monde: 13 Dec 01)

Annie Le Brun, "Breton's clarity, Clair's obscurity" (French; Le Monde: 07 Dec 01)

Alain Jouffroy, "Venomous attack" (French; Le Monde: 07 Dec 01) - were surrealists wrong in unmasking Western crimes against humanity?

Alexandre Adler, "Pakistan's good hand" (French; Le Monde: 28 Nov. 01) - is the rejection of the Taliban a reaffirmation of an 'Indian' Pakistan?

Anna Quindlen, "Honestly—You Shouldn’t Have" (MSNBC/Newsweek: 03 Dec. 01 issue)

Jean Clair, "Surrealism and the demoralization of the West" (French; Le Monde: 21 Nov. 01) - 'anti-Western' surrealists responsible for 9/11?

Samuel Huntington, "The risk of a conflict of civilizations" (French; Le Monde: 20 Oct 01 ) - conflict or cooperation-cum-rivalry?

Amaya Bloch-Lainé, "Great global crisis, small Gallic debate" (French, Le Monde, 19 Oct 01), i.e., is French policy really more enlightened?

Civil Liberties

Eric Alterman, "Policing the academy" (MSNBC: 29 Nov 01)

Daniel Strieff, "British anti-terror proposal under fire: Legislation more stringent than U.S. counterpart" (MSNBC: 23 Nov 01)

Farhad Khosrokhavar, "The victory of Osama Ben Laden" (MSNBC: 22 Nov. 01)

George Lardner Jr (Washington Post), "Concern increases on anti-terror moves" (MSNBC: 16 Nov 01)

Morton H. Halperin, "What happened to civil liberties?" (Newsweek/MSNBC: 16 Nov. 01)

John W. Dean, "The closed-door presidency: George W. Bush’s appetite for secrecy" (MSNBC: 15 Nov. 01)

"The antiterrorist pretext of Brussels" by a group of European lawyers (French; Le Monde: 14 Nov. 01)

John W. Dean, "Liberties lost: Unintended consequences of the anti-terror law" (MSNBC: 07 Nov. 01)

Ideology

One Year Later: September Eleventh 2002 Statement by September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

Daniel Vernet, "The intellectuals, the war and Mr. Bush" (French; Le Monde: 21 Feb. 02)

Historical Background

Nicholas D. Kristof, "Our Friends the Terrorists" (New York Times: 21 Dec. 01)

Selig S. Harrison, "Stop Building Up Pakistani Military Capacities Against India" (International Herald Tribune: 20 Dec 2001)

Afsané Bassir Pour, "The young Afghan Laili Helms would have backed the Taliban till the end" (Le Monde: 08 Dec. 01)

Michael Moran, "The ‘airlift of evil’" (MSNBC: 29 Nov 01)

Tunku Varadarajan, "Rescuing the Enemy" (Wall Street Journal editorial: 28 Nov. 2001)

Jacques Le Goff, "The triumphs and failures of globalizations" (French; Le Monde: 15 Nov 01)

"The well oiled retinue of George W. Bush" (French; Le Monde: 12 Nov. 01) - extracts from chapter 6 : "Chronicle of a forbidden negotiation" (5th February 2001 - 2nd August 2001)

Sylvain Cypel, "When Washington was negotiating with the Taliban" [before Sep 11] - Review of The Suppressed Truth

Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia - Amazon reviews

Ahmed Rashid, "Osama Bin Laden: How the U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist" (chapter from above book)

Ahmed Rashid, "Kandahar 1994: the Origins of the Taliban" (chapter 1 from Rashid's book)

Recognizing the Opposition: Understanding Osama bin Laden, Fundamentalist Islam and the Jihad (web-site)

Islam: Empire of Faith (documentary series by Robert Gardener that has appeared on PBS)

 

Humor and its Semblance

To Laugh or Not to Laugh? The best (or the worst) humor often surpasses (or falls short of) itself to become a mere semblance of humor (hâsyâbhâsa in Sanskrit). Here are some gut perceptions--through the binoculars (read: 'bisociation') of wit--into the self-contradictions of public policy and our own all-too-human follies.

What goes around comes around.....teaching karma at the kindergarten (courtesy of John David Prabhu)

Complete Idiot's Guide to understanding turbans: telling the safe from the dangerous (courtesy of John David Prabhu)

Knowledge Management

Jeff Conklin's Wicked Problems - Fighting Terrorism