The Koboi Project is a photo-performative instantiation of identity across the discontinuities of a multi-generational diasporic experience.
A giant banner of Pakatan Harapan Leader and PM hopeful, Anwar Ibrahim, was erected at Gugusan Manjoi in the Tambun constituency. According to the Malay Mail this prompted his rival for the seat, Ahmad Faizal Azumu of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, to say “Is that Anwar Ibrahim? I thought it was Godzilla.”
My own sentiment is that I wish I could be there … Deja Vu!
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.
Some gave them white bread,
And some gave them brown;
Never mind the plum cake
The Jewel’s got the Crown!
This is a momentous turn of events for the UK. It is a bit like Obama’s arrival on the political scene of the USA. On the one hand, all people of colour should be happy and the Conservatives should be commended for looking beyond race, on the other, it is premature to congratulate the UK as the population has not voted for Sunak. Will race come into play in an election, when it happens? I believe it will, as it did around Obama’s election … but unlike the US electorate, the UK polity may be not be ready for black leadership. If, in fact, the UK is ready, that would of course, be a good thing …. but then again, what about Sunak in himself – is he worthy of ones vote beyond the virtue of his skin. He is a millionaire in his own right, billionaire by marriage, and an exemplary neo-liberal globalist. Those who are on the left of the political spectrum certainly cannot really endorse him … but then the Labour party no longer represents the British working people either ….. Regardless of its historical moment, the salient quality of this turn of events is irony – if India was once the Jewel in the Crown of the great British Empire, an Indian has now become the ‘head’ of a much diminished British Isles … indeed, now, the Jewel has the Crown!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_and_the_Unicorn
https://www.knowswhy.com/why-india-was-called-the-jewel-in-the-crown/
A group of Ukrainian academics has written an open letter to Noam Chomsky critiquing his commentaries on what they categorically define as the “Russian war on Ukraine.” The critique is in fact addressed to Chomsky and “other like-minded intellectuals.” As I have featured many of these intellectuals and their views on my blog, I feel it is important to share this critique.
7 key errors are identified –
#1: Denying Ukraine’s sovereign integrity
#2: Treating Ukraine as an American pawn on a geo-political chessboard
#3. Suggesting that Russia was threatened by NATO
#4. Stating that the U.S. isn’t any better than Russia
#5. Whitewashing Putin’s goals for invading Ukraine
#6. Assuming that Putin is interested in a diplomatic solution
#7. Advocating that yielding to Russian demands is the way to avert the nuclear war
While I recognize the validity of this critique, and the nobility of the national perspective it represents, I would like to suggest that this view might be tempered by the acknowledgment of the enmeshment of Ukraine, by virtue of both history and geography, within the geopolitics of Imperialism, both Russian and American. I suggest that this crisis arose as a result of a disregard or misjudgment, by all responsible parties, of the forces at play. I further suggest, that there can be no solution, no peace, without a realistic reconciliation and containment of the now unfurling forces. The longer the conflict ensues, the more it deepens, and the more irreconcilable the situation becomes.
An international Zoom rally on April 9 organised by Peace in Ukraine called for two days of protest and campaigning against the war on May 7 and on June 25, days before the NATO summit in Madrid.
Code Pink and their fellow travellers are calling for –
They are calling on all anti-war organisations, progressive groups and concerned individuals to come together on May 7 and June 25 to organise protests, public meetings and petitioning sessions as part of an international day of action for peace.
© 2022 CODEPINK, Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, No To NATO Network
Geetha Mohan of India Today conducts an incisive interview with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov about the situation in Ukraine. He explains the Russian perspective that the war is rooted in the US and West’s efforts to create a springboard against them by pumping arms into Ukraine. Regardless of one’s position on the war, it is refreshing to see the art and craft of the journalism alive and well in India. The interview is presented unedited and in its entirety. Geetha is persistent yet graceful in her pursuit of answers.
I have been struggling to rationalize my realist reading of the war with my sense of the brutality and utter irrationality of Russia’s assault on the nationals, the nation and the very nationhood of Ukraine. I even stopped posting my views on this crisis due to the imcommensurability of these two responses within myself. I understood the dichotomy but had not found the language or image by which to articulate the schism., and then I found an article by Richard Falk titled Why Ukraine?
According to Richard Falk, who is Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, there are two wars going on – the first is what he describes as the “traditional war between the invading forces of Russia and the resisting forces of Ukraine” and the second – a “geopolitical war between the U.S. and Russia.” In this scenario there are two aggressors, two villans if you like. Just as as Russia is the aggressor in the traditional war, it is the U.S. that is the aggressor in the geopolitical war. He explains that “it is the prosecution of this latter war that presents the more profound danger to world peace” and that this danger has been obscured by its being treated as “a mere dimension” of the prior, ‘traditional’ confrontation.”
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Haitian Lives Matter!
As the U.S. welcomes up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, immigration officials are preparing ‘for’ (read: to repel) a surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The amount of pain that comes with seeing this beautiful picture is unbearable. The well-deserved love, kindness, dignity, compassion, protection that is given to this little girl is never afforded to little black Haitian girls at POTUS’s doorsteps. Trump said it, Biden proved it!”
Guerline Jozef
Executive Director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/30/us_southern_border_migrants_refugees
Now that the Russian invasion has come to pass and fighting has deepened, the possibility for peace in Ukraine can not be premised on ideals but must be based on compromise. Anatol Lieven, Professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Qatar; visiting professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London; and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC, suggests that such a compromise is necessary to save Ukraine from destruction and loss of life, as well as to preserve Ukrainian sovereignty. A prolongation of the war will likely mean that large areas will be permanently lost to Russia, particularly the land linking Crimea to Russia.
Lieven suggests the terms of a possible peace –
Now according to Calum Roche, Russia has expressed a willingness to end the war on the following terms –
While it has been underplayed by the mainstream media in the West, this Russian peace proposal is close to Lieven’s suggestion as outlined above. Russia’s terms seem to constitute a reasonable (in realpolitik terms, not in terms of what is fair or just) set of demands given Russia’s overwhelming might and the West’s proven unwillingness to engage Russia directly. Can Ukraine keep fighting the Russians alone? What can Ukraine gain by pursuing this asymmetrical fight? In their valiant resistance thus far, Ukrainians have amassed much capital with which to negotiate. The Russians may have bitten off more than they can handle and be ready to compromise. On the other hand, a long and continued resistance will likely mean that larger areas will fall to Russia, not to mention devastation and loss of life.
Peace is an urgent necessity for Ukraine and Ukrainians! It seems, however, that Russia’s condition 5. might mitigate against NATO and the USA’s ascendency, and condition 6. might threaten the powerful ultra-nationalist forces that are aligned with Ukrainian state. Will these realities diminish the Ukrainian leadership’s capacity to make the compromises needed to arrive at a speedy cessation of fighting?
Image: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/03/04/what-path-negotiated-peace-ukraine
In an article titled “Was Ukraine betrayed by its own elites?,” Lee Jones, Professor of Political Economy and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London, outlines the forces whose interplay has led to the horrific invasion that Ukraine faces today. He implicates both Russia and the West but, ultimately lays the blame at the feet of competing Ukrainian oligarchs. He suggests that the most likely outcome, now that Russia has invaded Ukraine, is the balkanization of the nation along ethnolinguistic lines. Yet he is hopeful that, in the light of the mutual injury inflicted thus far, Russia-Ukraine negotiations might progress, leading to a compromise that will restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity (to the extent that is still possible) and secure peace. He suggests that this will involve –
Image: https://forbes.ua/ratings/100-bogateyshikh-ukraintsev-2021-06052021-1536
https://unherd.com/2022/03/was-ukraine-betrayed-by-its-own-elites/
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