There are times in the history of music when one event charts the course for the future. If there was one defining moment which changed the course of jazz for the next 50 years, it was Miles Davis’ album ‘Bitches Brew’. Miles Davis in this double album with electrified (in its real sense) jazz, paving the way for this genre to become the dominant force in jazz.
What Miles did was sacrilege for the purists. As Ryan Bray, a music critic put it “Whether Bitches Brew elevated rock or lowered jazz to the former’s level might still be worth debating to some. But what’s less debatable is how it smashed musical barriers, opening up new avenues for generations of bands and musicians of all stripes to explore.” Undoubtedly his fusing jazz with rock created a template for future jazz musicians.
Miles knew with ‘Bitches Brew’ he was creating history, and with its eclecticism he was charting a new course for jazz. In ‘Bitches Brew’, Miles brought in the most formidable lineup of young jazz musicians who were exponents of electric instruments. Each one who played on the album went on to dominate the world of jazz/rock/fusion: Wayne Shorter on the soprano saxophone, Joe Zawinhul on electric piano, Chick Correa on electric piano, John McLaughlin on electric guitar, Dave Holland on bass, 19 year old Lenny White and Jack Johnette on drums, power drummer Billy Cobham, Airto Moreira on percussion, Bennie Maupin on bass clarinet. After ‘Bitches Brew’ came significant and influential formations of experimental jazz like John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Correa’s Return To Forever, Joe Zawinhul and Wayne Shorter’s Weather Report.
Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (Live In Copenhagen, 1969)
A BRILLIANT RENDITION OF BITCHES BREW AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 1971
‘Bitches Brew’ was the boldest foray made by a jazz musician. It would revolutionise the was jazz would be played in the years to come. The subtlety of jazz fused with the raw energy of electric rock was to create what we call today as fusion jazz.
The title track ‘Bitches Brew’ kickstarts with incredible energy. The scintillating interplay between the guitar, keyboards and the drums is worth a million listens. ‘Spanish Key’ is a 17 minute masterpiece and master play of jazz rock. It starts with a guitar, horn, keyboard intro with Miles gently gliding in with his inimitable cool style of trumpet playing. Towards the end it becomes an the intricate and energetic interplay of the various instruments with Miles’ trumpet holding the disparate components into a cohesive whole . One of the most memorable pieces is Intriguinglynamed ‘John McLaughlin‘. It is expectedly a guitar dominated track. With McLaughlin’s crunching guitar and the keyboard providing the foundation, it is still one of the most formidable guitar based jazz rock tracks. It is the shortest piece on the album and yet left a trailblazing influence on the course of jazz guitar playing in the years to come.
The track ‘Miles Runs the Voodoo Down‘ another lengthy 14 minute masterpiece. This is one of my favorite pieces is still a gem after 50 years. On this electric jazz rock arrangement, Miles’ trumpet creates his voodoo magic. His trumpet weaves and blends through intricate guitar and keyboard playing. Also on display is Wayne Shorter’s saxophone playing.
Sanctuary is actually a placid respite from the agitated atmosphere of the previous tracks. It takes us back to the Miles’ cool style of playing from his earlier classics like A Kind of Blue. In between this 11 minute track is an interlude of Miles’ trumpet amidst the atmospherics created by the electric keyboard , drums and Airto’s percussion, a style which would be imitated by many bands.
Feio is a delightfully experimental piece. This is one of the languid and laid back tracks. It allows each of these fantastic musicians to play their parts bidding goodbye to their listeners. It gives space and time to the listener to reflect on the tempest which blew over them ealier.
Let me warn the reader that for a listener who foraging into the kind of jazz-rock-fusion in Bitches Brew for the first time, it is not an easy listen. There is density of myriad sounds, ideas, compositions and creations in constant agitation. The tapestry Miles and his band of incredible musicians weave is complex. Each listen gives a new insight, a new experience, a new nuance. Paying attention to the individual parts and allowing it to grow on you with its disparate and often dissonant and atonal components is the path to the nirvana Miles wanted to take you to.
THE DELUSIONAL ECONOMICS OF THE BJP Suppose there are 10 people on a bus in Delhi and the average of their yearly income is Rs.10,00,000/-. At the next stop, one person on the bus gets off and Bill Gates gets on. Mr. Gates makes Rs. 5,85,000 crores a year. What is the new average salary of people on the bus? A lazy analyst takes the sample of the bus riders and reports that the average per capita income per annum of the residents of Delhi as Rs. 58.50 Crores . We are living in precisely this unthinking delusional economics of the BJP.
10 YEARS OF LACK LUSTRE GROWTH CONCEALING ECONOMIC DEVASTATION We are made to celebrate these delusions. The hopelessly short of expectation gross annual domestic product at $ 3.385 trillion does not reveal the dark underbelly of the Indian economy.
The half-truths and false narratives do not tell you the real story of Indian economic devastation:- A. 29,00,000 people lost their jobs this year. 17,00,000 lost their jobs last year. B. The unemployment rate is 8 percent; among graduates the unemployment rate is over 40%. C. Lakhs of MSMEs have shut down and are no longer creators of jobs. D. 97% of Indians have become poorer. E. 50% of manufacturing jobs are lost. F. The demand for work under the MNREGA has gone up from 4.56 crores in 2011-12 to 8.19 crores in 2021. 2.31 crores were not given the work. G. The economy is in a crisis. Despite the claim that India is the fastest growing economy in the world, our growth rate has fallen to 5.9% a far cry from the roaring GDP during the UPA period of 2004-14 clocking over 8% average. H. Inequality between the rich on the one hand and the poor and middle classes on the other have increased sharply. A report titled “Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922- 2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj” by leading global economists, including Thomas Piketty, shows that India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is more unequal than ever under the British Raj. I. The dismantling of the welfare state has put the large sections of the society to brunt of employment loss or reduction of incomes inflation etc.
INDIA A YOUNG COUNTRY The Congress manifesto recognizes that India is a young country with a huge population of the youth. It is necessary therefore to address their aspirations, develop their energy, their enthusiasm and their ideas to match the challenges of the future. At the heart manifesto is the implicit and explicit promise that the power will flow towards the people instead of being grabbed and held centrally. It is very clear that the BJP, given the speeches of the Prime Minister is unable to provide economic solutions and is unable to get out the sectarian claptrap of the perceived Middle Ages. It is for this reason that the NYAYA PATRA becomes important, relevant and enduring as a glow of hope for India in 2024.
The Manifesto makes clear India’s economic performance is not just creating a larger pie. Its lies in ensuring it’s just distribution as well. Unbridled crony capitalism has destroyed the vitals of not just the nation but also its economic and social structure. It is important to note that what is being sought to be created is a stakeholder economy in which real opportunity is extended, non-partisan merit is rewarded, and no section of society is locked out. This is in consonance and in continuity with UPA I and II which not only achieved the highest continuous growth rate in this country but also pulled out 100 million out of the poverty.
EDUCATION AND SKILLSET At the core of the Congress manifesto lies its emphasis on empowering the population of India through education and skills development. This is indirect contrast to the BJP regime by privatization and jettisoning of the welfare state sought to offer high class education to those on the top but inadequate or virtually no education and training for the majority shockingly the last 10 years dedicated to unbridled privatisation has resulted in closing down 61000 government run schools.
NYAYA PATRA, 2024 ON DEMOCRACY DEFICIT The Nyaya Patra 2024 deals a body blow to the current narrative, Institutions have lost independence Every institution, including Constitutional bodies, has been undermined and, in some cases, forced to become subservient to the government.” And most importantly it does not mince any words and deals head on with the very burning issue of the day “Democracy in India has been hollowed out and we are rapidly sliding to become a one-party and one-person dictatorship”. INC Manifesto gives the importance the Constitution deserves. As we look around the debris of the destruction of the Constitution the manifesto provides both hope and succor.
ON EMPLOYMENT, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND THE WELFARE STATE Social justice becomes paramount. For without social justice huge swathes of the Indian population will be left out of the growth story. In the present scenario we have plummeted to the depths of hunger index (111 th out of 125 countries behind Bangladesh and Pakistan) and unemployment (currently at an all-time overall high of 8% and shockingly for gradates it is as high as 29.1%).
Therefore, at the heart of this manifesto lies the urgent need for skill development, employment and distributive justice to strengthen both social and economic cohesion. It is only a strong, active, and just society that an individual can thrive. The manifesto is seeking for the people of India must have to have a direct stake in the economy.
INCLUSIVITY SOCIETY AND DIVERSE POLITICAL LEADERSHIP This is in absolute contrast to the policies, the ideology and the workings of the BJP in the last 10 years. For the last 10 years BJP defined the Indian nation by not what unites us but what divides us. It has accentuated the religious and caste fault lines and thereby created a nation at perpetual war on itself. It even touted and created an unequal society as a new normal and marketed it as the ideal vision. The Manifesto discards the existing and sanctioned social order of hierarchy and the violent repression.
The Congress manifesto is reaching out as the party of the people, an inclusive society and a heterogeneous and diverse political leadership to be brought together by core essentials which brought this country both the freedom and the constitution.
It is most unfortunate that the BJP for a decade adopted pursued the most corrosive toxic politics by pushing the sectarian wedge into the Indian polity. No nation which is divided, unjust and cruel can tread the path of growth. A country at war with itself has the faintest chance in today’s mostly competitive world. What the political debate requires is rational discussion of serious issues which are both difficult and challenging but not unsurmountable. It is therefore critical that the Congress manifesto is seeking for regeneration and rewriting of our politics. It is ready to provide the leadership this country needs. It demonstrates both confidence and open mindedness and seeks inputs and contributions in letter spirit and body of this vast nation.
The Congress manifesto is putting in place reformed capitalism and enlightened social sector. This provides a heart to the social and economic policies and also making the market work effectively for the larger purpose. Markets can work when they are balanced with concern and care for the larger segments of the society. The purpose of the market should be to serve the society as a whole.
SANTOSH PAUL, SENIOR ADVOCATE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
നിങ്ങളെല്ലാവരും 2024 ഏപ്രിൽ 26-ന് വോട്ട് ചെയ്യാൻ പോകുന്നതിനാലാണ് ഞാൻ നിങ്ങൾക്ക് എഴുതുന്നത്. തൃശൂർ കേരള സംസ്ഥാനത്തിൻ്റെ രൂപകമാണെന്ന് ഞാൻ നിങ്ങളോസന്തോഷ്ട്രോഫിട് പറയട്ടെ. കേരളത്തിലെ ഭൂരിഭാഗം പ്രദേശങ്ങളെയും പോലെ തൃശ്ശൂരിൽ 95.96% സാക്ഷരതയും 97.37% പുരുഷ സാക്ഷരതയും സ്ത്രീ സാക്ഷരത 94.72% ഉം ആണ്.
നമ്മുടെ സാമ്പത്തിക ചരിത്രത്തെക്കുറിച്ച് ഞാൻ നിങ്ങളോട് ചിലത് പറയട്ടെ. 1970-കളുടെ മധ്യത്തിൽ ഞാൻ കോയമ്പത്തൂരില് സ്കൂളില് പഠിക്കുകയായിരുന്നു. കോയമ്പത്തൂരിലെ തൊഴിലാളികളുടെ കൂലി നിരക്ക് പ്രതിദിനം 2 രൂപയായിരുന്നു. അതിർത്തി കടന്ന് കേരളത്തിൽ ഇത് അഞ്ചിരട്ടിയും. പ്രതിദിനം 10 രൂപ. വ്യവസായങ്ങൾ തമിഴ്നാട്ടിലേക്ക് കുടിയേറിയതോടെ കേരളത്തിലെ വ്യവസായത്തിനും ജനസംഖ്യയ്ക്കും അന്ത്യം പ്രഖ്യാപിക്കപ്പെട്ടു. അതുണ്ടായില്ല.
സാമ്പത്തിക ശാസ്ത്രത്തെ ധിക്കരിക്കുന്ന ശ്രദ്ധേയമായ ചിലത് കേരളത്തിൽ സംഭവിച്ചുകൊണ്ടിരുന്നു. 1976-1980 കാലഘട്ടത്തിലെ ആയുർദൈർഘ്യത്തിൻ്റെ അഖിലേന്ത്യാ ശരാശരി വെറും 52 വർഷമായിരുന്നു. കേരളത്തിൽ അത് 66 വയസ്സായിരുന്നു. ജനനസമയത്ത് ഉയർന്ന ആയുർദൈർഘ്യം, കുറഞ്ഞ മരണനിരക്ക്, സന്തുലിത ആൺ-പെൺ അനുപാതം, ഉയർന്ന സാക്ഷരതാ നിരക്ക്, കുറഞ്ഞ ദാരിദ്ര്യം തുടങ്ങിയ ഈ പ്രതിഭാസം വികസന സാമ്പത്തിക ശാസ്ത്രത്തിൽ ‘കേരള വളർച്ചാ മാതൃക’ എന്ന പേരിൽ ഉടൻ പേര് നേടാന് ഇരിക്കുന്നതെ ഒള്ളു.
90-കളുടെ മധ്യത്തോടെ, അമർത്യ സെൻ തൻ്റെ ‘ഇന്ത്യ: സാമ്പത്തിക വികസനവും സാമൂഹിക അവസരവും’ (India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity) എന്ന പുസ്തകത്തിൽ ഈ സാമ്പത്തിക പ്രതിഭാസത്തെക്കുറിച്ച് നിരീക്ഷണങ്ങള് രേഖപ്പെടുത്തി. ഇന്ത്യയുടെ പല ഭാഗങ്ങളും സബ്-സഹാറൻ ആഫ്രിക്കയേക്കാൾ മോശമായ സ്ഥാനങ്ങളിലാണെന്ന് അദ്ദേഹം കണ്ടെത്തി, തികച്ചും വ്യത്യസ്തമായി, നിരവധി മാനവ വികസന സൂചിക മാനദണ്ഡങ്ങളിൽ കേരളം ഇന്തോനീഷ്യ, തായ്ലൻഡ്, ദക്ഷിണ കൊറിയ എന്നിവയെക്കാൾ മുന്നിലാണ്. നൊബേൽ സമ്മാന ജേതാവ് അഭിപ്രായപ്പെട്ടത്, ഇന്നും സത്യമാണ്, “പ്രാഥമിക വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം, ഭൂപരിഷ്കരണം, ആരോഗ്യ സംരക്ഷണത്തിൻ്റെയും, സമൂഹത്തിൽ സ്ത്രീകളുടെ പങ്കാളിത്തം എന്നിവയുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ട നിരവധി സാമൂഹിക അവസരങ്ങൾ പ്രോത്സാഹിപ്പിക്കുന്നതിൽ പൊതുപ്രവർത്തനത്തിൻ്റെ സംഭാവനകളാണ് കേരളത്തിൻ്റെ വിജയം.
രസകരമെന്നു പറയട്ടെ, ഉത്തർപ്രദേശിൻ്റെ പരാജയങ്ങൾക്ക് കാരണം അതേ അവസരങ്ങളോടുള്ള പൊതു അവഗണനയാണ്.
എന്നിട്ടും ഈ തെരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പിൽ, പ്രത്യേകിച്ച് തൃശൂരിൽ, മതനിരപേക്ഷ രാഷ്ട്രീയവും അതിൻ്റെ സമന്വയ പൈതൃകവും ക്ഷേമാധിഷ്ഠിത സാമ്പത്തിക ശാസ്ത്രവും ഉപേക്ഷിച്ചാൽ, കേരളത്തിന് കൂടുതൽ നല്ല കാര്യങ്ങൾ സംഭരിക്കുമെന്ന് ഒരു വിവരണം മുന്നോട്ട് കൊണ്ടുപോകാൻ ശ്രമിക്കുന്നു.
കേരളത്തിൻ്റെ വിജയത്തിൻ്റെ കാതൽ അതിൻ്റെ മതങ്ങൾക്കിടയിലുള്ള സൌഹാര്ദ്ടവും മഹത്തായ മതനേതാക്കളുടെയും പരിഷ്കരണവാദികളുടെയും പരിവർത്തന സന്ദേശവുമാണ്. സാമുദായിക സൗഹാർദ്ദത്തിൻ്റെ ദൈർഘ്യമേറിയതും കളങ്കമില്ലാത്തതുമായ പൈതൃകമാണ് കേരളത്തിലെ മതങ്ങൾക്കുള്ളത്. ഇത് വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തിനും ആരോഗ്യ സംരക്ഷണത്തിനുമുള്ള സമർപ്പിത ശ്രമങ്ങൾ സാധ്യമാക്കി, അത് തൃശൂർ പോലുള്ള നഗരങ്ങളെ എല്ലാ മാനുഷിക വികസന സൂചികയിലും മുകളിൽ എത്തിച്ചു.
കേരളത്തിൻ്റെ സമന്വയ പൈതൃകത്തിന് ഈ പ്രദേശത്തിൻ്റെ തനതായ ചരിത്രവുമായി ഒരുപാട് ബന്ധമുണ്ട്. കൊടുങ്ങല്ലൂരിലേക്ക് പോകാം. ഒരു 10 കിലോമീറ്ററിനുള്ളിൽ, നമ്മുടെ സമന്വയ നാഗരികതയുടെ നാല് വ്യത്യസ്ത ചിഹ്നങ്ങളുണ്ട്: (1) പട്ടണത്തെ മുഴിരിസ് തുറമുഖം (ബിസി ഒന്നാം നൂറ്റാണ്ട് മുതൽ എഡി 14 ആം നൂറ്റാണ്ട് വരെ യൂറോപ്പ്, മിഡിൽ ഈസ്റ്റ്, മെഡിറ്ററേനിയൻ, ചൈന എന്നിവയുമായി വ്യാപാരം നടത്തിയിരുന്നു), (2) സെൻ്റ് തോമസ് ഇറങ്ങിയതായി കരുതപ്പെടുന്ന അഴീക്കോട് ജെട്ടി, (3) ഏഴാം നൂറ്റാണ്ടിലെ ചേരമാൻ ജുമാ മസ്ജിദ് രാജ്യത്തെ ഏറ്റവും പഴക്കം ചെന്ന പള്ളി, (4). 1800 വർഷം പഴക്കമുള്ള കൊടുങ്ങല്ലൂർ ഭഗവതി ക്ഷേത്രം. ഇത് നമ്മുടെ വൈവിധ്യത്തിൻ്റെ ആഘോഷത്തെ പ്രതീകപ്പെടുത്തുന്നു, ഇത് നമ്മുടെ സമൂഹത്തിൻ്റെ പുരോഗതിയെ എങ്ങനെ പ്രാപ്തമാക്കി.
കേരളത്തിൻ്റെ വിജയത്തിനൊപ്പം അതൃപ്തികളും വന്നു; തങ്ങളുടെ സാമൂഹിക സാമ്പത്തിക നേട്ടങ്ങളും മുന്നിര സ്ഥാനവും നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടവർ; സാമൂഹിക സമത്വം അരോചകമായി കാണുന്നവർ; സമൂഹത്തിലെ മതപരവും സാമൂഹികവുമായ സൗഹാർദവുമായി പൊരുത്തപ്പെടാത്തവരും സാമ്പത്തിക ചലനത്തിൻ്റെ ദ്രുതഗതിയിലുള്ള വേഗത അവർക്ക് രുചികരമല്ലാത്തവരുമായിരുന്നു. ഈ അസംതൃപ്തികൾ ഇപ്പോൾ പലരെയും ബോധപൂർവമായും, ചിലരില് അറിയാതെയും, വർഗീയ, വിഭാഗീയ ആശയങ്ങളോട് അടുപ്പിക്കുന്നു.
തിരഞ്ഞെടുപ്പ് ആരംഭിച്ചതോടെ, കഴിഞ്ഞ ഏതാനും മാസങ്ങളായി, സമുദായങ്ങൾക്കിടയിൽ വിഭാഗീയതയും വിദ്വേഷവും വളർത്തുന്ന കാഴ്ചയാണ് കേരളം കാണുന്നത്.
നൂറ്റാണ്ടുകളുടെ സാമുദായിക സൗഹാർദത്തെക്കുറിച്ച് വീമ്പിളക്കുന്ന ഒരു സംസ്ഥാനത്ത് ഒരു വിഭാഗീയ വിള്ളലുണ്ടാക്കാൻ ശ്രമങ്ങള് നടക്കുന്നു. നമ്മുടെ ഒട്ടുമിക്ക രാഷ്ട്രീയ നേതാക്കൾക്കും ഈ വിഭാഗീയ വികാരങ്ങൾ ഇല്ലാതാക്കാനുള്ള ധൈര്യം ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു എന്നത് പ്രശംസനീയമാണ് . വിഭാഗീയ സംഘർഷം ആളികത്തിക്കുവാനുള്ള ശ്രമങ്ങൾ തുടരുമെന്നതിനാൽ, ലെബനൻ ചരിത്രത്തിൽ നിന്നുള്ള പാഠങ്ങൾ പഠിക്കുന്നത് കേരളത്തിന് ഗുണംചെയ്യും. കേരളത്തെപ്പോലെ ലെബനനും മിഡിൽ ഈസ്റ്റിലെ സമ്പന്നവും ബഹുമതവും വംശീയ വൈവിദ്ധ്യമുള്ളതുമായ ഒരു സമൂഹത്തിൻ്റെ പ്രഭവകേന്ദ്രമായിരുന്നു. ഇവിടെ ക്രിസ്ത്യാനികളും ഷിയകളും സുന്നി മുസ്ലീങ്ങളും ഡ്രൂസും ജൂതന്മാരും സഹവർത്തിത്വവും അഭിവൃദ്ധിയും പ്രാപിച്ചു. എഡ്വേർഡ് സെയ്ദ് പറഞ്ഞതുപോലെ, ലെബനോന് “തുറന്ന മനസ്ഥിതികള്, വൈവിധ്യം, ജീവിതത്തിൻ്റെ സന്തോഷം” എന്നിവയുടെ പര്യായമായിരുന്നു.
കേരളത്തെപ്പോലെ ലെബനനും വളരെ നേരത്തെ തന്നെ ആധുനിക വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം സ്വീകരിച്ചു. മതങ്ങൾക്കിടയിൽ സമാധാനവും സാക്ഷരതാ നിലവാരവും 73.5% ആയതിനാൽ, ലെബനൻ അറബ് ലോകത്ത് ഒരു നല്ല തുടക്കം കുറിച്ചു. വിദേശത്ത് ജോലി ചെയ്യുന്ന ലെബനീസ് പ്രവാസികൾ വിദേശ നാണയങ്ങൾ അയച്ചു, ഇത് ലെബനൻ സമ്പദ്വ്യവസ്ഥയുടെ കോട്ടയായി മാറി. ലെബനൻ്റെ ചലനാത്മക സമ്പദ്വ്യവസ്ഥ ഉയർന്ന വളർച്ചാ നിരക്കും, വിദേശ മൂലധനത്തിൻ്റെ വലിയ ഒഴുക്കും, വരുമാനം ക്രമാനുഗതമായി ഉയരുന്നതും സാക്ഷ്യം വഹിച്ചു. ഇത് മിഡിൽ ഈസ്റ്റിലെ വാണിജ്യത്തിൻ്റെയും വ്യാപാരത്തിൻ്റെയും പ്രഭവകേന്ദ്രമായി മാറി. പെട്രോ-ഡോളർ കുതിച്ചുചാട്ടത്തിൻ്റെ പ്രധാന സ്രോതസ്സായി ലെബനീസ് ബാങ്കുകൾ മാറി, പുതിയതായി കണ്ടെത്തിയ അറബ് സമ്പത്തിൻ്റെ ശേഖരങ്ങളായി.
എന്നിരുന്നാലും, ഈ അഭിവൃദ്ധി വിഭാഗീയ രാഷ്ട്രീയത്തിന് ആക്കം കൂട്ടി. മതരാഷ്ട്രീയത്തിൻ്റെ വളർച്ചയോടെ, മതങ്ങൾക്കിടയിലെ സന്ധികൾ കഷണങ്ങളായി തകരാൻ തുടങ്ങി. 1975 ഏപ്രിൽ 13 ഞായറാഴ്ച, ലെബനൻ്റെ ചരിത്രത്തിൽ രക്തത്തിൽ എഴുതപ്പെട്ടിരിക്കും. ഷെയ്ക് ഗെമയേൽ പിയറിൻ്റെ ക്രിസ്ത്യൻ മിലിഷ്യയും അജ്ഞാതരായ തോക്കുധാരികളും തമ്മിൽ വെടിവയ്പ്പ് നടന്നു. അതേ ദിവസം 27 പലസ്തീനുകാര് ഒരു ആക്രമണത്തിൽ കൊല്ലപ്പെട്ടു. ഈ രണ്ട് അക്രമ സംഭവങ്ങളും, ഹ്രസ്വകാല നേട്ടങ്ങൾക്കായി രാഷ്ട്രീയ ഉന്നതർ ശ്രദ്ധാപൂർവ്വം വളർത്തിയെടുത്ത വിഭാഗീയ വികാരങ്ങൾ കാരണം സംഭവിച്ചതാണ്. സ്ഥിതിഗതികൾ ശാന്തമാക്കുന്നതിനുപകരം നേതാക്കൾ ജനങ്ങളെ ഇളക്കിവിടുകയായിരുന്നു. താമസിയാതെ ബെയ്റൂട്ട് അക്രമാസക്തമായി പൊട്ടിത്തെറിച്ചു. ലബനനിലെ മതങ്ങൾ അവരുടെ സായുധ സേനകളുമായി ഉടൻ കളത്തിലിറങ്ങി. ഈ അത്ഭുതകരമായ രാജ്യം ഒരു ആഭ്യന്തരയുദ്ധത്തിലേക്ക് തകര്ന്നടിഞ്ഞു.
എല്ലാ സംഘട്ടനങ്ങളിലും എന്നപോലെ, ഒരു സാമ്പത്തിക വില നൽകേണ്ടി വന്നു. ലെബനനിലെ വ്യവസായങ്ങള്ക്ക് വന് നാശനഷ്ടമുണ്ടായി (വ്യവസായത്തിൻ്റെ സ്ഥിര മൂലധനത്തിൻ്റെ അഞ്ചിലൊന്ന് നശിപ്പിക്കപ്പെട്ടു). വ്യവസായം, വ്യാപാരം, എന്നിവയ്ക്ക് പരോക്ഷമായ നാശനഷ്ടങ്ങളും ഉണ്ടായി.
ബെയ്റൂട്ടിൽ എത്തിയ വിദേശ ബാങ്കുകൾ പ്രതിസന്ധിയിലായ ആ നഗരത്തിൽ നിന്ന് പലായനം ചെയ്യുകയായിരുന്നു. ഫണ്ടുകള് കവിന്ജോഴുകിയിരുന്ന ലെബനൻ ബാങ്കുകൾ അവരുടെ നിക്ഷേപങ്ങള് കുറയുന്നത് നോക്കി നില്കാനെ പറ്റിയുള്ളൂ. ഒരുകാലത്ത് ഡോളറിനെതിരെ അഭിമാനത്തോടെ ഉയർന്നിരുന്ന ലെബനീസ് പൗണ്ട് തകർന്നു. വിഭാഗീയ രാഷ്ട്രീയത്തിനും കലഹത്തിനും ധനസഹായം നൽകിയ വാണിജ്യ ഉന്നതർ സുരക്ഷിതമായ പടിഞ്ഞാറൻ തലസ്ഥാനങ്ങളിലേക്കാണ് പലായനംചെയ്തത്.
15 വർഷത്തെ അനിശ്ചിതത്വ പോരാട്ടത്തിനൊടുവിൽ തായിഫ് സൗദി അറേബ്യയിൽ ഒരു സന്ധിക്ക് രൂപം നൽകി. 15 വർഷത്തെ ആഭ്യന്തരയുദ്ധത്തിനൊടുവിൽ ലബനൻ ഉണർന്നു, പക്ഷെ അറബ് ലോകത്ത് തങ്ങളുടെ മുൻനിര സ്ഥാനം എന്നന്നേക്കുമായി നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടുവെന്ന് കണ്ടെത്തി.
അറബ് പണത്തിന് വിദ്യാസമ്പന്നരും ബഹുഭാഷ സിദ്ധരുമായ ലെബനീസുകാരെ ആവശ്യമില്ലാതെ ആയിരുന്നു. പാശ്ചാത്യ ബാങ്കുകളുമായും കോർപ്പറേഷനുകളുമായും നേരിട്ട് ഇടപെടാൻ മിഡിൽ ഈസ്റ്റിലെ വ്യവസായികൾ പഠിച്ചിരുന്നു അതിനകം. ഒരു കാലത്ത് അറബ് ലോകത്തിൻ്റെ സാമ്പത്തിക തലസ്ഥാനമായിരുന്ന ലെബനന് ആ സ്ഥാനം നഷ്ടപെട്ടു. മിഡിൽ ഈസ്റ്റ് സ്വന്തം വിപണികളും സാമ്പത്തിക കേന്ദ്രങ്ങളും വികസിപ്പിച്ചെടുത്തിരുന്നു. ദുബായ്, റിയാദ്, മസ്കറ്റ്, ദോഹ തുടങ്ങി നിരവധി ലോകോത്തര ധനകാര്യ കേന്ദ്രങ്ങൾ ആ കാലയളവില് പൂത്തുലഞ്ഞു കഴിഞ്ഞിരുന്നു.
ആഭ്യന്തരയുദ്ധത്തിനു മുമ്പുള്ള ലെബനൻ്റെ സ്ഥാനത്താണ് കേരളം. മതങ്ങൾക്കിടയിലുള്ള സമാധാനമാണ് മനുഷ്യവികസന സൂചികയുടെ തലകറങ്ങുന്ന ഉയരങ്ങളിൽ കയറാൻ സംസ്ഥാനത്തെ പ്രാപ്തമാക്കിയത്. ഈ സമാധാനമാണ് ദശാബ്ദങ്ങളായി മികച്ച പൊതുവിദ്യാഭ്യാസ സംവിധാനങ്ങളും പൊതുജനാരോഗ്യ പരിപാലന സംവിധാനങ്ങളും അന്താരാഷ്ട്ര തലത്തിൽ മാനുഷിക സൂചകവും വികസിപ്പിക്കാൻ സംസ്ഥാനത്തെ പ്രാപ്തമാക്കിയത്. NITI ആയോഗ് ‘ഇന്ത്യ: ബഹുമുഖ ദാരിദ്ര്യ സൂചിക 2023 എന്ന തലക്കെട്ടിൽ ഒരു റിപ്പോർട്ട് പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിച്ചു, ഇത് ശ്രദ്ധേയമായി വെളിപ്പെടുത്തുന്നു:
ബാങ്ക് അക്കൗണ്ട് നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടവർ 3.22% 4.40% 12 കുടിവെള്ളം 5.40% 5.31% 13 പാചക ഇന്ധനം 28.12% 34.74%
ഇതെല്ലാം സാധ്യമാക്കിയത് കേരളത്തിന് വിഭാഗീയതയെ മത സൌഹാര്ദവും പുരോഗമന രാഷ്രീയവും കൊണ്ടേ തടയാന് കഴിഞ്ഞത് കൊണ്ടാണ്.
അമേരിക്കയിലെ ചിക്കാഗോയിൽ ഒരു മലയാളി കുടുംബത്തിലെ ഇരുനൂറിലധികം അംഗങ്ങൾ ഒരു വിവാഹത്തിൽ പങ്കെടുക്കുന്നു. ഈ മലയാളികളെല്ലാം പ്രൊഫഷണൽ യോഗ്യതയുള്ളവരും മധ്യവർഗ അമേരിക്കയിൽ നന്നായി വേരൂന്നിയവരുമാണ്. മിതമായ നിരക്കിൽ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം, ആരോഗ്യ സംരക്ഷണം, പോഷകാഹാരം എന്നിവ നൽകിയ തുടർച്ചയായ സാമൂഹിക ജനാധിപത്യ രൂപീകരണത്തിന് വോട്ട് ചെയ്ത മാതാപിതാക്കളുടെ മക്കളാണ് അവർ. ലോകത്തിലെ ഏറ്റവും വിസ്മയകരമായ ഹ്യൂമൻ ഇൻഡക്സ് വിജയഗാഥകളുടെ ഉൽപന്നങ്ങളാണിവരെന്ന് അവർക്കറിയില്ല.
BY SANTOSH PAUL, SENIOR ADVOCATE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
I am writing to you because you all will go to vote on 26th of April 2024. Thrissur let me tell you is metaphorical for the State of Kerala. Like most of Kerala Thrissur has an overall literacy rate of 95.96%, 97.37% male literacy and female literacy of 94.72%.
Let me tell you something about our economic history. I was in school in Coimbatore in the mid 1970s. The daily labour wage rate in Coimbatore was Rs. 2 per day. Across the border, in Kerala, it was five times at Rs. 10 per day. As industries migrated to Tamil Nadu, doomsday was declared for Kerala’s industry and its population. That was not to be.
There was something remarkable which was happening in the state of Kerala which was defying conventional economics. The all India average for life expectancy in 1976 – 1980 was just 52 years. In Kerala it was 66 years. This phenomenon of high life expectancy at birth, low death rate, well balanced male-female ratio, high literacy rate, low incidence of poverty would soon earn its name in developmental economics as the ‘Kerala growth model’.
By the mid-90s, Amartya Sen took note of this economic phenomenon in his book ‘India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity’. He found many parts of India were in positions worse than sub-Saharan Africa, and in stark contrast, Kerala was ahead of Indonesia, Thailand and even South Korea in most human development index parameters. The Nobel Laureate was to remark, which is a truism even today, “Kerala’s success can be traced to the role of public action in promoting a range of social opportunities relating to elementary education, land reform, the role of women in society, and the widespread equitable provision of health care and other public services. Interestingly Uttar Pradesh’s failures can be plausibly be attributed to the public neglect of the very same opportunities”
Yet in this elections especially in Thrissur, a narrative is sought to be advanced that there are better things in store for the Kerala state, if it abandons its secular politics, its syncretic heritage and its welfare oriented economics.
At the heart of Kerala’s success lies the peace amongst its religions and also the transformational message of its great religious leaders and the reformists. The religions of Kerala which have a long and unblemished record of communal harmony. This communal harmony made possible, dedicated efforts towards education and health care give spectacular results which has put cities like Thrissur on the top of every human development indice.
Kerala’s syncretic heritage has a lot to do with the region’s unique history. Lets go to Kodungalur. There in a 10 kilometre radius there are four distinct living symbols of our inclusive syncretic civilization : (1) the fabled port of Muzhiris at Pattanam (which conducted trade from 1st century BC to 14th century AD with Europe, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and China), (2) the Azhikode jetty where St Thomas is believed to have landed, (3) the 7th century Cheraman Juma Madjid the oldest mosque in the country and (4). the spectacular 1800 year old Kodungalur Bhagwathi temple. It symbolizes our celebration of diversity and how this has enabled progress and betterment of our society.
Along with the success of Kerala, came the discontents: those who lost their pre-eminent socio economic advantage; those who find Kerala’s social equality unacceptable; those not reconciled to the religious and social harmony in the society and for whom the sheer rapidity of economic mobility was unpalatable. These discontents are now wittingly, and some unwittingly, getting wedded to communal and sectarian ideologies.
With the onset of elections, in the last few months, Kerala is seeing the spectacle of sectarianism and enmity amongst communities being promoted by politicos. The language used is clearly to drive a sectarian wedge in a state which boasts of, as I said, centuries of communal harmony. It is commendable that most of our politicians had the courage and the gumption to dispel these sentiments.
As attempts to drum up sectarian conflict will continue, it will pay for Kerala to study the lessons from the history of Lebanon. Lebanon, like Kerala, was the very epicenter of a rich, multi-religious and ethnically diverse society in the Middle East. Here Christians, Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, the Druze and Jews coexisted and thrived. As Edward Said put it, Lebanon was synonymous with “openness, diversity and the joy of life”.
Lebanon in the late 60’s and early 70’s like Kerala took to modern education very early. With peace among its religions and literacy levels at 73.5%, Lebanon made a neat head start in the Arab world. Lebanese expats working abroad sent foreign exchange remittances which formed the bulwark of the Lebanese economy. Lebanon’s dynamic economy enjoyed high growth rates, a large influx of foreign capital, and steadily rising per capita income. It became the epicenter of commerce and trade in the Middle East. Lebanese Banks became the main source for channeling the petro-dollar boom and became the repositories of the new found Arab wealth.
However, this prosperity also brought to fore myopic sectarian politics. With the growth of denominational politics, the truce among the religions began to collapse in bits and parts. Sunday, the 13th of April 1975, will remain written in blood in the history of Lebanon. There was an exchange of fire between the Sheik Gemayel Pierre’s Christian militia and unidentified gunmen. The same day 27 Palestinian were killed in an ambush. These two violent incidents triggered the simmering sectarian passions which had been carefully cultivated by the political elites for short term gains. Instead of calming the situation, the leaders incited the masses. Beirut soon exploded into an orgy of violence. The religions of Lebanon with their armed militias soon took the field. This spectacular nation went into a civil war.
As in all conflicts, there was an economic price to be paid. The industry in Lebanon sustained a direct damage (one-fifth of the industry’s fixed capital was destroyed). There was also indirect damage to industry, trade and business. Foreign banks which came to Beirut were now fleeing the beleaguered city. Lebanese banks, once flushed with funds, were now finding their deposits depleting. The Lebanese Pound which once proudly rose against the dollar, now collapsed. The commercial elites who funded the sectarian politics and strife were now on the run to safer western capitals.
After 15 years of indecisive fighting, a truce was drawn up in Ta’if Saudi Arabia. Lebanon woke up at the end of the 15 year civil war to discover that it had lost its erstwhile pre-eminent position in the Arab world. The Arab money no longer needed the educated and multilingual Lebanese. The Middle East’s businessmen had learnt to deal directly with Western banks and corporations. Lebanon was no longer the Arab world’s financial capital. The Middle East had developed their own markets and financial centers. Dubai, Riyadh, Muscat, Doha and many other world-class financial centers bloomed in the interregnum.
Kerala is in the position of the pre-civil war Lebanon. It is the peace among religions, which has enabled the State to climb the dizzying heights of human development index. It is this peace which enabled the state over the decades to develop well-heeled public education systems, public health care systems and a human indice to international acclaim. The NITI Ayog published a report titled ‘India: Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023 which is strikingly revealing:
S.No. Indices Kerala Gujarat
Multi dimensional poverty 0.55% 11.66%
Nutritional deprivation 16.44% 38.09%
Child and adolescent mortality 0.20% 1.81%
Maternal health deprived 3.30% 12.72%
Schooling deprived 2.49% 7.94%
School attendance deprived 0.25% 5.06%
Sanitation deprived 1.27% 26.05%
Electricity deprived 0.41% 2.44%
Housing deprived 16.67% 23.30%
Asset deprived 3.05% 11.37%
Bank account deprived 3.22% 4.40% 12 Drinking Water Deprived 5.40% 5.31% 13 Cooking fuel deprived 28.12% 34.74%
All this was possible, because so far, Kerala could avoid the fratricidal and myopic politics of sectarianism which looms large in many parts of India
Before i conclude, i wanted to tell you something which i saw halfway across the globe, in Chicago. Over two hundred members of one particular Kerala family attended a wedding. All these Malayalis were all professionally qualified and well entrenched into middle class America. They are, mind you, the children of parents who voted successive social democratic formations in Kerala which gave them affordable education, healthcare, and nutrition. Little will these youngsters ever know, that they are the products of the most spectacular human index success story in the world.
Two thousand and ninety years ago, Marcus Tullius Cicero, the greatest lawyer this world has ever seen, rose to speak on behalf of the people of Sicily. This was a unique legal action under the Roman law. It was brought up by the subject peoples of Sicily, then a Roman colony, against Gaelus Verres, the Roman Governor of Sicily. Sicilians were prosecuting him for abusing his power conferred by the Roman Republic which culminated in his exile.The orations of Cicero against Verres are studied extensively for it oratorical and forensic skills. This episode in history has little to do with the controversy surrounding the guilty verdict of Prashant Bhushan arrived at by the Supreme Court. But it is a valuable study of how the people reserved their power to speak to the power of the Roman Republic at the zenith in 70 BC.
Accountable democracy is never static. But the are fundamentals never change. According to Joseph Schumpeter, “it is an institutional arranged to arrive political decisions, by making the people itself decide issues”. The people have to arrive at decisions which originate in opinions. These opinions and decisions of the people concern the working of all wings of the government which includes the judiciary. After all the functioning of the judiciary affects millions of Indians who are in effect subjects of our Constitution and stake holders in governance.
The power the court exercises for criminal contempt is a deviation from the standards of other legal actions. It is an ancient, anachronistic,but a necessary principle, in a narrow sense, that the Superior Court has a peremptory power to punish for contempt. “The usual criminal process to punish contempt was found to be cumbersome and slow, and therefore the courts at an uncertain date presumed jurisdiction themselves to punish the offence summarily, brevimanu.”[(1765) Wilm 243]. Given the nature of the power and the purpose it seeks to achieve,it is all the more critical that it is exercised carefully and with circumspect and in consonance with the sensibilities of a constitutional democracy.
The power of contempt is overwhelming without much safeguards, procedural or otherwise.It is therefore necessary, that the Court follows, besides the stranded rule of audi alterum partum, strictly the procedural letter of the law. Following of the mandatory procedure will ensure the exercise of its power without inviting the opprobrium of having acted belligerently or vindictively. The bypassing of the Attorney General in Prashant Bhushan’s case is not just a procedural impediment given a go by. The Court has axed an important due process safeguard.In Robertson v. United States ex rel. Watson, a challenge was made to the moving of criminal contempt by private individuals. Chief Justice Robert’s thought it imperative to warn on the unbridled freewheeling exercise of initiating contempt,“[t]he terrifying force of the criminal justice system may only be brought to bear against an individual by society as a whole, through a prosecution brought on of behalf of the government.” This ‘terrifying force’of contempt must necessarily be exercised in a just manner in line with the democratic traditions of our Constitution.
Does Bhushan’s guilty verdict pass the muster of the tests laid down by Justice P.B.Samant writing for the Supreme Court in 1995? The Supreme Court laid down the markers, “the courts are therefore inherently deemed to have been entrusted with the power to see that the stream of justice in the country remains, that its course is not hindered, or obstructed in any manner, the justice is delivered without fear or favour and for that purpose all the Courts and tribunals are protected while discharging their legitimate duties.” [Vinay Chandra Mishra , (1995) 2 SCC 584]. The questions in Prashant Bhushan’s case which begs an answer is (a) did his tweets hinder the stream of justice? (b) did it hinder the course of justice? (c) did it cause any impediment in justice being delivered without fear or favour? The answer is a no on all counts.
A comment on the judiciary on its working, like the tweets of Prashant Bhushan, is a criticism of the manner of its functioning. But will that per se constitute a contempt? There is a delicate balance to be maintained between the power of contempt in aiding administration of justice and the maintaining of the effective exercise of the freedom of speech and expression. “The court’s duty is to ensure that the conflict between the two does not become too acute. So a balance has to be struck and such balance must rest on a subtle understanding of and the mutual respect for each other’s needs” [A.K.Ganguly J., Kallol Guha Thakurata v. Biman Basu (2005) 2 Cal LT].
Criticism of the judiciary in all functional democracies is treated as a legitimate exercise of free speech. George Orwell wrote a piece on 9 March 1938 in the Listener. He made a trenchant comment on the nature and role of British judiciary in colonial establishments like India.
“The truth is that every British magistrate in India is in a false position when he has to try a case in which European and native interests clash. In theory is administering an impartial system of justice; in practice is part of a huge machine that exists to protect British interests, and he has often got to choose between sacrifice his integrity and the damaging his career.”
If George Orwell was silenced with a contempt, it would be a loss not just for literature but a missed opportunity in course correction.
But there is far greater issue at stake here. To illustrate, it would not be out of place to time travel to 1792 to the trial of Thomas Paine, who in his iconic work‘Rights of Man’advocated for the overthrow of an unjust government. He was tried for seditious libel.England’s eminent barrister Thomas Erskine, was pilloried and threatened for having taken Paine’s brief. His introductory oration is a telling thought on the present times..
“I will for ever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English Bar, without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence. From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and the subject arraigned in the court where he daily sits to practice, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end”.
Erskine rightly put it that a lawyer’s right to speak to power is coterminous with the rights of the people governed by a free constitution. Oscar Wilde from his prison in Reading Goal wrote, “every trial is a trial for a man’s life”. But the trial of Prashant Bhushan is a trial not just for the heart and soul of the legal profession but also of the fundamental freedoms of the citizens of India.
This is a tribute to the eminent lawyer Soli Sorabjee who has been a great patron of jazz. He recently celebrated his 90th birthday recently. He has done more than anybody else for the promotion of jazz in India.
Jazz Yatra commenced in 1978 under the patronage of people like Soli Sorabjee, Niranjan Zhaveri and many others. They revolutionized live jazz in India. Thereafter we saw an endless procession of some of the biggest names in jazz; Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Pam Crain, Larry Carlton, John Mc Laughlin and many others. With their encouragement we also saw the rise of a whole generation of Indian jazz musicians who took on the world stage. Some of whom are playing in this tribute.
Whenever I pick up the Miles Davis album ‘Bitches Brew’ I find an uncanny similarity between Miles and Soli. On this album you find some of the finest young musicians of generation Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland on bass, Chick Corea, Jack De Johnette, Joe Zawinul, John McLaughlin, Larry Young, Lenny White, Airto Moriera and Bennie Maupin. Each of these musicians went on to dominate the field of jazz in their respective sheres. Soli’s chamber, similarly trained a whole generation of lawyers who became some of India’s finest legal brains. This, I guess is the closest meeting point between between Soli and Miles and perhaps jazz and law.
Colin D’Cruz a brilliant jazz bass guitarist and composer does everything to keep jazz rocking and alive in India. This tribute would not have been possible without Colin. This is a special thanks to him.
A very special thanks goes to Stanley Pinto, Louiz Banks, Gary Lawyer, Delraaz Bunshah, Gerard Machado, Xavier Fernandes, Colin D’Cruz, Louiz Banks, each one of the musicians who played on this a tribute.
And lastly, but certainly not the least, this is both a dedication and a tribute to Soli Sorabjee. Thank you so much for all that you have done for jazz in India.
Lebanon, was the very epicenter of a rich multi religious and ethnically diverse society in the Middle East. Here Maronite Christians, Greek Othodox Christians, Greek Catholics, Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, the Druze (an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam) and Jews coexisted and thrived. As Edward Said put it, Lebanon was synonymous with “openness, diversity and the joy of life.”
The syncretic civilization of Lebanon continued to flourish for 400 years being part of the Ottoman Empire which had strong plural traditions. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire Lebanon fell to the French in towards the end of the First World War. The age old syncretic culture of Lebanon found its voice in modern Lebanon. The foremost of them was the banker and intellectual Michel Chiha. He visualized the modern Lebanese state as a successor of the ancient Phoenician city-states with a broader Mediterranean heritage which they once shared with Greece and Rome.
In 1946, Lebanon became independent. By then a carefully crafted National Pact of 1943 was already in place. The Pact of 1943 was a complex arrangement of sharing of power between the various religious groups of Lebanon. Lebanon’s President would be a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of the house would be a Shiite Muslim, the Chief of Staff a Druze. The parliament was represented with Christian and Muslim members in the ratio of 6:5 respectively. By proportional representation, the country sought to contain the sectarian tensions and to transform the remains of the Ottoman Empire into a modern democracy. By the Pact of 1943, different communities were incorporated into becoming willing partners to nationhood. Despite its many critics Lebanon was a successful in working a democracy and Parliamentary elections went on unhindered right up to 1976.
PLURALISTIC LEBANON BECOMES THE ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE
Lebanon, in contrast to the rest of the Arab world, took to modernization and western education very early. With peace amongst its religions and literacy levels at 73.5% – the highest in the developing world – Lebanon made a neat head start. With such high educational levels, it provided a highly trained manpower to the world’s markets. Lebanese working abroad sent foreign exchange remittances which formed the bulwark of the Lebanese economy. Lebanon with its dynamic economy enjoyed high growth rates, a large influx of foreign capital, and steadily rising per capita income. It became the bustling centre of commerce and culture in West Asia.
By the mid seventies, the rest of the world’s economies were reeling under the OPEC induced petrol price hike. By contrast, Lebanon’s economy began to peak. Lebanese Banks became the main source for channeling the petro dollar boom. The Lebanese banks were the repositories of the new found Arab wealth. In 1973, the GDP totaled 2.7 billion US $ which was twice its GDP in 1966. In 1974 in a quantum leap, the GDP rose to US$ 3.5 billion. The foreign banks made their way to Lebanon to partake in the wealth created there. It was but natural for the Lebanese Pound to gain ground against the US Dollar.
RISING SECTARIANISM COVERS UP INEQUALITIES NOT ADDRESSED
Behind this prosperity, lay the inequalities of income and wealth in the Lebanese society. A growing Left movement was driving home the point which mainstream politics constantly brushed aside. The problems of inequality were being effectively sidetracked and thwarted by the elites. To deflect the contentious issue of wealth distribution, the elites began increasingly resorting to strident denominational politics. Sectarianism in Lebanon in the seventies “was carefully promoted at its different stages by an emerging or an established elite interested in power”.
Sectarianism is a great distracter. The primary reason attributed to the increased sectarianism was because raising sectarian tensions divided the lower orders on communal lines and thereby diffused their demands for greater share in the wealth created. In an essay ‘Lebanon’s Second Republic: ‘Secular Talk, Sectarian Application’, Sami A. Ofeish wrote:
With the fast permeating denominational politics, the truce among the religions collapsed in bits and parts under varying circumstances. The sectarianism promoted by the elites helped stem the appeals for more egalitarian socio economic policies. They also set in train the militarization of their respective sectarian cadres. The dominant Maronite Christian elite initiated a well-organized sectarian campaign designed to solidify their sectarian mass base and militarized cadres. Others followed suit.
“Thus the privileged elite usually emphasize stability and maintenance of the sectarian balance. In other words, they are interested in controlling the emerging tensions of the popular classes and guaranteeing themselves continuous access to resources. So popular attempts to challenge, modify, or abolish the sectarian system are usually blocked by the exploiting elite for the alleged sake of safeguarding the national interest (al-maslaha al-wataniyya) or national unity (al-wihda al-wataniyya)”.
BLACK SUNDAY AND THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR
But all pent up animosities have a immediate provocation. Sunday, the 13th April 1975 will remain written in blood in the history of Lebanon. Sheik Gemayel Pierre, Christian Militia leader was attending the consecration of a new church. There, in an exchange of fire between Pierre’s Phalangist militia and unidentified gunmen, resulted in the death of 4 militiamen and his personal bodyguard. The very same morning Palestinian refugees were returning to their camp. Their bus was ambushed by gunmen who shot dead 27 unarmed passengers including women and children.
These two incidents precipitated the violence which was to follow between the Christians and Muslims. The elites did nothing to nip the emanating violence in the bud. Instead, they further incited the sectarian passions. Beirut soon exploded into an orgy of violence with the Christian rightist guerrillas and the Shi’ite-Druze alliance now in open conflict. The religions of Lebanon and their armed militias soon took the field and this spectacular nation went into a civil war.
The fighting had ripped through the city. An imaginary green line ran through the center of Beirut: the north of the line was under the control of the Christians and the south controlled by an axis of Druze-Muslims-Palestinians. Beirut’s famous hotels, Phoenicia, St. Georges, and Holiday Inn where the rich and famous of the world partied, now became the battle ground for the warring factions earning the odium, ‘the battle of the hotels’
This strife in the financial capital of the middle east naturally had international ramifications and every major world power had stakes in Lebanon’s power struggle. Within a year, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was drawn into this conflict. In the summer of 1976, Syria entered Lebanon. There were repeated Israeli raids and even a UN force was placed in the region. In July 1981, the Israelis bombed the PLO headquarters in West Beirut. A cease fire sponsored by the US again failed to bring about any rapprochement between the warring sides.
Another tragedy was to unfold on Lebanon, but this time the trigger went off in far away London. On 3rd June 1982, a Palestinian gunman named Hassan Said fired at the Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London. The assassin was not a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). He belonged to Yasser Arafat’s rival Abu Nidal’s Palestinian National Liberation Movement. But this vital information was concealed by the Israeli Prime Minister Mencham Begin from his cabinet. He ordered the invasion of Lebanon.
The Israeli army reaching Beirut they joined forces with the Phalangists and commenced the encirclement of West Beirut. They began indiscriminately bombing of residential areas of Beirut. The Israeli officers received instructions to attack Beirut’s Muslim quarters. Colonel Eli Geva whose column was to lead the assault on West Beirut asked himself to be relieved of his Brigade command and be exempted. Begin made a personal request to Geva. Geva refused to participate in a modern military war machine to be let loose against a defenseless civilian population.
The assault on West Beirut commenced nevertheless and is probably one the most brutal episodes of modern warfare. The tanks pounded, crumbling the buildings and killing the ordinary citizens. The agony of the citizenry did not go unnoticed. ‘Soldiers Against Silence’ consisting of Israeli officers demanded an end to the war. The world watched impotently as Yitzhak Rabin ordered the closing of the water taps to the city of Beirut which was followed by relentless bombardment.
THE MASSACRES AT SABRA AND CHATTILA
After the Israeli invasion, probably the cruelest pogrom in modern history took place which was to have repercussions after more than a quarter century later. On 15th September 1982 Israeli forces surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chattila. It was “hermetically sealed”, to use the euphemistic expression of an Israeli general. On the night of September 16, 1982, Israeli military searchlights illuminated the two Palestinian refugee camps and simultaneously allowed the Lebanese Christian Phalangist forces to enter the camps. Throughout the night flares lit up the sky gunfire could be heard till dawn. By morning as the reporters moved in, they saw over 2300 bullet ridden bodies of Palestinian men, women and children. As if the killing alone was not brutal enough many of the bodies found were mutilated.
ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF SECTARIANISM
As in all conflicts there was an economic price to be paid. The industry in Lebanon is estimated to have sustained direct damage valued at between L£5 and L£7 billion [ L£ means Lebanese Pounds]. Indirect damage to industry, trade and business could be between L£972 million and L£2.23 billion. One-fifth of industry’s fixed capital was lost. L£6.2 billion losses was sustained by the private sector alone. It is a strange irony that the commercial elites who funded the sectarian politics and strife had now to bear the burden.
Foreign banks which came into Lebanon to partake in the flush of petro dollars, were fleeing the beleaguered city. While Lebanese banks were flushed with funds during the petro dollar boom in the early seventies were now finding its deposits depleting.
This civil war witnessed infrastructural damage of monumental scales. Industry and commerce were paralyzed. The civil service was maintained only by deficit financing. The destructive power of the conflict can be visualized when one deals with the figures showing the destruction factories in the suburbs of Beirut, the connecting highways were torn up, close to 40,000 homes were destroyed. About one-fourth of all Beirut’s dwellings and eighty-five percent of all schools south of the city were damaged or destroyed.
The Lebanese Pound which had proudly risen against the dollar during the pre-civil war days was now taking a beating and hyperinflation set in. The period between 1983 to 1987 saw the rapid decline of the Lebanese Pound. Lebanese Pound collapsed against the dollar from 4 to 477 to the US dollar. By 1986 the inflation rate was well over 100 percent. Currency speculation and black marketering became the principal areas of business activity. The militias began controlling the customs and other revenues gave them increasing control over what was left of the national economy.
From the beginning of the civil war in 1975 to the early 1990s, perhaps as many as 150,000 Lebanese died. About one-quarter of the country’s population fled abroad, and hundreds of thousands were forced to move from one part of Lebanon to another.
LEBANON ENDS THE CIVIL WAR GOING BACK TO THE CONSTITUION OF 1946
The war which commenced in 1975 had run for over decade and half. with no discernible victory for either of the sides. The Lebanese were exhausted. The sheer futility of this long war, the entailing savagery and the inconclusiveness of the conflict made the various factions of Lebanese to accept peace on any terms. After 14 years of indecisive fighting, on October 22, 1989 most members of the Lebanese Parliament (last elected in 1972) met in Ta’if, Saudi Arabia. The agreement was formed ironically on the principle of “mutual coexistence” between Lebanon’s different sects and their “proper political representation”. There, they accepted a constitutional arrangement that adjusted the Presidency, Cabinet, the Chamber of Deputies with representation of Christians and Muslims with the latter having a little more representation to match their population. But the irony is that this is how the country more or less ran prior to the civil war of 1975 under the Pact of 1943.
When Lebanon woke up from the civil war, it discovered that it had lost the basis of its prosperity. The civil war years were Lebanon’s lost years. The Arab money no longer needed the Lebanese. The Middle East’s businessmen dispensed with multi-lingual Lebanese middlemen. They had learnt to deal directly with Western banks and corporations. Lebanon was no longer the Arab world’s bazaar. West Asia had developed their own markets in the interregnum. Dubai, Riyad, Muscat, Doha and many other financial centres had bloomed in the interregnum.
THIS HISTORY OF SECTARIAN POLITICS IS NOT TAUGHT IN INDIA
This is a history rarely taught in India or for that matter in the subcontinent. The tragedy of discarding constitutions founded on secular values and soliciting sectarian ideologies, have scarred nations. For those willing, the lessons are closer to home. The prime examples of sectarian politics was visible in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Yet, it is hardly ever noticed and never ever studied. Constitutions in these countries came and went with new regimes promising religious utopia, but ended up destroying democratic institutions and snatching away human liberties and destroying the intricate fabric of syncretism.
Edward Said captured the need of the hour for humanity was for a enlightened leadership in his book ‘The End of the Peace Process’. He wrote:
“Instead of getting a wise leadership that stresses education, mass mobilization, and patient organization in the service of a cause, the poor and the desperate are often conned into the magical thinking and quick, bloody solutions that such appalling models provide, wrapped in lying religious claptrap. …..We need to step back from the imaginary thresholds that supposedly separate people from each other into supposedly clashing civilizations and re-examine the labels, reconsider the limited resources available, and decide somehow to share our fates with each other, as in fact cultures mostly have done, despite the bellicose cries and creeds”.
REFERENCES
Kamal Salibi A House of Many Mansions
A History of the 20th Century, Maritin Gilbert; Harper Collins
Sowing the Wind; The Mismanagement of the Middle East 1900-1960: John Keay . John Murray Publishers, 2003
Holy Lands: Reviving Pluralism in the Middle East by Nicholas Pelham’s; Columbia Global Reports New York 2016
Kamal Salibi: “A House of Many Mansions – The History of Lebanon Reconsidered” Published by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1993,
Charles Glass: An Assassin’s Land; London Review of Books, 4 August 2005
Nehru talking under the auspices of Indian Conciliation Group on February 4, 1936 as cited in Essays by Jawaharlal Nehru; George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1936.
Barakat, Halim, ed. 1988. Toward a Viable Lebanon. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; London: Croom Helm.
Chamie, Joseph. 1980. “Religious Groups in Lebanon: A Descriptive Investigation.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 2:175-87.
Elkhafif, Mahmoud A.T., M. H. Ghandour, and Atif A. Kubursi. 1992. “Explaining the Hyper-Depreciation of the Lebanese Pound.” QSEP Research Report 288. McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
Faris, Hani A. 1982. Beyond the Lebanese Civil War: Historical Issues and the Challenges of Reconstruction. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
Farsoun, Samih K. 1988. “E Pluribus Plura or E Pluribus Unum? Cultural Pluralism and Social Class in Lebanon.” In Halim Barakat, ed., Toward a Viable Lebanon. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; London: Croom Helm. 99-132.
“The Economic and Social Factors in the Lebanese Crisis.” In Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Nicholas S. Hopkins, eds., Arab Society: Social Science Perspectives. Cairo: American University Press. 412-31.
Hourani, Albert H. 1988. “Visions of Lebanon.” In Halim Barakat. ed., Toward a Viable Lebanon. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; London: Croom Helm. 3-14.
Khalaf, Samir. 1987. Lebanon’s Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press.
Khalidi, Walid. 1979. Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East. Harvard Studies in International Affairs 38. Cambridge, Mass.: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.
Khashan, Hilal and M. Palmer. 1983. “The Economic Basis of the Civil Conflict in Lebanon: A Survey of Analysis of Sunnite Muslims.” In Tawfic E. Farah, ed., Political Behavior in the Arab States. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. 67-81.
The Merchant Republic of Lebanon: Rise of an Open Economy. By Carolyn L. Gates. (Oxford: Center for Lebanese Studies, in association with I.B. Tauris Publishers, London and New York, 1998.)
Lebanon, was the very epicenter of a rich multi religious and ethnically diverse society in the Middle East. Here flourishing communities of Maronite Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians, Greek Catholics, Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims, the Druze (an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam) and Jews coexisted and thrived. As Edward Said put it, Lebanon was synonymous with “openness, diversity and the joy of life.”
In 1946, Lebanon became independent. By then a carefully crafted National Pact of 1943 was already in place. The Pact of 1943 was a complex and a successful arrangement of sharing of power between the various religious groups of Lebanon. Lebanon’s President would be a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of the house would be a Shiite Muslim, the Chief of Staff a Druze. The parliament was represented with Christian and Muslim members in the ratio of 6:5. By proportional representation, the country sought to contain the sectarian tensions and to transform the remains of the Ottoman Empire into a modern democracy. Thus different communities were incorporated into becoming willing partners to nationhood. Despite its many critics Lebanon confessional constitution was successful in working a democracy, and Parliamentary elections went on unhindered right up to 1976.
PLURALISTIC LEBANON BECOMES THE ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE
Lebanon, in contrast to the rest of the Arab world, took to modernization and western education very early. With peace among its religions and literacy levels at 73.5% – the highest in the developing world – Lebanon made a neat head start. With high educational levels, it provided a highly trained manpower to the world’s markets. Lebanese working abroad sent foreign exchange remittances which formed the bulwark of the Lebanese economy. Lebanon’s dynamic economy enjoyed high growth rates, a large influx of foreign capital, and steadily rising per capita income. It became the bustling center of commerce and culture in West Asia.
By the mid seventies, the rest of the world’s economies were reeling under the shock of the OPEC petrol price hike of 1973. By contrast, Lebanon’s economy began to peak. Lebanese Banks became the main source for channeling the petro-dollar boom. The Lebanese banks were the repositories of the new found Arab wealth. In 1973, the GDP totaled 2.7 billion US $ which was twice its GDP in 1966. In 1974 in a quantum leap, the GDP rose to US$ 3.5 billion. The foreign banks made their way to Lebanon to partake in the wealth created there. It was but natural for the Lebanese Pound to gain ground against the US Dollar.
RISING SECTARIANISM COVERS UP INEQUALITIES NOT ADDRESSED
Behind this prosperity, lay the inequalities of income and wealth in the Lebanese society. A growing Left movement was driving home the point which mainstream politics constantly brushed aside. The problems of inequality were being effectively sidetracked by the elites. To deflect the contentious issue of wealth distribution, the elites began increasingly resorting to strident denominational politics. Sectarianism in Lebanon in the seventies “was carefully promoted at its different stages by an emerging or an established elite interested in power”.
Sectarianism is a great distracter. The primary reason attributed to the increased sectarianism was because raising sectarian tensions divided the lower orders on communal lines and thereby diffused their demands for greater share in the wealth created. In an essay ‘Lebanon’s Second Republic: ‘Secular Talk, Sectarian Application’,Sami A. Ofeishwrote:
“Thus the privileged elite usually emphasize stability and maintenance of the sectarian balance. In other words, they are interested in controlling the emerging tensions of the popular classes and guaranteeing themselves continuous access to resources. So popular attempts to challenge, modify, or abolish the sectarian system are usually blocked by the exploiting elite for the alleged sake of safeguarding the national interest (al-maslaha al-wataniyya) or national unity (al-wihda al-wataniyya”).
With the fast permeating toxic denominational politics, the truce among the religions collapsed in bits and parts under varying circumstances. The sectarianism promoted by the elites helped stem the appeals for more egalitarian socio economic policies. They also set in train the militarization of their respective sectarian cadres. The dominant Maronite Christian elite initiated a well-organized sectarian campaign designed to solidify their sectarian mass base and militarized cadres. Others followed suit.
BLACK SUNDAY AND THE BEGINNING OF CIVIL WAR
But all pent up animosities have a immediate provocation. Sunday, the 13th April 1975 will remain written in blood in the history of Lebanon. Sheik Gemayel Pierre, Christian Philangelist Militia leader was attending the consecration of a new church. There, in an exchange of fire between militia and unidentified gunmen. 4 militiamen and his personal bodyguard were killed. The very same morning a bus carrying Palestinian refugees returning to their camp was ambushed by gunmen who shot dead 27 unarmed passengers including women and children.
These two incidents triggered the calamitous violence which was to follow between the Christians and Muslims. The elites did nothing to resolve the emanating tensions and the potential violence in the offing. Instead, they further incited the sectarian passions. Beirut soon exploded into an orgy of violence with the Christian rightist guerrillas and the Shi’ite-Druze alliance now in open conflict. The religions of Lebanon and their armed militias soon took the field and this spectacular nation went into a civil war.
The fighting ripped through the city of Beirut. An imaginary green line ran through the center of Beirut: the north of the line was under the control of the Christians and the south controlled by an axis of Druze-Muslims-Palestinians. Beirut’s famous hotels, Phoenicia, St. Georges, and Holiday Inn where the rich and famous of the world partied, located close to the Green Line now became became fiercely contested militia strong holds earning the odium, ‘the battle of the hotels’ .
This strife in the financial capital of the middle east naturally had international ramifications and major world powers had stakes in Lebanon’s power struggle. The fighting now escalated into an international conflict.
Within a year, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was drawn into this conflict. In the summer of 1976, Syria entered Lebanon to prevent a near certain defeat for the Christians. There were repeated Israeli raids. A UN force was placed in the region. On 17th of July 1981, the Israelis bombed the PLO headquarters in West Beirut. A cease fire sponsored by the US again failed to bring about any rapprochement between the warring sides.
Another tragedy was to unfold on Lebanon, but this time the trigger went off in far away London. On 3rd June 1982, a Palestinian gunman named Hassan Said fired at the Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London. The assassin was not a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). He belonged to Yassar Arafat’s rival Abu Nidal’s Palestinian National Liberation Movement. But this vital information was concealed by the Israeli Prime Minister Mencham Begin from his cabinet. He ordered the invasion of Lebanon.
The Israeli army reaching Beirut they joined forces with the Phalangists and commenced the encirclement of West Beirut. They began indiscriminately bombing of residential areas of Beirut. The Israeli officers received instructions to attack Beirut’s Muslim quarters. Colonel Eli Geva, an Israeli officer whose column was to lead the assault on West Beirut asked himself to be relieved of his Brigade command and be exempted. Begin made a personal request to Geva. Geva refused to participate in a modern military war machine to be let loose against a defenseless civilian population.
But the assault on West Beirut commenced nevertheless and is probably one the most brutal episodes of modern warfare. The tanks pounded, crumbling the buildings and killing the ordinary citizens. The agony of the citizenry did not go unnoticed. ‘Soldiers Against Silence’ consisting of Israeli officers demanded an end to the war. The world watched impotently as Yitzhak Rabin ordered the closing of the water taps to the city of Beirut which was followed by relentless bombardment.
THE MASSACRES AT SABRA AND CHATTILA
After the Israeli invasion, probably the cruelest pogrom in modern history took place which was to have repercussions after more than a quarter century later. On 15th September 1982 Israeli forces surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chattila. It was “hermetically sealed”, to use the euphemistic expression of an Israeli general. On the night of September 16, 1982, Israeli military searchlights illuminated the two Palestinian refugee camps and simultaneously they allowed the Lebanese Christian Phalangist forces to enter the camps. Throughout the night flares lit up the sky. Till dawn only gunfire could be heard till dawn. By morning as the reporters moved in. They saw over 2300 bullet ridden bodies of Palestinian men, women and children. As if the killing alone was not brutal enough many of the bodies found were mutilated. This massacre was unparalled in human cruelty. These are deaths not mourned by historians writing from the capitals of the West. There are no monuments to kindle memories of this atrocity. There are no Spielberg’s to evoke our outrage. The powers which allowed this cruel drama to be played out are yet to be made accountable for.
ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF SECTARIANISM
As in all conflicts there was an economic price to be paid. The industry in Lebanon is estimated to have sustained direct damage valued at between L£5 [Lebanese Pounds] and L£7 billion. Indirect damage to industry, trade and business could be between L£972 million and L£2.23 billion. One-fifth of industry’s fixed capital was lost. L£6.2 billion losses was sustained by the private sector alone. It is a strange irony that the commercial elites who funded the sectarian politics and strife had now to bear the burden.
Foreign banks which came into Lebanon to partake in the flush of petro dollar boom, were now fleeing the beleaguered city. While Lebanese banks were flushed with funds during the petro dollar boom in the early seventies were now finding its deposits depleting.
This civil war witnessed infrastructural damage of monumental scales. Industry and commerce were paralyzed. The civil service was maintained only by deficit financing. The destructive power of the conflict can be visualized when one deals with the figures showing the destruction factories in the suburbs of Beirut, the connecting highways were torn up, close to 40,000 homes were destroyed. About one-fourth of all Beirut’s dwellings and eighty-five percent of all schools south of the city were damaged or destroyed.
The Lebanese Pound which had proudly risen against the dollar during the pre-civil war days was now taking a beating as hyperinflation set in. The period between 1983 to 1987 saw the rapid decline of the Lebanese Pound. Lebanese Pound collapsed from 4 to 477 to the US dollar. By 1986 the inflation rate was well over 100 percent. Currency speculation and black marketeering became the principal areas of business activity. The militias began controlling the customs and other revenues gave them increasing control over what was left of the national economy.
From the beginning of the civil war in 1975 to the early 1990s, perhaps as many as 150,000 Lebanese died. About one-quarter of the country’s population fled abroad, and hundreds of thousands were forced to move from one part of Lebanon to another.
LEBANON ENDS THE CIVIL WAR GOING BACK TO THE CONSTITUTION OF 1946
The civil war which commenced in 1975 had run its course for over decade and half. with no discernible victory for either of the sides. The Lebanese were exhausted. The sheer futility of this long war, the entailing savagery and the inconclusiveness of the conflict made the various factions of Lebanese to accept peace on any terms. After 14 years of indecisive fighting, on October 22, 1989 most members of the Lebanese Parliament (last elected in 1972) met in Ta’if, Saudi Arabia. An agreement was drawn ironically on the principle of “mutual coexistence” between Lebanon’s different sects and their “proper political representation”. There, they accepted a constitutional arrangement that adjusted the Presidency, Cabinet, the Chamber of Deputies with representation of Christians and Muslims with the latter having a little more representation to match their population. But that this is how the country more or less ran prior to the civil war of 1975 under the Pact of 1943.
When Lebanon woke up from the civil war, it discovered that it had lost the basis of its prosperity. The civil war years were Lebanon’s lost years. The Arab money no longer needed the Lebanese. The Middle East’s businessmen dispensed with multi-lingual Lebanese middlemen. They had learnt to deal directly with Western banks and corporations. Lebanon was no longer the Arab world’s bazaar. West Asia had developed their own markets and financial centers in the interregnum. Dubai, Riyad, Muscat, Doha and many other centers had bloomed in the interregnum.
THIS HISTORY OF SECTARIAN POLITICS IS NOT TAUGHT IN INDIA
This is a history never taught in India or for that matter in the subcontinent. The tragedy of discarding constitutions founded on secular values and fundamental rights for soliciting sectarian ideologies, have scarred nations. For those willing, the lessons are closer to home. The prime examples of disastrous effects of sectarian politics is visible in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Yet, it is hardly ever noticed and never ever studied. Constitutions in these countries came and went with new regimes promising religious utopia, but ended up destroying democratic institutions and snatching away human liberties and destroying the intricate fabric of syncretism which bind societies together.
Edward Said captured the need of the hour for humanity for a enlightened leadership in his book ‘The End of the Peace Process’. He wrote:
Instead of getting a wise leadership that stresses education, mass mobilization, and patient organization in the service of a cause, the poor and the desperate are often conned into the magical thinking and quick, bloody solutions that such appalling models provide, wrapped in lying religious claptrap. …..We need to step back from the imaginary thresholds that supposedly separate people from each other into supposedly clashing civilizations and re-examine the labels, reconsider the limited resources available, and decide somehow to share our fates with each other, as in fact cultures mostly have done, despite the bellicose cries and creeds.
REFERENCES
Kamal Salibi A House of Many Mansions
A History of the 20th Century, Maritin Gilbert; Harper Collins
Sowing the Wind; The Mismanagement of the Middle East 1900-1960: John Keay . John Murray Publishers, 2003
Holy Lands: Reviving Pluralism in the Middle East by Nicholas Pelham’s; Columbia Global Reports New York 2016
Kamal Salibi: “A House of Many Mansions – The History of Lebanon Reconsidered” Published by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1993,
Charles Glass: An Assassin’s Land; London Review of Books, 4 August 2005
Nehru talking under the auspices of Indian Conciliation Group on February 4, 1936 as cited in Essays by Jawaharlal Nehru; George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1936.
Barakat, Halim, ed. 1988. Toward a Viable Lebanon. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; London: Croom Helm.
Chamie, Joseph. 1980. “Religious Groups in Lebanon: A Descriptive Investigation.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 2:175-87.
Elkhafif, Mahmoud A.T., M. H. Ghandour, and Atif A. Kubursi. 1992. “Explaining the Hyper-Depreciation of the Lebanese Pound.” QSEP Research Report 288. McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
Faris, Hani A. 1982. Beyond the Lebanese Civil War: Historical Issues and the Challenges of Reconstruction. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
Farsoun, Samih K. 1988. “E Pluribus Plura or E Pluribus Unum? Cultural Pluralism and Social Class in Lebanon.” In Halim Barakat, ed., Toward a Viable Lebanon. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; London: Croom Helm. 99-132.
“The Economic and Social Factors in the Lebanese Crisis.” In Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Nicholas S. Hopkins, eds., Arab Society: Social Science Perspectives. Cairo: American University Press. 412-31.
Hourani, Albert H. 1988. “Visions of Lebanon.” In Halim Barakat. ed., Toward a Viable Lebanon. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; London: Croom Helm. 3-14.
Khalaf, Samir. 1987. Lebanon’s Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press.
Khalidi, Walid. 1979. Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East. Harvard Studies in International Affairs 38. Cambridge, Mass.: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.
Khashan, Hilal and M. Palmer. 1983. “The Economic Basis of the Civil Conflict in Lebanon: A Survey of Analysis of Sunnite Muslims.” In Tawfic E. Farah, ed., Political Behavior in the Arab States. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. 67-81.
The Merchant Republic of Lebanon: Rise of an Open Economy. By Carolyn L. Gates. (Oxford: Center for Lebanese Studies, in association with I.B. Tauris Publishers, London and New York, 1998.)
This Rolling Stones album was made in the midst the psychedelic rock movement. Yes, it is one of the greatest rock albums ever made. Beggars Banquet is a priceless psychedelic gem from that era. It demonstrates the band’s strength handling deftly a genre, which most bands of the time clumsily passed through embarrassed. Most rock bands which ventured into the psychedelia would not want to revisit their works, Beatles included. The album Beggars Banquet is the work of this amazing band of Londoners singing about their aspirations, loves, lust, sadness and loneliness of living and working in working class London.
The music traverses and strides effortlessly the genres of psychedelia, rock, blues, soul, gospel and Indian music with luminous lyrics. The lyrics are rooted in working class London, so unlike the later day Stones’ head on hedonism of ‘drugs sex and rock and roll’. All the songs on Beggars Banquet were written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Brian Jones with his drug addiction was by now a receding force, even though his musical contributions are anything but spectacular.
The opening act is ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, a psychedelic rock classic. Mick Jagger singing a first person account and from the perspective of the devil is a treat. Jagger singing and screaming the devilishly clever lyrics can be counted his very best.
The chorus is sung by amazing artists including rock music’s most celebrated girlfriend, Marrianne Faithfull. Keith Richard’s screeching guitar work sets ablaze the song.
Rolling Stones live rendition of Sympathy for the Devil
Dear Doctor is a bluesy song of a nervous groom being jilted on the day of his marriage, laced with quirky humour:
Oh help me, please mama, I’m sick’ning It’s today that’s the day of the plunge Oh the gal I’m to marry Is a bow-legged sow I’ve been soakin’ up drink like a sponge “Don’t ya worry, get dressed,” cried my mother As she plied me with bourbon so sour
Parachute Womanis a sexual innuendo ridden bawdy blues song. Still not sure if Brian Jones played the harmonica in it. Jigsaw Puzzle a brilliant blend of acoustic and electric guitar and Jagger ‘s languid vocals singing about the urban landscape filled with so many misfits.
Street Fighting Manis a psychedelic rock classic.Itwas inspired by the riots against US presence in Vietnam on the Left Bank in Paris of 1968. London seemed sleepy in comparison.
You can hear the shennai by Dave Mason, sitar and tambura by Brian Jones, the unpredictable and fascinating guitar maneuvers of Keith Richards upping the tempo and Nicky Mason grounding the song with his piano.
Prodigal Son believe or not was a song written by Reverend Robert Wilkens a recounting of the biblical story. This is a fascinating Stones’ interpretation of an essentially a blues/gospel song. Jagger’s bluesy singing is mesmerizing. It has forever been a source of wonder how so many English artists mastered the singing of the blues on the Island so far away from black America.
Stray Cat Blues is song which appears to be about an invitation to a taboo sex. It starts off with a Hendrix style crunching guitar chord, climaxing into a psychedelic mix of tabla and drums driven beats. Richards crescendos ignites the excitement all over the song and he is at his brilliant best.
Beggar’s Banquet’s final track, ‘Salt Of The Earth’ is an poignant tribute to the working classes. It is touching and personal without being sentimental. With Keith Richards on lead vocal and the Los Angeles Watts Street Gospel Choir punching in soulful and black gospel highs to the track. It inspired many later day artists to interpret this song. But my favourite rendition is of Betty LaVette’s version, which she so easily transitions it into a black working class experience. It is a tribute to the song’s versatility which gave meaning to so many in so many different generations.
Betty LaVette’s rendition of ‘Salt of the Earth’
Beggar’s Banquet is the apogee of psychedelic rock. It is so full of working class songs and stories, often laden with humour, some sad and poignant, some craving religious rooting, some simply a wail of working men in a bleak urban landscape. These are songs which still touch a chord after over five decades. It a rock masterpiece with outstanding musicianship and originality, put together by Jagger and Richards and an amazing set of musicians.
Santosh Paul 