From: "vrnparker" Mailing-List: list vediculture@yahoogroups.com Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 02:10:10 -0000 Subject: [world-vedic] Murder by pen http://www.hinduhumanrights.org/hfocusmurdr.htm Murder by pen Each time there is a disaster, atrocity, or something else which tears at the fabric of humanity, there is news reporting on the matter. Technological advances mean that news flashes round the globe at an ever faster rate, and with a variety of sources from which one can pick: newspaper, television, satellite television, radio, and Internet. This information is useful, but control of it can shape the way millions think. In theory nothing is restricted, in practice the flow of that vital news has incredible influence on how we perceive the world. Things move thick and fast, being outdated by seconds. So while we might now know of things that were once hidden or inaccessible except to the few privileged, other facts remain hidden, ignored or even deliberately shut out of sight. It was said that the pen is mightier than the sword. Well now the computer keyboard and data exchange is mightier than the pen, typewriter, and outdated newspaper journalistic prowess. The might of modern technology in influencing thinking is far greater than can be imagined. Early cine reels brought home the true horror of military life in the trenches of World War I. Television made Vietnam a front room reality. Satellite television beamed its information into areas hitherto excluded form 'modernity'. Now the Internet let's us look behind headlines to uncover further details according to our own wishes. But is it so free? What if there has been deliberate shutting out of human degradation as severe as any that a sick mind can commit? What if a tragedy unfolding as these very words are being read was shielded form public view, even from the all seeing eye of the modern media colossus? This is no mere fantasy, Orwellian nightmare or conspiracy theory. The Hindus of Bangladesh are suffering complete extinction in their own ancestral lands. Rape, abduction, murder, pillage, slave markets are the fate of those who cling to the indigenous culture of this poor South Asian country, always in the news when Monsoon floods and cyclones hit, but never mentioned when the tragedy is man-made, the result of decidedly un-modern bigotry and fanaticism. Yet just over the border, in the much larger neighbour of India, the all seeing media releases a torrent of abuse on the Hindu majority of that country. Reading about India one can be easily led to think that this longest surviving post-colonial democracy is on the brink of dictatorship that reminds one of the very worst plagues that ravaged twentieth century Europe in the form of the Third Reich. But is this true? How accurate is this picture? Why are alternative viewpoints not aired? In Hindu majority India you will find a diversity unrivalled on any country on earth, and an amazing acceptance of different cultures, all this among grinding poverty, unequal wealth distribution, and government corruption at the highest levels. There is the potential to be lifted out of decades of outdated Stalinist state planning, failed socialism and bankrupt Marxist intellectualism into the new Asian tiger. But again the cellular vomit that the media unleashes on India prefers to ignore this and concentrate on some imaginary Hindu fascism. Why is this? It is because India is a majority Hindu country, and Hindus are not considered equals. Every time and place has its scapegoats, convenient punch bags onto which one can release life's fruitarians. In the 1950s USA it was the blacks, in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia the Jews, in imperial Japan the Koreans, in 16th century Europe innocent women condemned as witches, and now it is the turn of the Hindus. The genocide of many people has been thoroughly researched and documented. One thinks of the death camps of wartime Europe, the native Australians, the utter inhumanity of Rwanda. Even in the face of extreme opposition it has been possible to do this, such as the Armenian genocide, still strenuously denied by Turkey, and the gulag slave system which was the hallmark of Communism, no matter what excuses trendy Leftist academics try and manufacture, about as high in quality as one of the East German cars produced by Marxist economics. Yet with Hindus, nothing. Not a word on Bangladesh, but plenty on the supposed Hindu fundamentalism in India, at Godhra and Ayodhya to name but two places, when Hindus were the target of the very fanaticism that they are accused of. So the media has manufactured bizarre conspiracy theories reminiscent of Mein Kampf to explain that the Hindus deserved it all along. Hence there should be no surprise when the media ignores the final solution to the 'Hindu problem' in Bangladesh. Hindus are only mentioned when it is time to defame them, mocking their culture, stealing it for cheap MTV videos or celebration of repressed sexuality in western culture, to blame them for the very terrorist ideology of which they are the ignored victims. Yes when it comes to defaming and poking fun at religion and culture, then Hindus are the very first names the media thinks of. But when it comes to human rights abuses, then silence, shutdown, it is pitch black. The flow of information ensures it remains so even when the Brahmaputra delta becomes clogged up with the blood, corpses and hacked off limbs of the Hindu victims of Bangladesh's very own Auschwitz. This time we cannot repeat what was uttered in 1945, we cannot say that we did not know. Just as in 1945, we know only too well, but ignore it and do nothing. In a rational and secular world, it is healthy to question long held beliefs, especially if they seem outdated and to actually hamper the progress of humanity. But when it comes to the vast pantheon of sacred ideas, Hinduism constantly receives the dirt end of the stick. In the past 3 years alone the number of times this has happened is horrendous. Want to use graphics to sell pens, use Hindu gods. Want to deify a famous soccer player and his consort, use Hindu imagery. Want to express repressed and persecuted sexuality, use Hindu sacred marks. Want to sell music, defame Hindu sensibilities. Hindu culture has been plundered to satisfy the raw sensuality, materialism and consumerism of modern society in way no other belief system has. At least Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism are allowed the right to defend themselves. But not Hindus. If one ever defends Hindus from consumerist plunder, Leftist intellectual warfare, and physical violence the label of Nazi, fascist and fundamentalist is immediately pinned on that person. This is defamation on an incredible scale from which there is no escape. In Bangladesh Hindus, which try and defend themselves are called Nazis, bent on massacring the Muslim majority of that country, and the Christian and Muslim minorities of its neighbour India. What proof is there of this.? There needs to be no proof. Any mention of the word Hindu in a political context is almost always in a most negative light, the ultimate taboo which makes the Hindu a political leper in any country. When western nations try and defend themselves against terrorism, they are elevated as the guardian angels of human rights and democracy. When Hindus do the same in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, they are denounced as Nazis. How dare they, these insolent dark skinned primitives, with their superstitious beliefs, preserving the longest tradition of democracy in the developing and ex-colonial world, how dare they have the audacity to stand up to terror. This is the cry by all sections of the media who rely on one source for this narrow interpretation of facts. That source is the alienated, Leftist elite of India. How ironic is this? Marxism, the ideology which put half of Europe and much of Asia under a dark cloud for half a century, which still refuses to expire in some parts of the world, and incidentally gave mental nutrition that was necessary to give birth to the very Nazis the Left so often sees in every opponent, is the source of information for western journalists reporting from South Asia, who betray their senses, intellectual capabilities, and the very objective standards that news media is meant to bring to the ignorant masses. Without any evidence at all, even in the UK and US Hindu charities are denounced as Nazi organisations, fundamentalist Hindus who want to destroy all non-Hindus in their midst, fomenters of communal riots in Gujarat state. Where is the evidence for all this? Defence against terrorist attack is normally applauded but here the western media goes beyond the standards of the most debased minds. The attack on charities, burning alive of Hindu pilgrims, violation of Hindu sacred sites, all are justified as only Hindus are the victims of all this. Even the most tiny and isolated of indigenous peoples have their advocates in the media who urge protection of their interests. In the modern myth of the Noble Savage, we are urged to stop the consumerist exploitation of these peoples, such as the Amazonian Natives. They are said to have retained a primeval link with nature, which we modern sin our material obsessions have lost. Yet they bypass the fact that Hindus have the longest unbroken link of civilisation known. Hindus are depicted as bloodthirsty monsters, intent on unleashing carnage on scale hitherto unknown. In myths and conspiracy theories of the most incredible proportions that would put the occult dabbling of Rudolf Hess into the remit of rationality, the very same reasons we are urged to protect the Amazonian Indians, we are urged to look at Hindus in the worst possible light. That is not to say there is some sort of mass conspiracy, just a blanket lack of objective journalism, reporting and research on very basic issues. The media is powerful, sophisticated and knowledgeable enough to avoid these errors. Yet until Hindus themselves make the first steps to correct these mistakes, nothing will change. The de- politicisation of the Hindu mind is the source of the tragedy and lack of fight back. Defamation and slander with allegations of being fundamentalist, Fascist, Nazi and superstitious should hold them back no longer. When one examines only a few basic issues, including the antiquity of Hindu culture, the evidence of western archaeological techniques in verifying the age of Vedic civilisation and destroying the racist Aryan Invasion Theory, the fact that Hindus have suffered only the latest rounds in a long series of genocides in 1945, the facts speak for themselves. It is only a matter of time before the Hindu mind is fully decolonised and re-politicised and the truth will be known.