Slashdot Mirror
Indian Nationalists Forcibly Censor Orkut
starkravingmad writes "The Economic Times is running a story on Hindu nationalists in India threatening to wreck internet cafes that don't block parts of Orkut that the vigilantes find offensive. From the article: '"Orkut is used by many destructive elements to spread canards about India, Hindus, our gods and cultural heritage," said Abhijit Phanse, president of Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the student group. "We are gently telling Internet cafe owners that it is their responsibility to see that surfers do not use their facility to carry out such hate campaigns ... Or else, we will have to do that job for them." Last week, dozens of Shiv Sena workers vandalised some Internet centres, saying they were not stopping their customers from accessing Orkut groups involved in sending hate messages.'"
Why do these censoring countries and the groups in them even bother? They're just going to be twice as pissed when 13 year olds find ways around it lol. The harder you try and block it, the harder people will try to unblock it and then you look like the bad guy for trying to block it.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
These are the same who vandalize flower shops on Valentine's Day and threaten couples if they are seen doing anything they consider "obscene" in public.
Personally, I think that these guys need to have a good drink and need to get laid a little. I thought it was all about tolerance and forgiveness and all those good things? Pursuit of truth and enlightenment? No? I guess it doesn't quite have the same ring as terrorizing innocent people and flauting your ideologies about.
Jerks.
hindus upset at orkut, muslims upset at muhammed cartoons, christians upset at crosses in pee, etc:
i believe that your religion is strong and powerful and moving
apparently, you don't
for if you did, you would not be so threatened by such random fluff
or, alternately, if these stupid offenses affect you, your religious faith is shallow
you do not honor god/ allah/ shiva/ whomever by being moved by the most contrived of offenses that even a child could shrug off and roll his eyes at
when you do, you make a mockery of what they stand for, by showing that some of your religions followers (you) are of small easily swayed faith
you're a shame to your own religion, and your cheap outrage cheapens your religion
signed,
people with faith and maturity
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't get what's up with journalism these days. I even RTFA, and there was no mention of what "Orkut" is. Even if it is well-known to Indians, then couldn't the slashdot summary give a description, or at least a link to the site?
Are we just supposed to intuitively know what every obscure website on the interweb is about?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Funny how that works...they are in effect saying "stop the hate campaign we don't like, or we will start a hate campaign against you".
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Why is it only the US seems to "get" freedom of speech? (And even we are losing it, but in different ways). I think people are afraid to learn and confront ideas that they don't want to see. Political and religious criticism, good or bad, is necessary for a mature civalization.
Table-ized A.I.
I think you're wrong about the tax dollars being the point. The "government funding" part was a red herring and was just an excuse to mobilize and sell to a larger crowd the message that the arts are anti-religious. I lived in north carolina when this went down and the big issue was any government funding of the arts PERIOD. And current views have gotten even more radical.
Unlike piss christ, we had a much tamer and/or more thoughtful work of art that was cancelled in NY i believe this year at a private gallery. It was an easter installation of a chocolate christ that was being made by a very very well known food sculptor (that's his thing). Despite the obvious pro-religious commentary on the commoditization of christ for easter, or perhaps a not-so-pro religious view of the communion aspect of chocolatey goodness, the American Christians mobilized against the piece. And clearly the mobilization was against art in general that comments on religion--regardless of the message.
Got any evidence for that? If the problem was public funding of art in general, then why did they wait until "Piss Christ" to make a big shitstorm about it? Would any other exhibition that was publicly funded, be just as offensive? Somehow I doubt they would be protesting a publicly funded Monet exhibition.
So, why the double standard?
some of the works produced with that government funding are very good, have a wide appeal, and would never come into existence without government supportBut should "wide appeal" really be a criteria for the arts? I would have thought artistic expression would be more important. If you want wide appeal, we already have The Simpsons and Lost.
... and then they built the supercollider.
...As opposed to setting up shop in a country where you toe the official party line or ship out?
India continues to prove itself incapable of shaking off such middle ages thinkingThis is Freedom 101 - you need to put up with idiots and their opinions. India is perhaps the only recently independent nation that has even attempted to achieve an essentially open society. In India, we are free to express and actively promote our views - and that includes morons such as these RSS guys. What's not mentioned in TFA is that we also have recourse to the courts and the police, who, while inefficient, generally do come through in guaranteeing our basic safety.
Thank you for judging me and my entire country based on the actions of these asshats. Should I go ahead and assume that all Americans think like Ann Coulter?
I'll assume you missed this part of my post or, more likely, chose to ignore it. Whatever.
Anyways, why make a stink over the public funding of this piece and not others? I'd think the answer would be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of human nature - people tend not to get worked up about things they don't perceive as important to them. If a publicly funded artist produces a bunch of landscapes of the boring Kansas countryside, who cares in general? It gets little to no press and little to no attention because there is no controversy. If people perceive an artwork as offensive, though, it attracts interest, controversy, and responses. People start asking why their money was spent on this. Many of them don't mind public funding of the arts in general, but many do mind the public funding of what they perceive (in this case I would argue that the perception was most likely incorrect) as an attack on their religion, particularly from a government who has become so careful about discrimination. It looks to many like the government taking sides in some sort of religious argument, the sort of thing that Americans generally feel the government should stay out of. How would atheists feel if the government funded artists whose work was extremely pro-religious in nature, or anti-atheist? What about, say, an anti-semitic work? Or a blatantly racist artwork? I personally don't believe the art in this case was anti-Christian, but I also see how a reasonable person could come to the opposite conclusion - one does not generally dip portraits of loved ones or those to whom one feels neutral in urine for fun or to show respect.
The question then is - how does one judge what art gets funded? I don't know, and it could be debated endlessly. We're used to government funding being codified - the proper item from the proper distributor, or bidding processes for government buildings, etc. Art is outside of this system. It is hard to control and its variations are endless. Where does one draw the line in a sea of fuzzy gray? What is censorship and what is a reasonable response to the taxpayer's wishes? Don't those who are paying the bills have some right to decide what is made? Or is this simply stiffling artists and does it constitute censorship? And then, what if the piece can be interpreted in many different ways, as almost all great art can be? Should we throw it out because one of many interpretations is "bad", because it could be perceived as offensive? But why should I pay for something if I find it offensive?
Religion and art share a long history as well, and a great many works will undoubtedly reference religion in ways that many people on both sides may be uncomfortable with - especially when they find out they're footing the bill. I have yet to make up my mind on Piss Christ, but I can see that both sides do have reasonable arguments and valid concerns, and I find myself siding a bit more with those against it on reasons of policy. Then again, as soon as I begin to side with them, many questions from the preceding paragraph pop up. I realize that someone who hasn't quite made up his mind is viewed as a heretic or worse in this polarized atmosphere, but I'm a fence-sitter on this one.
It's about RELIGION and should be labelled as such. Don't be such pansies, Slashdot. Call religious lunatics what they are. Don't hide them as "nationalists."
Really?
Here is an interesting interview of Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul that points out how the "Indian Intelligentsia" (ie communist fanatics and Islamists) deliberately skew media reports against the Shiv Sena as part of a systematic campaign of hatred directed against Hindus. The Shiv Sena has done more for the emancipation of the Maharashtrian poor then any of the leftist parties who attack and villify them.
Also notable is Naipaul's famous observation in his bestseller "India, A Wounded Civilization":
<quote>
There was one portrait. And interestingly, it was not of the leader of the Shiv Sena or of Shivaji, the 17 th century Maratha King, but of the long-dead Dr. Ambedkar...Popular-and near-ecstatic-movements like the Shiv Sena ritualize many different needs. The Sena here, honouring an angry and (for all his eminence) defeated man, seemed quite different from the Sena the newspapers wrote about
</quote>
I'm not a big fan of Shiv Sena or the RSS in general. But when I see our own media attack and villify them as part of a shameless excuse to pander to a rising tide of Communist and Islamic Fundamentalism, while ignoring the brutal and barbaric massacres and atrocities against Hindus in Kashmir, Pakistan, Bangadesh, and even at times condoning them, and when Communists in the media openly attack Hindus and demand for their mass killings, I have no choice but to speak out, even though, on leftist-dominated slashdot, that makes me a "Filthy Hindu animal" worthy only to be a hateful object.
Sorry, but in an atmosphere when rabid Indophobia and anti-Hinduism is tolerated and a culture of hatre is built against them, how the hell do you expect them to react? Bend over and take it?
The RSS was basically founded as a social service organization for the emancipation and protection of poor Hindus during the 1940's in a rising tide of violence directed against Hindus by Islamic Fundamentalist mobs during the Islamic Caliphate resurrection movement in India and the days following the anti-Hindu genocides in Bengal (the Direct Action Riots instigated by the Pakistani Nationalists and the Partition massacres). In that sense, they were more like the Anti-Defamation League in the US contemporary to that period. For the most part, even currently their primary goals are social service, the emancipation of the poor (the RSS spent millions coordinating relief efforts during the 2004 Tsunami disaster in South India), an active campaign against untouhability and caste bigotry (60% ofRSS members are Dalits and other lower castes), and trying to provide a unified political emancipation movement for Hindus in a rising climate of hostility against them, much like Irish Nationalism or Zionism in Israel.
However, because this would endanger the power base upper-caste dominated left wing government and polity in India and their Islamist votebank, they started a virulent hate campaign against the RSS, one that spilled over to hatred against Hindus in general. Eventually, they were pushed hard enough to the wall to start pushing back, that's all.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
Dear, AC, thanks for your concern about my mental health. For your information, I'm not retarded. Bravo for not only hiding behind the AC option but for starting your reply with an ad hominem attack.
The US, whether you like it or not, is one of the few countries in the world where someone's religion dictates whether or not they can seriously run for office.
Polls have been taken on the subject and, when asked, something like 52 percent of Americans have said that they would not vote for an aethiest. That alone shows how much of a ceiling your religion (or lack thereof) poses in the US. Neither of the two main political parties would even consider nominating a non-Christian candidate because his/her religion alone would lose them the race: policies and job suitability wouldn't even factor into it.
Compare that to anywhere else in the developed world. I live in the UK, and I can tell you that we wouldn't give a fig what religion someone was before voting for or against them. We certainly wouldn't be using religious litmus tests as you do in the US.
Creationism? Abortion? Seperation of church and state but "One nation under God", and with the motto "In God we trust"?
As for politics and policies, I can give you clear examples of how serious political debate has been stifled in the US post-September 11th. Perhaps you missed the instances of TV shows being cancelled because of comments people made questioning what was going on and why it was happening? Or how any voice raised in dissent was shouted down as anti-American? Don't you remember any of that?
What was wrong with asking why the US was attacked in the first place? Are you seriously telling me that that's been questioned by anybody outside the fringes?
It's only now that this shit has been going on for years and it's cost the lives of over 3,000 US troops (hey, let's not think about the 100,000s of dead Iraqi civilians - they clearly don't count) that serious questions are given more than short shrift by the mainstream media.
(Still, though, the lunatics running the asylum see nothing wrong. And the lunatics wanting to replace them aren't any better: the eight Republican nominees were asked whether knowing what they know now if they would have done anything differently in Iraq, to which none of them had the common sense to say "yes". Even after seeing the disasterous consequences of the path that they've travelled, they'd still go down that road again.)
Elsewhere, District Attorneys are being fired for political purposes. But, of course, when it's discovered, the people in charge have "no recollection" of what happened.
I won't even talk about voter disenfranchisement. Go read up on that before you comment again though.
Of course, I'm sure you'll say that none of that counts. To be honest, if it wasn't helping to screw the rest of us, I wouldn't give a shit. But it does, so I'm telling you, as a friend, this shit is happening, and it does you no favours to be lecturing the world on religious and political freedoms when your own country's record in that area is far from perfect.
The politics of the US aren't any better than that of anywhere else. If you, like the person who I initially replied to, truly consider the US to be a place where religious and political freedoms are respected then you're looking through rose-tinted glasses.
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong and how. Just save the "retard" tag, OK?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Of COURSE these ignorant butt-plugs want to censor stuff. The only way anybody can keep talking to imaginary men in the sky and believing in that kind of nonsensical clap trap is to keep the blinders fully on. A quick reading of every wikipedia article for every religion shows how ludicrous every religion really is.
Go ahead, god squad, mod me down, but the days when society lacks the information to see through your horse shit philosophy systems is at hand. In a few generations, only real Luddites or actual retards will worship invisible men in the sky.
Information wants to be free. And humans want information. The days of praying to "holy ghosts" and multi-armed gods of war and love are ending. I just wish they would end sooner, like before we have another catastrophic global war, or completely destroy the environment.
*sigh* Seems unlikely though.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I wash my testicles in the river Ganges.
;)
Its will be miracle if the are still working... You better get them checked out.
Creationism? Abortion? Seperation of church and state but "One nation under God", and with the motto "In God we trust"?
You know, it's funny.... we here in Norway are a christian state, with something like 85% membership in the state church and even though actual religiousness is low, we certainly don't subscribe much to other religions. We had an ordained priest as prime minister from 1997-2000 and 2001-2005. Yet nobody has considered teaching creationism as anything but religious mythology for many, many decades. We've had free abortions up to the 12th week since 1978, and over 80% support the current legislation and there's really no political debate on the issue because the younger generation are almost unilaterally in favor of it. We've had gay partnerships for 15 years now, and not only is it accepted but the latest proposal for marriage law no longer distinguishes between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage including all rights to adoption etc., though that one is still controversial. While we've had some hangups about pornography and only recently allowed hard pornography that has been legal since the 1970s in our neighboring countries, we in general have a very relaxed relationship to non-sexualized nudity.
In my opinion, whether church and state is separate is not really central at all. What's important is whether or not the law is trying to enforce regligious standards on others. Without butting my head too far into the discussion of what's good christianity and not, which I don't care either way anyway, we've gone to great lengths to allow a free society where you may choose to live a non-christian life. Look to the key elements of chistianity such as compassion, tolerance and forgiveness and you'll see that salvation must come from within. So feel free to preach and hold your opinion that any partiular style of live is a sin against nature, or against God, or whomever. Just do not try to use the law to bludgeon everyone else into adhering to your moral codex. Do not try to use the law to protect yourself from your own moral weakness to the deteriment of everyone else. According to your own religious beliefs, if I choose to live a life in sin then only I can choose to repent. Punishment is not repentance, and do not try to make it so.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I suspect it's the second and/or third.
I suspect strongly that it's the first. Most Slashdot readers have very little clue what is going on in India, and probably didn't read past the first few sentences before modding.
The act of stridently assigning blame for political ills to Communists and Islamists (as those first few sentences do) will strike a chord with most Americans, and echoes a lot of the rhetoric (historical and modern) from their own leaders. The idea that this sort of rhetoric would be happening in very different and faraway place turns the familiarity of such statements into humour.
Hence the "funny" mod. I really think that's a much more plausible explanation than deliberately abusive modding.