Fred Bauder wrote:
Why do you think I brought it up here on the list for redressal? It is because I am confident that if neutral and objective people look at the issue, they will find that I am correct.
Another finding was made.
It is based on the presumption that others will see anything associated with communists as necessarily bad. If the reader can be made to associate the views of one Gujarati faction with the communists, then it will imply the conclusion that anything associated with that faction is also bad. This is a very dishonest way of debating.
Come on, I presented facts. I pointed out the lies. I gave links. And I made the point about Communists in India only to explain why the opposing view which I had proven to be factually inaccurate existed. It is a fact that Communists indulged in propaganda soon after the riots. Imagine calling the riots in Cincinnatti as a Govt sponsored "pogrom."No problem if that's what it was. Something very similar to a pogrom did happen in Tusla, Oklahoma in 1921. See http://www.manningmarable.net/works/apr03a.html We should have an article on this by the way.
The article makes its point very well without mentioning communists. The takeover of Native-American lands in the 19th century also had pogrom like characteristics.
Pogroms (Which really only happened in Russia and what is now Belarus and Ukraine) were both spontaneous and government tolerated mass murder which gave the majority population a way of letting of steam, and are really quite comparable to the events in Gujarat.
An interesting point, but grafting a soviet concept onto Indian circumstances carries certain intellectual dangers.
Communists do tend to be quite opportunistic and are constantly looking for issues and are often less than honorable in their exploitation of them, that said, give em a good issue and they'll fit you out with a new butthole.
Dishonorable opportunism is a characteristic that is common to many political parties across the ideological spectrum
Of course, they exploit the outrage generated by Hindu attacks on minorities just as they exploited racial discrimination in America, but what is really involved is that there is a wrong and that the energy generated by that wrong is being used by someone. It does not mean that the wrong is not real.
This is the crux of the issue, no matter who is engaging in exploiting that issue for political gain. Referencing communists (or fascists for that matter) only serves to distract us from an understandng of the issue.
A very recent Statesman article refers to a very recent riot in Viramgam. http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=3&id=55336&usrsess... This was triggered by Muslim boys trying to retrieve a cricket ball that had inadvertently landed in a Hindu area. I doubt that the participants ever gave any serious thought to communism in deciding to riot.
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