I do both, and am doing both. A tangential note: I’m in New Zealand right now. I got a message on my Facebook from one of my students, asking “Damn, heard about those terrorist attacks. Are you safe where you are Are you near Mumbay (sic)?” Students and Facebook friends know where I am. Geography… a lost subject. Apparently, an attack on one part of what was once the British Empire is an attack on all.
“Apparently, an attack on one part of what was once the British Empire is an attack on all.” Since the perpetrators were checking for American and British passports, I don’t think that’s what’s happening here (at least I hope not). I don’t pray but I’m weeping for these poor people.
The Feds are supposedly watching for something here, particularly in the Northeast, targeting transportation. This might be Al-Qaeda’s or some similar outfit’s welcome to President Obama.
It’s truly terrible. I’ve been hooked to the news since last night. (While the rest of the family has been watching the parade and embracing tradition, I’ve been cloistered up in the other room watching and reading updates on the news.) No one has yet mentioned the timing of the attack. Anyone think the attacks taking place on Thanksgiving Eve was intentional?
given that thanksgiving is an American holiday and that the attacks took place in India, i wouldn’t think so…
“Anyone think the attacks taking place on Thanksgiving Eve was intentional?” No, I believe the timing was because of a European Union-India summit about to be held which means there were a good number of foreign lawmakers. But it is all speculative at the moment. From what a lot in the media are saying it was radical Muslims attacking foreigners and the financial districts.
It has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. It has to do with Muslims trying to spread their backward ideology everywhere. This is the city in which I spent my undergraduate years. I hate to see what is happening to it.
Gah! The ethnocentric interpretations being spouted on CNN etc with no understanding of India’s political and ethnic problems is bad enough, but this is more annoying. No, the world doesn’t revolve around USA. No, most people in other countries don’t know what Thanksgiving is nor do they care. And no, this stunning and vile tragedy didn’t take place to spoil your dinner appetites.
Anyone think the attacks taking place on Thanksgiving Eve was intentional? Looks like it was. Or so the majority of people I’ve spoken to seem to think.
Whoa there ittef. I don’t think it’s particularly ethnocentric to consider the date of the attacks when the terrorists specifically sought out those with British and American passports, nor do I think that calling attention to the date reveals some sort of ignorance of foreign cultures. Yes, there are many other factors behind the intentions of the terrorists that are completely unrelated to America and the rest of the Western world, but that doesn’t mean that the terrorists didn’t also consider the effect the attacks would have on America (and American media for that matter). And I don’t know what you intend with the comments about Thanksgiving dinner being ruined. I doubt it affected many people’s festivities, but it should have.
It has to do with Muslims trying to spread their backward ideology everywhere. well, there’s an inappropriate generalization. specifying that these are radical Muslim terrorist might be more appropriate.
Thank you, Feministe, for being one of the only feminist blogs to mention this catastrophic event. I would also like to briefly mention that Bangkok is also in the midst of turmoil. “Anyone think the attacks taking place on Thanksgiving Eve was intentional?”/”Looks like it was. Or so the majority of people I’ve spoken to seem to think.” People here don’t even know what Thanksgiving is, as it is only celebrated in the US and Canada. I’ve had to explain to several people over the past 48 hours why the US celebrates this holiday, and only because people saw it mentioned in American news, so I’m going to say that it is highly unlikely that it had anything to do with the timing of these attacks, which have been happening all over the country. Since I got here in June, there have been bombings Delhi, Assam, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, and a few other cities. There were incidents before that as well. None of them, from what I have read, seem to be linked to North American holidays. They are, however, linked to a history of social, political, and religious conflict in the region. The European Union-India summit or the upcoming elections in this country are a more likely source of influence. “It has to do with Muslims trying to spread their backward ideology everywhere.” First, as there is very little information available about who is responsible for these attacks, why they have chosen to attack in this way and target foreigners (so far Americans, British, Australians, Japanese, and Germans have been identified as targets and/or hostages), what their demands or grievances are, and what religious or ethnic background is, this statement is completely unfounded. Second, as Fauzia wrote, it is terribly unfair to make this statement, in general, and it is just this type of sentiment that works to reinforce the cycle of violence and perpetuation of feelings of persecution, real or fictitious, that allow for these groups to successfully recruit and increase in number. Even from Kolkata, the fear that I feel right now is striking. I just keep trying to remind myself that I can’t let that fear contribute to gross misjudgments. I can’t let my fear paralyze me, convincing me that the only safe place is in my flat or not in tourist-y neighborhoods or not in this country at all. I remind myself that control is an illusion, and that all I can do is to remain aware of the world being a dangerous place. To take Jill’s sentence in another direction, if you pray or send good thoughts, send them to the people who may be coming up with methods of retaliation for this attack. Hope and pray that it isn’t the innocent who will suffer the consequences.
Woah – when did this all start? I haven’t been online or watching TV in a couple of days. This is just terrible.
@ Fauzia I agree with you. Reshma’s comment made me very uncomfortable. I come from a mixed family of Muslims and Christians and the Muslims I know are not “backward”.
I can’t find the “American and British passports” stuff corroborated anywhere. I saw the early report about that on CNN, but they don’t have any reference to it online now, and I believe it was based on one person’s eyewitness account. Only 10% of the people identified in the death toll so far are foreigners, and only 2% of them were American or British (three people, the two Americans a father and his daughter visiting Mumbai for a meditation retreat). Since the statements from the attackers (purported or actual) don’t seem to have anything to do with the West, I think it’s a little weird to keep going on about how Westerners are being targeted. Over a hundred Indians are dead. The attacks targeted the financial district in south Mumbai and two hotels, the Taj and the Oberai, where there were a lot of foreigners, but from what I understand from friends who grew up there, everyone hangs out in those hotels, they’re major centers of commerce and nightlfie. And yeah, there’s really no reason to generalize about all Muslims at a time like this (or in the history of the huge metropolis of western india, not far from pakistan and the partition.)
Yeah, the focus on OMG WESTERNERS! has been weird. Not everything revolves around us, guys. And Fauzia already said it, but in all likelihood this is about religious extremism and long-standing international conflicts, not about “Muslims” in general.
People here don’t even know what Thanksgiving is, as it is only celebrated in the US and Canada. Of course. But considering the long-standing desire for potent symbolism within the various fundamentalist movements, it may very well be that they saved this latest, “showier” attack for a day that would make people start drawing these connections. It’s like with neo-Nazi operations in Eastern Europe – most people there don’t know or care when Hitler’s birthday was. But they know and care. I spoke to several people in India who don’t think the timing in relation to an American holiday was accidental (or perhaps only fortuitous for the terrorists, in that it automatically made Americans *think* about the whole thing as somehow more symbolic – especially considering the fairly atypical style of the attack), but of course, the primary victims are Indians. Reminds me of the Amman bombings, a bit. So much of fundamentalism is policing your own while making sure that the rest wait in fear and wonder if you’re coming to police them next. There are so many twisted psychological tactics involved in all of that. You honestly don’t know what to say about it, after a while. Hope and pray that it isn’t the innocent who will suffer the consequences. I hope so too.
Thanks for posting. Can any of the very knowledgeable readers of this blog link to a good overview that helps place these attacks in context of recent Indian history and politics? I know that India has been experiencing a resurgence of Hindu fundamentalism that has exacerbated Hindu-Muslim tension, I know that widespread poverty plays a huge role in the tensions, and I know that there are upcoming national elections in which Hindu-Muslim relations play an important part. But beyond that I know very little, and all CNN does is show live shots of buildings burning and talk about dead westerners. Also, anyone who can provide the same for the Bangkok situation would have my gratitude. I need to know more than what an “Oh, look, Asians, violence” American media report provides.
Holly – The American and British passports has been reported in multiple places: The Hindu, the BBC (if you watch their videos you’ll see witnesses attesting to this), the AP, the NY Times, and the list continues. Just go to Google News and type in Mumbai American British and it will pull up these and more stories. Jill- Not to quibble, but I was the one who said it is about long-standing conflicts. Natalie- I agree that it is more fortuitous than intentional, until it is explicitly stated otherwise. There are many explanations that are just more plausible, and more locally relevant.
FR – thanks for the links. It’s the Alex Chamberlain statement from the Trident Hotel that I kept seeing. The discrepancy is clearer now — those same sources are saying that most of the people slain wee Indian, but it looks like the attackers were asking for passports in order to specifically take American and British visitors hostage. It’s all speculation at this point, but that seems to be a slightly different logic than just “targeting foreigners,” since Westerners make for more high-profile media-worthy hostages, even from local media.
prefer not to say: Here is a decent article by the BBC about Bangkok. What you’re asking for regarding India’s history is a little too lengthy for one article. (Although, the BBC does have an Analysis and Background section that you may want to read and this article in The Independent is worth a read as well.) The Clash Within by Martha Nussbaum is a good place to start for an historical overview.
Holly- It seems that he’s the person most quoted, though I can’t now remember the name of the guy in the BBC videos that was saying the same thing. It may very well be the same person. Yes, there are many more Indian nationals who have been killed and injured than foreigners. I was told that hospitals in Mumbai were having to turn people away because they didn’t have the capacity to help new patients.
the focus on westerners is twofold. of course its ethnocentrism; but ethnocentrism’s a fairly universal phenomena. I’m quite sure indians would do the same. However, focusing on the west also fits nicely into “they hate us because of our foreign policy” narrative. Thus we see deepak chopra babbling on cnn about how the iraq war clearly led to this, obviously projecting his own grievances with the US onto the terrorists…which is not to say they don’t share them, but that its as hopelessly reductionist as saying ruby ridge and waco resulted in timothy mcveigh. there are not only far more less convenient grievances going on, but also an underlying ideology of hatred that goes unanalyzed as blame gets displaced. so when Mumbai was hit, cnn was slow to react. Meanwhile foxnews was up to speed rather quickly. I recall a similar thing happening during the Mumbai train bombings, as the left wing media was largely silent while the right much more vocal. Fox, of course, is not less ethnocentric that cnn but rather more comfortable with “islamofascism” narratives, where one looks to the terrorists and arguably the larger community from which they sprung for root causes, as opposed to the victims. Those bombing forced the left to get out of their ideological comfort zone. Some reacted by overcontextualizing the issues, point to regional conflicts at the expense of the larger picture: an increasingly international ideology of hatred and intolerance. Now, it appears westerners were singled out in Mumbai. Disturbingly, a jewish center was targeted, something I can’t recall ever happening in India despite decades of Islamic terrorism. Islamic terror, long a worldwide problem, is becoming even more internationalized, with local groups picking up grievances of far away muslims, expanding their already exaggerated sense of victimization. Similar things happened to the international white supremacist movements; but the jihadist are even bigger, much more powerful, and often have the support of sympathetic governments. Very worrying development, though sadly not surprising.
Reshma, I sincerely, sincerely hope that you meant it the other way around. That it’s the 1% that give the 99% a bad name. Otherwise, as a Muslim, and someone who completely denounces terrorism, I find your words wholeheartedly offensive. FeministReview: Sorry for the quick note. I read the comment and had been mulling the statement over in my head for a while. I think what Manju wrote about an “exaggerated sense of victimization” is unfair, because it assumes to know the feelings of someone else’s “sense of victimization.” I probably can’t articulate this in a way that is concise and well-written, and I can completely understand, for example, other Arab countries taking on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a political tool and not because they are actually dedicated to one side or the other. However, I suppose I find that statement unfair because I don’t really understand what qualifies one group’s say, “justified sense of victimization” versus another groups “expanding exaggerated sense of victimization.” I think I could go on, but a cold is pulling my brain back from functioning normally. Sorry!
i cant get myself to get outraged over it. statements like that are pretty much par for the course whenever something like this happens. of course, i wonder if reshma also used a broadbrush when hindus killed 100 christians and drove 100K christian familes from their homes last month. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3229253/India-asked-to-investigate-Hindu-massacre-of-Christians.html somehow, i doubt it.
Oh come on, Reshma. That’s a huge generalization and you know it. I live in a Muslim country. It has its problems, but not everyone around here is some sort of raving, blood-thirsty lunatic. In fact, most people are not. In other news, Sanchita wrote an essay for us that I thought gives perspective (she’s a Mumbai resident).
The attacks are aimed to destabilize the economic stability of Indian’s economic capital as well as sending a message to the global coalition against terror. Some say it was to avenge the Marriot blast in Pak earlier during the year. Which is idiotic coz I don’t see how Mumbaites were involved in it. These places – Taj, Strident, Nariman House – are Mumbai landmarks. To aim for them is to try and break this city’s spirit. The idea behind attacking these places was to rattle the morale of the city and break it to pieces. As per current reports, the terrorist captured by the Mumbai Police Force and NSG claims that they originally intended to cause at least 5000 deaths before the tragedy was averted. This attack was planned in a way that would affect the upper echeleons of the Mumbai society (Taj, Strident) as well the average citizens (CST railway station). These men sprayed bullets randomly and were in fact advised by their squad leader to “kill till the last breath”. This was not just an attack, it was akin to internal warfare. In a phone call to an Indian TV channel, one of the terrorists claimed that they were Indians (despite that his accent betrayed this claim because he couldn’t fathom simple Hindi words used by the news reporters and spoke a very unusual dialect not heard in this country) avenging the deaths of their Muslim brethren at the hands of “Hindu extremists”. Ha! These were no ordinary, spur of the moment attacks: the 20 somethings were meticulously trained in combat and laying sea mines, possibly by ex Pak army men and ISI (Pak’s premier intelligence agency). They were carrying guns available to the army and no easily found in the black market. Right now its difficult to comment but speculations are rife about Pakistan’s involvement in this attack. The other angle is that given the recent, somewhat positive (dubious now) , bilateral talks between India and Pakistan, ISI is sort of losing its grip and so needed to do something rather strong to register it’s significance with the current Pak government and India. 30% of those killed were Muslim. So, religion isn’t on their mind when they shoot women and children. (One of them fired shots at a wailing mother, then shot the kid and then the strays barking nearby at the CST train station). These attacks will probably help wake up the population of this country vis-a-vis the utter ineptitude of our current government. The security lapses that enabled such a heart-crunching tragedy can’t be listed in a comment box. We are not easily defeated, the people of this city know how to rise above. We are angry and determined to see something positive come out of this but we are not cowards, like these self proclaimed fidayeens who started begging for mercy when the NSG cornered them. (Well..so did their victims but I guess it’s not a one way street, is it?) They shot innocent staffers (18-19 year old girls and boys at the reception and house keeping) because these kids wouldnt lob grenades handed to them. These people have twisted Islam beyond recognition. They are not fighting for the “kaum”, just for themselves. Look at their eyes, they are power-drunk: they feel mighty because they can inspire terror. We can’t allow for them to think they’ve won. My city never sleep. Or rests. People are back at those very places and despite the sombre atmosphere, we are planning to get back to Leopold’s cafe for some chilled beers this weekend. 🙂 Thanks for putting this up, btw.
I do find this type of overgeneralization appalling and hugely problematic. At the same time, and at the risk of being attacked for saying this, I can understand how fear may influence people’s thinking/perspective enormously. I’m not making excuses, just pondering where this may be coming from.
Ok, I took a break from blogging over the holidays and Reshma has officially gotten on my nerves. Reshma, if the last comment was a typo, let us know. Otherwise, I’m putting your comments into permanent moderation, and deleting any that make bigoted statements about Muslims (or any other group).