So criticising Umno is insulting Islam
Several NGOs have lodged police reports on allegedly inflammatory comments posted on the Malaysiakini website, threatening to hold protests in front of its office as well as that of the Home Ministry’s if no action is taken. Malays are polite and friendly but Muslims are belligerent , I got whacked left and right . Now just look at the threats hurled at Karpal Singh and those who say their minds. There are many videos too in the internet.
the other's church to pray...!So much for One Christ, One Bible, One Jehova...
What a unity!Islam:One Allah, One Quran, One Nebi....!
AND ALL MUSLIMS CALL THEMSELVES BROTHERS!BUT, Shia and Sunni cannot see eye to eye and kill each other anywhere and everywhere.
The Shia will not go to Sunni Mosque.These two will not go to Ahamadiya Mosque.
These three will not go to Sufi Mosque.These four will not go to Mujahiddin mosque...
There are 13 castes in Muslims and these brothers can't share theirplaces of worship.
The brothers have been killing / bombing / conquering/ murdering /
raping each other in the name of Islam for the last 500 years, sincethe day Islam existed..!
They have never been or never will be at peace with Jews or Christians
in the name of religion, yet all 3 pray to the same God of Abraham.
The American attack on the Muslim land of Iraq and Afghanistan is
fully supported by all the Muslim countries around them!
One Allah, One Quran, One Nebi....! Great unity!
All Muslims are not Terrorists, but all Terrorists are Muslims! and60%
of all victims of Muslim terrorism are Muslims.
THEY ARE KILLING THEMSELVES IN THE NAME OF RELIGION.
the Modi government had been elected to power. More importantly public order had collapsed in the state two years before that in 2002 when the UPA was not in office. Since Modi had been re elected to power after the Gujarat progrom, the UPA government was probably misled into believing that there was public sanction for whatever happened in the state after the Godhra train burning. But India's electoral system :the first past the post system (FPTP) is so defective that a minority of votes turn into a majority of seats and this is what happened in Gujarat conveying the wrong public impression that Modi had huge public support.
Actually the NDA led by Vajpayee should have sacked Narendra Modi within days of the progrom beginning in Gujarat. Vajpayee was game for doing away with Modi and even made his displeasure clear by publicly exhorting Modi to follow the Rajdharma' (to which Modi retorted in an ungentlemanly fashion in full view of TV channels). But Vajpayee's deputy Advani under whose BJP presidency the Babri Masjid was demolished leading to unprecedented communal riots across the nation was not ready. In fact his love' for Modi prompted many to dub him as "Dhritarashtra" in private conversations. Suitably helped by rootless wonders in BJP's central establishment who can never win any election on their own, Modi (whose priority activity is to promote himself and continue in power), was able to stave off a diktat from Vajpayee and other sane elements in the party to resign. This happened at BJP's national executive party meeting in April 13 2002 in Goa.
The night before that when the Gujarat chief minister was readying to fly off to Goa I got information from a close aide of governor (since deceased) Sundar Singh Bhandari that Modi had been asked to keep his resignation letter ready but the latter stymied the move. All that Vajpayee could do was to write to Modi about improper running of riot relief camps. By failing to sack Modi, the NDA government lost the general elections of 2004 because the minorities enmasse voted against the BJP and its electoral allies. There is no substantial consolidated "Hindu" vote in India that could have counteracted the effects of this minority vote against the BJP. Modi has been ever since then hanging like a millstone around the neck of the BJP. Modi is a bitter pill that the BJP can neither swallow nor spit. So long as Modi is an important part of BJP the party has no chance to come to power in New Delhi. And promotion of Modi as BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate will make constitution of a new NDA a non starter(witness the reaction of Nitish Kumar).
Who knows this better than Modi himself? Little wonder that he is assiduously courting big business giving them sops in generous dollops to set up shop in Gujarat. In his first major investment into Gujarat -the Nano plant, Modi's regime has forked out concessions estimated to be a staggering Rs 20,000 crores. The purpose is to boost his image and at least prompt big business forget that a progrom of minorities took place in his regime less than a decade ago. However how much this has really helped Modi remains doubtful.
For one, there is increasing disenchantment among the public who perceive that Modi's concern is nothing other than pandering to big business. Secondly Modi's image refurbishment has done nothing to win hearts across the country. In India's complex polity, becoming fragmented by the day only a man who is the "least unacceptable" has the chance of making it to the top slot. Modi does not fall in this category. And lastly what do you say about a public servant and head of one of India's largest state has the ignominy of being refused a visa to the mecca of big business - the US. This should make all of us look inward and ask what sort of man we have allowed to continue as chief minister of a state.
Now that the government has begun taking tough action it must demonstrate that the rule of law comes before everything else. As the Supreme Court had once remarked how so ever high one may be nobody is higher than the law.' Modi must be sacked immediately and the process of prosecuting him must begin immediately. As one who served in Gujarat all through the crucial years as the Resident Editor of TOI, the largest selling English paper then and now, I can safely say that there is enough evidence available to try Modi. And if more evidence of the prosecutable kind is required then K Chakravarthy, the director general of Gujarat police in 2002 and PC Pande the commissioner of police of Ahmedabad then ( and later director general of police; naturally !) should be interrogated rigorously. They are bound to sing as would many others who held crucial posts in the government at that stage. Modi's latest obsession IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt said on national TV that Modi is a common criminal and should be treated as one." I disagree, how can a chief minister of a state who fancies himself as the future Prime Minister be considered as common' criminal or otherwise. Only a tribunal can try Modi and all other accuseds.
Gujarat cop Sanjeev Bhatt’s revelations, contained in his affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, may come as a surprise to many. But for all those who lived in Gujarat during those fateful days and were in the thick of things, the contents only provide substantiation of what they had heard then. A top police officer of the state told me a couple of days after the riots started how director general of poice K Chakravarthy was uncomfortable on being told by Narendra Modi at a meeting to allow Hindus to vent their feelings.Though perturbed, Chakravarthy, a naturally timid person, could not muster the guts to stand up to his boss. So, instead he lamented to top police officers like the person to whom I had spoken. Or at least that is what the officer told me.
It was also being speculated that not only had “Hindus” been allowed to vent their feelings, they had been given “three days” to do this. Then defence minister George Fernandes who had been sent to Ahmedabad by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee also knew of this “three days” and I personally can vouch for this. With a view to figure out what he was up to, I had called on Fernandes on Saturday, March 2, 2002, in Circuit House in Ahmedabad. Initially, I had some apprehension about how much time the minister would give me because he was on a mission and the riots were on full blast. But I was pleasantly surprised that he had all the time in the world for me. Very soon I could figure out the purpose Fernandes was so keen to engage me in conversation: he wanted to cross-check the facts of the riots that he had heard. It was a long three-hour meeting. At one point the chief secretary, G Subba Rao, and additional chief secretary Ashok Narain, along with a senior army officer, came into the room. They had been confabulating with the minister before I dropped in. Leaving them behind, Fernandes took me to his room. Now the officials wanted to know if they should wait or could leave. The minister asked them to leave and resumed his conversation with me. Fernandes spoke about a whole lot of things, how Ahmedabad had changed, how he had come to the city when there was a massive riot in 1969, how he had walked to the Governor Shriman Narayan’s house from the airport at that time, etc. With the evening advancing and the need for me to go back to the office, I excused myself. Fernandes persisted but I went out. As I climbed down the stairs, the defence minister beckoned me once again from the top of the stairs and said that I should have dinner with him. In the end, I retraced my path. While having an early dinner, Fernandes who was beating around the bush for so long suddenly let it out: “ I have heard that the rioters have been allowed three days time before any action is taken?” I shot back: “ Ya, I have also heard it.” The minister said: “Humm. I see.” We continued on the dinner silently. I must admit that there was no talk about the Modi meet about which Sanjiv Bhatt has now filed an affidavit. But very soon our meeting was broken. Harin Pathak, the minister of state for defence and the BJP MP from Ahmedabad and a hardliner himself, walked into the room with decisive steps and plonked himself on the sofa. In the manner that he walked in it seemed that Pathak was aware that we were having a long meeting and wanted to be privy to the conversation. Immediately after the dinner, I left the place.
A couple of months later, the Outook magazine ran an exclusive report on a serving minister of the Gujarat government having deposed before a citizens’ commission about the Modi meeting on the evening of January 27 where the chief minister had talked about allowing the Hindu reaction. The minister was not named but I instinctively knew that it was Haren Pandya. So I called Pandya and said: “So you tendered evidence before the commission?” Pandya demanded: “How do you know?” I said: “I can make out because you have told me this before. Though I am not sure about others because there is some speculation that it is Suresh Mehta ( another minister). But I am sure your boss Modi can make out too.” The minister said in a dismissive tone: “Who cares about him.” Then I told Pandya: “But your testimony is second hand. Why don’t you get me somebody who attended the meeting and confirm this to me?” Pandya thought for a moment and replied: “Chakravarthi (director general of police ) can.” I told him: “I don’t know him. But since you were close to him and once were his boss as home minister, why don’t you set up a meeting.” Pandya said: “Let me get back to you.” He was back on the line in 10 minutes. “I have spoken with him. Here is his cell number. You have to ask him the questions but he will answer only in yes or no. He is not willing to go any further.” OK, I said and kept down the phone. In the event I did not call up Chakravarthi. The reason: I had written an article for the edit page about the guilty men of Gujarat and had named Chakravarthi and this was going to appear in the paper the next day. I did not think it morally right to get information from a source one day and next day publish an article that would put him on the mat. Moreover, the prospect on a yes or no answer did not appeal to me.
A few months later when I came to know of the names of officers who were present at that fateful meeting, I asked one of them about what had transpired. The officer, Anil Mukim, then private secretary to Modi and now a joint secretary to GOI told me: “Not while I was there.” My specific query was: “Did Modi say that a Hindu reaction be allowed?”. I noted from media reports recently that this is also exactly what Mukim told the SIT on the Gujarat riots. If I recollect correctly Ashok Narayan, the additional chief secretary (home) who had attended the meeting told the Nanavati Commission that there were instructions that the bodies of all those perished in the Godhra train carnage be allowed to be brought to Ahmedabad. This is what Sanjiv Bhatt has also said as part of his affadavit about what had transpired at the meeting.
Incidentally, it seems that on the evening of February 27 there were two meetings that had been convened by Modi. The first one was a law and order meeting with top cops and secretaries, which Sanjiv Bhatt is supposed to have attended. The other was a meeting of ministers. Haren Pandya had told me that at this meeting some of the ministers said that the bodies of those who died in the Godhra carnage be brought to Ahmedabad. Haren said that he resisted because he felt that this could lead to an outpouring of sentiments leading to a serious law and order situation. Pandya said that he was outshouted at the meeting and mentioned a minister (I am withholding the name, but it was not Modi) who said that this is what we want. “Our party strength is in Ahmedabad. We want everything to happen here. It will help our party.”Haren Pandya was murdered under mysterious circumstances in early 2003, so he cannot come back to life to testify whatever is attributed to him by me. I am acutely aware of this. I am also aware that George Fernandes is suffering from Alzhiemer’s, a disease that robs its patients of all his memories.When I read the other day that the Gujarat high court had dismissed the prosecution case in the matter of Haren Pandya's murder and expressed severe doubts about how the CBI had conducted its investigations, I could not agree more. My mind went back to 2003 when in the aftermath of the murder a CBI officer came to my office to investigate the 'role' of The Times Of India (TOI) in the affair! Don't laugh, that's what had happened.
A CBI deputy superintendent of police (DSP) - some Gupta, first name I forget- landed up in my office in Ahmedabad where I was posted then as the resident editor of the TOI and wanted to talk to me. "We have been told that the assailants figured out where they would find Pandya after reading your paper. Can you throw some light on this matter?" I should have been stunned on hearing that but wasn't. That was because a few days earlier one of our correspondents told me that the crime branch of Ahmedabad police had been speculating on this matter. On asking which great man in the crime branch was having these fanciful ideas, the correspondent said it was the SP, DG Vanzara (this gentleman is now in Sabarmati jail for bumping off Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife Kauser Bee). And what was the reason for Vanzara's line of thought? The correspondent said because we had published how Pandya was spending his days now that he was neither a minister nor MLA. For those who came in late, Pandya had been denied a seat in the 2002 assembly elections, so the 41-year-old leader had nothing much to do in February 2003. He was busy going for long morning walks in Law Gardens of Ahmedabad in the morning and playing golf in the evening. TOI had written in a feature story about what politicians who had lost or kept away for elections were doing.
The CBI DSP (in newspapers we often describe CBI men as 'sleuths' but I refuse to use that term for Gupta or even his bosses who must have sent him to our office) denied that he had been tipped off by Vanzara and company to follow this line of investigation. He said: "We have talked to the house owner where the assailant had rented a room. And he has told us that the suspect only used to read TOI. In fact he used to pore through TOI the whole day." By this time I was maha miffed. Earlier that day some stationery retailer had gifted me two fancy note books and two perfumed rubbers. This was lying on my table. I took this stuff and told him: "Mr Gupta you must be having children at home. Take these as gifts for them." Nonplussed, the CBI man took the stuff and I saw him off. Even as he left it was clear to me that the CBI was upto some shoddy investigation and this opinion got only strengthened when I read about the recent high court order.
I would imagine that Haren Pandya's wife Jagrutiben also feels the same about the investigations of CBI. In fact when the sessions court had sentenced the accused in 2007, instead of feeling happy she had gone public seeking a reinvestigation in the matter. Before his death earlier this year Haren's father, Vithal Pandya, had waged a long battle in this matter quite vociferous in stating that his son's murder was political. Now two sisters of Haren, along with Jagruti, have sought to reopen the case and have said that they would be representing to the Prime Minister.
Actually it is not too difficult to figure out that the prosecution case was faulty. According to the prosecution version, Haren Pandya was shot dead just as he arrived at Law Garden in his Maruti 800 for his morning walk around 7.20 am. The assailant pulled the trigger before he rolled up the window of his car and got out. But a forensic expert - who had deposed in the court - told me the injuries that Haren had showed that he could not have been shot from a gun pointing down at him (as would be if the assailant put the gun from outside). In fact the injuries had been down up. Add to this, the fact that no blood was found on the seat of the car and it is easy to see that Haren was probably murdered somewhere else and his body brought to the site from somewhere else in his car and dumped there.
It is also strange that the body of Haren Pandya lay there outside the busy Law Garden for three hours till his friends heard and rushed to the spot three hours later. Haren Pandya, earlier having been the home minister of the state, was quite well known and it looks unlikely that nobody discovered his body for so long. In fact many voices were heard in undertones in the aftermath of Pandya's murder that a large crowd had collected around the body at 8.30 am but they had melted perceiving it as a political murder. In fact due to this reason the area around Law Garden became unusually quiet. I also know that some top cops had also learnt of the murder before 9 am but they too kept silent -again perceiving it to be a political murder.
The prosecution's case was that Haren had been killed by assailants from Hyderabad to avenge the Gujarat riots of 2002. But the fact of the matter is that Haren was the minister in the Gujarat government who had secretly deposed before the Citizen's Tribunal about the riots and let it know many facts then not public. He had also in a cabinet meeting advocated that the bodies of the victims of Godhra carnage not be brought to Ahmedabad because that would arouse passion. But he was shouted down at the meeting by some ministers.
Whatever be the reason, Narendra Modi had thrown Haren Pandya out of his ministry in July 2002. Modi also ensured that Pandya was denied a ticket from his Ellisbridge constituency in the December 2002 assembly elections. This was even when pressure was put on Modi by Advani and Arun Jaitely to relent. In fact Jaitely found Modi's behaviour churlish and Advani happened to be the political guru of Pandya. After being forced out of electoral politics, Pandya was out in the cold contemplating what to do next when somebody decided to bump him off. The million dollar question is: who was that person?
Hindus1,280 Religious Books, 10,000 Commentaries, more than one lakh
sub-commentaries for these foundation books, 330 million gods, varietyof Aacharyas,
thousands of Rishies, hundreds of languages... still everyone goes to
the SAME TEMPLE ...Hindus never quarreled each other for the last ten thousand years in
The name of religion.The lesson is as clear as it is dangerous. Left unchecked, those who prey on ignorance and fear to spread hatred, and those who sow the seeds of division and intolerance threaten to tear apart the very fabric of our nation and compromise the values of openness and inclusion that have made America united and strong. The purveyors of intolerance also put at risk the rights and security of entire communities of Americans to operate in our society as full and equal citizens without fear of discrimination
Indeed, if one cares to read Utusan Malaysia or Berita Harian, or is so much at a loose end as to tune intoRTM TV1 or UMNO-controlled TV3, one would be forgiven for thinking that Malaysia has never left Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s glory days.And Mahathir seems so full of certitude that his excessively long tenure has done more good than bad for the country, conveniently overlooking the culture of fear and political thuggery that he had employed to keep himself in power.Let’s consider Mahathir’s legacies: bloated bureaucracy, rising costs of living, overpriced and under-performing ‘national’ cars, chronic budget deficits, rampant corruption, brutal Police force, emasculated press, gutless judiciary, spineless government backbenchers, greedy ministers, his filthy rich sons and cronies… the list goes on.
We are pretty certain Malaysians who have survived his horrible regime of the 1980s through to 2003 can add much more.So, still better the devil you know?To be frank, I have my strong reservations about the Opposition alliance. While the frogging season has started again in Sabah, I remain acutely aware Anwar Ibrahim was responsible for bringing UMNO into the Land Below the Wind in the early 1990s and altered radically the political landscape there.Had this not happened, the Kadazan Dusun community would not have been as politically marginalised as it is today. Yes, blame not only Mahathir, but Anwar and Pairin Kitingan also, the latter eventually succumbing to the allure of power and abandoning the very people that he claimed to represent.Moreover, Malaysian politics is largely driven by personalities. As far as Barisan Nasional is concerned, whatever promises of reform touted hinge very much on Najib Abdul Razak, with most of his cabinet colleagues – especially those from Umno – showing only lukewarm support.True to his opportunistic character, Najib simply steps back whenever the stakes are high.The same is true of Pakatan Rakyat, as all hopes of its supporters are pinned on Anwar, Lim Guan Eng and Hadi Awang. We need to put more pressure on the Opposition parties to integrate their reform agenda into a broader framework of deliberation, contestation and accountability, and base it on firm and concrete political institutions. Rhetoric alone will never do the trick.
America's oldest pastime is not baseball, or football, or indeed any professional sport. It is not going to the movies, or watching television, or spending time on the Internet. It's not communicating with each other via email, telephone, or any other method. America's oldest pastime will be on full display for the next two weeks, because before any of the rest of these things even existed, America has had a love affair with politics that endures and lives on to this day. But politics, especially as practiced during the national conventions, is nothing more than intolerance and bigotry writ large. But, unlike the more virulent forms of bigotry, political bigotry is not only celebrated in America but actually downright inevitable -- or at least, it has been since our country began.
The Internet has been widely used for less than a quarter of a century, email perhaps a decade longer than that. The telephone's been around more than a hundred years, movies for roughly the same century, and at some point along the way radio and television were added to the mix. Before the telephone, the miracle invention was the telegraph, which provided the first near-instantaneous news network in the country. Professional sports came into their own in the 1900s, as well, with baseball notably reaching back to the late 1800s. But politics has been around since before our country was born. Even more important: Without politics, our country never would have been born.
Depending on how you define your terms, politics (and politicking) have been a force in America since either the mid-1760s, since the mid-1770s, or since the Constitution was adopted in the late 1780s. Politicians actually engaging in politics was frowned upon back then, but it took place all the same. For a long time "electioneering" (as it was then called) was a very dirty word in American politics, but it certainly wasn't the only dirty word being used politically at the time (see, for instance, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings). It wasn't until Andrew Jackson's time in the 1820s that politics truly burst onto the American scene with all the traditional trappings we now enjoy (national conventions, national organized political parties, full-blown campaigning, and election paraphernalia, from red-white-and-blue bunting to campaign biographies to campaign songs to dozens of items you could purchase with your candidate's name and face on them). But, since then, this circus has never stopped.
For the next two weeks, we'll see both sides occupy center ring of this circus, as the Republicans and then the Democrats hold their quadrennial bash. While the spotlight is on each party, they will offer up what now amounts to a multi-day infomercial, in an attempt to convince American voters of the righteousness of their way of thinking, and the wrongheadedness of the other side's viewpoints. Part of the fun is the intellectual nature of the crassness of the spin. That sounds contradictory, but when you think about it, there wouldn't be any point to spin if it wasn't meant to convince the voter of your way of looking at things. Sure, spin can be dirty and muddy and all of that, but it is also an attempt to convince people -- by hook or by crook, by sacred truth or by Big Lies -- that you are right and those other fellows are wrong.
The very fact that such spin exists showcases how deeply Americans feel about politics. If there were no convincible voters out there, then there simply wouldn't be any point spinning, would there? The amount of people in America who decide which candidate to vote for in the last days before the election would probably shock partisans on both sides. But you have to wonder: If people have so little connection to the person they vote for, why do they bother voting at all? The answer is a deep-seated sense of duty and participation in American politics in millions of people. This goes beyond metaphors like the people who watch the Super Bowl who don't care one whit about the game and are merely watching to be entertained by the commercials. At least the commercials (some of them) do entertain. But voting isn't a passive activity; it requires action on the part of the voter that is an expenditure of free time and gives little or no immediate reward to someone who isn't deeply vested in one candidate or the other. The conventions exist to catch the passing fancy of these voters, and that of all the other millions who simply haven't been paying any attention to the election yet because they've been busy living their lives. The spin from both sides will be designed to draw these voters in and convince them to make the effort to vote this year -- for their side.
At heart, political conventions are the last remaining bastion of acceptable free-floating bigotry in America. Now, please note, I am not using this word to denigrate the Republicans or the Democrats specifically, nor am I suggesting that either party is guilty of racism, sexism, or any of the other myriad "-isms" that bigotry usually refers to in modern usage. But my dictionary defines the word bigot as "one intolerably devoted to his own church, party, or opinion" and gives as synonyms "fanatic, enthusiast, zealot." Note that word "party" in there. Virtually everyone attending the two conventions (excluding the media, one is supposed to assume) will be devoted to their party and their party's opinions. Appearing on our television screens will indeed be enthusiasts, fanatics, and even the occasional zealot -- 0n both sides, mind you. You can quibble about the "intolerably" part of the definition, but most of the conventioneers strike me as a pretty intolerant bunch, when it comes to giving the other sides' arguments the benefit of the doubt (or even common politeness).
There are other intolerant groups in America, and other gatherings to celebrate such intolerance. Bigotry (as popularly defined) still has its adherents, and groups of racists (or other "-ists") still do take place here. But they aren't covered for three days on prime-time television. They simply don't have the reach or the impact of the American political system. Raw, naked, in-your-face intolerance for others' opinions is actually pretty rare on the airwaves, outside the realm of politics. But that's exactly what will be on display for the next two weeks.
Both sides would, of course, cringe from being slapped with the label of bigotry. "We'retolerant of the other side's opinions; we just think they're idiots to believe such misguided moose poop," they will tell you, in all sincerity. There ought to be a term for such "tolerance," and it should be closely related to the phrase "crocodile tears." In actual fact, the bigwigs in both parties will sweat bullets throughout the entire convention week, in mortal fear of some party representative exhibiting their party's intolerance in too stark and noticeable a manner. One fire-breathing speech that goes off the rails, and millions of moderate voters in the suburbs might be lost, to put this another way (Pat Buchanan's name usually gets mentioned as "Exhibit A" for this sort of thing). Gauzy, family-oriented videos will be more the order of the day, although the delegates in the audience will doubtlessly be served up at least moderate heapings of red meat in between the schmaltz.
Conventions have many functions, of course. Other than party paper-pushing (proposing platforms that nobody will ever read, for instance), it all boils down to two major goals: convincing the convincibles among the American electorate, and stoking the fires of partisan bigotry among the party's base voters. High-flown words and fuzzy concepts will abound, which leads to a warning: Don't anybody try a drinking game using the word "freedom" or the phrase "I built this" during the Republican convention, or "Medicare voucher" or "middle class" during the Democratic convention, as this will be guaranteed to land you in a hospital before the night is over.
All kidding aside, though, I will be enjoying the next two weeks along with millions of other Americans. I will even be attending the Democratic National Convention as a member of the press, so I will see the party (in both senses of the term) up close and personal. I will be largely cheering for one side and booing the other, even while I attempt to maintain my reality-based perspective on the whole scene for my readers. But worshipping at the altar of reality means seeing things as they are. And it's hard to argue that what will be on display for the next two weeks will not be the last acceptable outlet for Americans to get in touch with their inner political bigot. But this bigotry is not based on what color your skin is, what religion you happen to believe, or even what sports team you root for; it is instead based on the eternal American self-confidence that your political opinion is the right one, and your vision for the future is the only possible answer to America's problems. These feelings run deep, and this streak of righteousness in the American public even predates the country itself. So I don't expect it to fade away anytime soon -- certainly not in my lifetime. American political bigotry is here to stay, so we might as well all enjoy the spectacle of intolerance that will be on display for the next two weeks.
In American Christianity, the trend of dichotomies is equally prevalent. Are you pro-gay or anti-gay, pro-life or pro-choice, conservative or progressive? Do you view science through the lens of evolution or creation? Are you more inclined to watch "Life of Brian" or "The Passion of the Christ"? Do you long for a Christian nation or for the separation of church and state? And so on.
Myself, I've come to believe that the differences among American Christians can be boiled down to one fundamental theological difference -- about hell. Specifically, do you believe that hell is a matter of the afterlife, or do you believe that hell is a reality in the earthly life? (Some of us believe in both, yet one or the other consistently takes precedence in our outlook on life.)
Those who believe that hell is a place or state of being in the afterlife tend to prioritize the spiritual salvation of souls (meaning the escape from eternal damnation) -- for one's own soul first and foremost, as well as the souls of one's family, and then for the poor unfortunate souls of the world who need Jesus. The practical implication of an eternal hell is the earthly responsibility to manage and mandate life according to moral codes that ensure one's acceptance into heaven rather than hell.
Those who believe that hell is already a reality on earth tend to value and pursue the physical salvation (meaning the salving or relieving) of persons who are "going through hell" -- sympathetic first to those in similar situations of hell as oneself, and then developing an understanding of other hells by inference. The practical implication of an earthly hell is the conviction to prevent or resolve tangible hellish circumstances.
So for example: by those Christians who believe in an eternal hell, homosexuality is viewed as an immoral activity that threatens one's eternal situation -- but by those Christians who believe in an earthly hell, homosexuality is understood to be a distinct identity that has been targeted and tormented by the real-life hell of discrimination.
The belief in hell on earth (or not) is especially evident in the platforms of politicians who reference faith among their significant influences. The instantly infamous Todd Akin, for example, whose professional and spiritual development includes a Master of Divinity degree, asserted that the earthly hell of rape should not take priority over the eternal status of a fetus' soul. Likewise Paul Ryan appears not to believe in the experience of hell on earth, as his "Path to Prosperity" budget proposal would aggravate the vicious hell of poverty. But with his belief in eternal hell -- and presumably his own salvation -- well settled, Ryan's primary moral task per his faith is to responsibly manage life (hence his focus on the national debt).
To be fair, there are many who believe in hell on earth who prioritize the relief of their own circumstances rather than engaging anyone else's hell. There are many who affirm an eternal hell who believe that easing another's affliction will be salvific to that person's soul in the afterlife. This dichotomy over hell can blur the boundaries of other theological and political dichotomies.
More importantly, both perspectives on hell hold the potential for challenging us to engage others. The Christian who believes fundamentally in eternal hell is prompted to see and consider an "other" to be a real person who is to be genuinely valued -- not only for having a soul but also for having a life. The Christian who believes in hell on earth is compelled to understand the systemic intricacies of earth's hells, to look truthfully at another's wounds, and to contribute wholeheartedly to the lessening of hell on earth.
He was once a respected paediatrician, loved by patients and their parents for over 30 years. Now Domenico Mattiello faces trial for paedophilia, accused of making sexual advances towards little girls in his care.
Scientific experts will argue in court that his damaged brain made him do it, and his lawyers will ask for leniency.
It’s the latest example of how neuroscience — the science of the brain and how it works — is taking the stand and beginning to challenge society’s notions of crime and punishment.
The issue has been thrown into the spotlight by new technologies, like structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) scans and DNA analysis that can help pinpoint the biological basis of mental disorders.
A series of recent studies has established that psychopathic rapists and murderers have distinct brain structures that show up when their heads are scanned using MRI.
And in the United States, two companies, one called No Lie MRI and another called Cephos Corp, are advertising lie-detection services using fMRI to lawyers and prosecutors.
Crime and punishment
While structural MRI scans show the structure of a brain and can highlight differences between one brain and another, PET and fMRI scans can also show the brain in action, lighting up at particular points when the brain engages in certain tasks.
But the dazzling new technologies and detailed genetic data leave unanswered the issue of whether criminal courts are the right place to use this new information.
“The worry is that the law, or at least some judges, might be so overawed by the technology that they start essentially delegating the decision about guilt to a particular form of test,” says Colin Blakemore, a professor of neuroscience at Oxford University.
The lawyers for American serial killer Brian Dugan, who was facing execution in Illinois after pleading guilty to raping and killing a 10-year-old girl, used scans of his brain activity to argue he had mental malfunctions and should be spared the death penalty. In the event, Illinois abolished capital punishment while he was on death row.
In a court in the Indian city of Mumbai, a woman was convicted of murder based only on circumstantial evidence and a so-called brain electrical oscillations signature profiling (BEOS) test, the results of which prosecutors said suggested she was guilty.
The days when mental capacity for crime is argued over by psychiatrists unaided by sophisticated machinery — such as Friday’s verdict that Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was sane when he killed 77 people — look numbered.
“All sorts of types of neuroscience evidence are being used for all sorts of types of claims,” says Teneille Brown, a professor of law at the University of Utah. “The question is, is this technology really ready for prime time, or is it being abused?”
“Acquired paedophilia”
In Mattiello’s case, the neuroscientific evidence will come in the form of a full psychiatric and biological analysis including an MRI brain scan that shows a roughly 4-centimetre tumour growing at the base of his brain.
This created pressure inside his skull and “altered his behaviour”, says Pietro Pietrini, a molecular geneticist and psychiatrist at Italy’s University of Pisa who is compiling an expert report on the 65-year-old.
“His previous behaviour was completely normal,” Pietrini told Reuters. “He was a paediatrician for 30 something years and he saw tens of thousands of children and never had any problem. The question is why, at some point, did someone who has always behaved properly suddenly change so drastically?”
The doctor was arrested in Vicenza, northern Italy, more than a year ago and is undergoing cancer treatment after having the tumour removed. Pietrini is due to see him again next month to continue his assessment and see the effects of the treatment.
The case, which has yet go to court, is strikingly similar to another of “acquired paedophilia” dating back to 2002, in which a 40-year-old married American schoolteacher suddenly became obsessed with sex and began secretly to collect child pornography.
He was eventually removed from the family home for making sexual advances towards his stepdaughter and convicted of paedophilia. But later medical examinations found he had an egg-sized tumour in a part of the brain involved in decision-making.
When the tumour was removed, the man recovered from his paedophilic tendencies and was able to return to his family.
Experts are generally agreed that conditions like psychopathy and paedophilia can’t be “cured”, but in this groundbreaking case it appeared that removing the tumour, and hence the pressure in the brain, may have re-established his ability to control impulses.
As in that case, Pietrini said he and colleague Giuseppe Sartori of Padua University believed Mattiello’s tumour “may well have played a role in altering his behaviour”.
“This is what we will be arguing,” Pietrini said. “But of course it will be for the judge to determine to what extent he believes this medical condition played a role.”
Oxford’s Blakemore, one of the world’s leading thinkers in this field, says such cases are “startling”.
“It makes one wonder about the notion of responsibility,” he said in an interview.
Is "my brain made me do it" a defence?
And when it comes to prison, should paedophiles, psychopaths and other violent criminals be punished less severely if their behaviour can be blamed on biology? Is “my brain made me do it” a defence that warrants recognition with lighter sentences, or even no jail time at all?
“(It) raises the whole issue of what you think sentencing is for,” says Blakemore. “Is it about punishment? Is it about retribution? Is it about remediation and rehabilitation? Is it about protecting society? Well, to some extent it’s about all of those things.”
Recent evidence — from both real and hypothetical cases — suggests judges are sympathetic to neurobiological evidence as mitigation.
A study published in the journal Science this month showed that criminal psychopaths in the United States whose lawyers provide biological evidence for their brain condition are more likely to be sentenced to shorter jail terms than those who are simply said to be psychopaths.
For the study, researchers at the University of Utah tweaked the real-life case of Stephen Mobley, a 39-year-old American who was sentenced to death in 1994 after robbing a Domino’s pizza place in Georgia and shooting dead the restaurant’s manager.
At his trial, Mobley’s lawyer presented evidence in mitigation showing the accused had a variant of a gene called MAO-A that has been dubbed the “warrior” gene after scientists found it was linked to violent behaviour.
Aggressive genes
In the Science study, judges were given a hypothetical case loosely based on Mobley’s, where the crime was a savage beating with a gun, rather than a fatal shooting.
All the judges were told the defendant was a psychopath, but only half were given expert testimony on the genetic and neurobiological causes of his psychopathy. Those who got the neuroscientific evidence were more likely to give a shorter sentence - generally about a year less, the study found.
Pietrini worked on a similar real-life case in Italy in 2009 — thought to be one of the first criminal cases in Europe to use this type of neuroscientific evidence.
It involved Abdelmalek Bayout, an Algerian living in Italy, who was tried and convicted for fatally stabbing a man who teased him in the street.
After conducting a series of tests on the Algerian, Pietrini and colleagues said they had found abnormalities in imaging scans of his brain, and in five genes that have been linked to violent behaviour — including MAO-A.
A 2002 study led by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London linked low levels of MAO-A with aggressiveness and criminal behaviour in boys who were raised in abusive environments.
Bayout’s lawyers got his sentence reduced by arguing that this and other bad genes had affected his brain and were partly to blame for the attack.
Where will it end?
Experts say it’s almost inevitable that neuroscience and law will become yet more intertwined. After all, while neuroscience seeks to find out how the brain functions and affects behaviour, the law’s main concern is with regulating behaviour.
Yet many are uneasy about the use in courts of law — and in matters of life and death — of basic science that is only just creeping out of the lab.
Observers such as Hank Greely, a professor of law at Stanford University, point out that no scientific peer-reviewed studies have been published demonstrating that BEOS — the brain test used in the Mumbai case — actually works.
Others stress that while genes like MAO-A have been associated with violence, there are also plenty of people with similar genotypes who don’t go out and kill, rape or abuse.
“Neuroscience is being used by serious scientists in real labs, but the people trying to apply it in courts are not those same people,” says Utah’s Brown. “So they’re taking something that looks very objective, that looks like gold standard science, but then morphing it into a forensic use it wasn’t developed for.
“This isn’t snake-oil science. It’s real science. But it’s being misapplied.”
Seena Fazel, a clinical senior lecturer in forensic psychiatry at Oxford University, says he’s uncomfortable with the long-term implications and wonders where it will end.
There are already known biological bases for many brain disorders criminals suffer from, including drug addiction, alcoholism and antisocial personality disorder, which is thought to affect up to half of all those in prison.
“If psychopathy reduces your sentence because it has a biological basis, why shouldn’t these other more common conditions also result in reduced sentences? The problem here is where do we draw the line?”
A special court in Ahmedabad on Wednesday convicted 32 people, including a former BJP minister Maya Kodnani andBajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, in the Naroda Patiya case, the biggest massacre of the post-Godhra riots.
The special trial court will pronounce the quantum of punishment for 32 convicts in the 2002 post-Godhra riots case on August 31, PTI reported. The prosecution has demanded death sentence for all the accused convicted in the Naroda Patiya case.
After hearing all the sides, special court judge Jyotsna Yagnik reserved the order on quantum of punishment for August 31, a lawyer said.
The cases were filed under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including of murder and conspiracy. The maximum punishment is death, said a lawyer.
The court acquitted 29 people.
On February 28, 2002, 97 persons were killed in Naroda. As many as 94 bodies were found, of which 84 were identified. Three people are still missing.
The court had earlier kept the judgment for pronouncement on June 30, but was deferred till August 29.
The city crime branch nabbed 47 people and filed four chargesheets, but after the Supreme Court transferred the investigation to the special investigation team (SIT), 24 other accused were arrested including Kodnani.
In all, eight chargesheets were filed in this case. The trial began in 2009 and lasted for more than two years.
Special prosecutors Akhil Desai and Gaurang Vyas examined 327 witnesses and in all more than 500 documentary evidences were produced before the court. Those who deposed before the court were 173 relatives of victims who were eyewitnesses, 41 panch witnesses, 17 officials, 42 doctors, 44 cops, oneforensic experts and nine others.
Former Gujarat minister Kodnani and Bajrangi have been convicted under sections 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, amongst others.
The special public prosecutor sought capital punishment for the convicts, during the hearing for quantum of punishment.
Desai argued that as this court has upheld the aspect of murder and criminal conspiracy, this is a fit case to be termed as "rarest of rare" and court should award capital punishment to the convicts.
If the court wants to be lenient then at least it should award minimum of 20 years of imprisonment to each of the convicts, he argued.
Opposing his contention, defense advocate Niranjan Tikani appealed to the court to show leniency towards the convicts, keeping in mind their family background and financial condition.
Tikani also opposed the demand of capital punishment for Kodnani and submitted that her husband has been operated upon recently and is not keeping good health, while her son is studying in the US, so the court should consider this aspect as well.
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