Pickled Politics http://www.pickledpolitics.com Current affairs for a progressive generation Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:34:35 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Conservative calls for harsher measures against teenage mothers http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7907 Bella: fidei defensor http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7898 The Pope Must Go http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7903 Modi not off the hook yet http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7891 Polls yet again dent plans for Dawn of Dave http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7895 Disability hate crime http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7885 I’m chillin’ in Vietnam http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7883 Flashlights & Whistles http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7879 More BNP interviews here] A potential BNP applicant has a screening interview with a BNP spokesman over some ironically non-indigenous tea and samosas. Applicant: “So, how long have you guys been here ?” BNP spokesman: “‘Guys’ is a foreign American term representing an alien culture and we’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t pollute Britain’s traditional culture and values by using such genocidal words. But to answer your question, we’ve been here since the end of the last Ice Age.” Applicant: “When was that ?” BNP: “17,000 years ago.” Applicant: “The Ice Age actually ended 12-13,000 years ago.” BNP: “That’s what I said.” Applicant: “No you didn’t.”]]> http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7870 BNP still too racist http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7860 Ed Balls Welcomes Report That Supports Racist Teachers http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7847 Jaswant Singh’s Jinnah Jaswant Singh's biography of Jinnah, founder of Pakistan. The buzz around the book had been created by the reaction to it in India. One state banned it (no prizes for guessing who runs that state) and Jaswant Singh was expelled from the BJP as a result of writing it, despite being a former defence minister and a current MP. Mr. Singh's crime? To have absolved Jinnah from some of the blame for partition and instead criticised Nehru and Vallabhai Patel. Not that this was a one-sided book, as the British, Jinnah, and Congress rightly all come in for plenty of criticism. Mr Singh bemoans the failure of all sides to step back from the detail and take in the bigger picture, which is fair to a certain extent, but fails to take into account that at this point the devil really was in the detail. The book was well sourced and contained some material I hadn’t come across before. It calls for both India and Pakistan to have a greater understanding of one another’s ‘growing pains’ in the immediate aftermath of partition. It is written in a nice style, but I was disappointed with his reluctance to only briefly touch on the impact Jinnah has had on India’s psyche today. As we have seen with the treatment of minorities in India (such as the Sikh massacres of 1984), India in some senses still hasn’t come to terms with minorities who are aggressively or confidently pushing for reform or more autonomy. Somewhat of a generalisation perhaps, but with ongoing conflict in areas like Kashmir and the Naxalite heartlands, it is still an important topic.]]> http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7832 ‘Excellent journalism’ from the Daily Mail http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7833 Slaughter in Nigeria http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7827 Gendercide dissected Economist this week carries an excellent and in-depth look at gendercide, the term coined to describe the impact that the deliberate attempt to favour male babies over female ones has had on the male-female sex ratio throughout the world. It looks at the statistics, and what has caused such a skewing to occur, and what its impacts are and may be. There is a natural imbalance between boys and girls, with nature ensuring roughly 5% more boys are born than girls in order to compensate for boys being more susceptible to diseases as infants. Yet in many parts of the developing world, there is too much of a numerical gap between the sexes for it to be a natural phenomenon. The increasingly availability of ultrasound and abortion has played a big part in the skewing of the sex ratio, as it is easier to abort a female foetus then to kill a female baby, especially if you know the sex of the foetus. Indian doctors once advertised the ‘benefits’ of ultrasound technology with the slogan:
“Pay 5,000 rupees today and save 50,000 rupees tomorrow” (the saving was on the cost of a daughter’s dowry).”
]]> http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7786 A quick hello / Asian Network http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7824 ‘Muslims are contemptible creatures, devalued humans’ http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7819 Terrorist confesses http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7812 International Women’s Day http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7803 Gita Sahgal and Amnesty: time to move on http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/7788