Archive Page 2
Single Independent woman
We feminists have fought a lot about the patriarchical society and how it dominates the woman, about various injustice against womankind right from home to professional, economic, social and cultural world. However little have we tried or spoken about making life easier for a single independent woman. Whereas if we had tried and emphasized on the latter the former issue would have taken care of it by itself. Even in a user-friendly country like US, life for a single woman is not that easy as it is supposed to be. Let me take an example. Most of the furnitures available today in stores are assemble-type. Those assemble boxes are light enough to be carried by a man but not enough light to be carried by a woman. Moreover there seems to be no means like dolly/cart etc to carry till home independently by a single woman. This is possibly because single woman are fairly less in number and as such a market based economy is not supposed to make much profit out of it. Other issues are issues of security, travel and mobility. Life perhaps becomes less and less possible for a poorer woman who cannot afford a car or people to help her move luggages. This also makes the world of a woman limited and narrow with lesser experience and lesser freedom. No wonder woman suffer from more depression than man. With the lack of proper public transport system, life for a poor single woman becomes restricted and difficult as other poor people in general. Rarely femisists think about these whereas these are probably the most important causes of injustice being done to and tolerated by women.
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Misinformation
Be it the case of singur or nandigram or the propaganda about killing of millions of people by Stalin, the newspapers and media are expert in distorting facts and providing false evidences while general public is guillible enough to believe them without analysing which evidences can be true and which not, which news to believe based on common sense and general analysis of things and which not.
While the several media reported killings of millions of people by Stalin, the UNO reported USSR with topmost rating in human right preservation index during his tenure. The general public needs to analyse can a person rule a democratic state by killing so many innocent people. In case of nandigram, singur, etc when the newspapers gives instances of blood-stained clothes left unhidden as evidence for rapes and murders, people need to analyse whether a murderer will leave such evidences in broad daylight to be reported by newspapers.
Another responsibility goes to the courts where such reports on being challenged remain there for too long a time to be tried for aunthencity, till the news becomes stale or goes to oblivion.
Moreover propaganda is also a very useful means for influencing public opinion. As such any party being blamed with false evidences needs to challenge each of the accusations in courts.
More stern actions needs to be taken for false accusations and distortion of facts.
Reports without proper evidence needs to illegalised.
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To the anarchist
Anarchy- a situation of statelessness,- no laws no order. The laws that protect the weak from the strong does not exist. The laws that guarantees to preserve the interest of the minorities does not exist. Does not this eventually leads to survival of the fittest and strongest?
As such laws are necessary. To impose laws power is necessary. However we need to be vigil about giving power to the right people.
According to Noam chomsky any power needs to be justify itself. Now what should be the basis of justification. One satisfactory ground can be welfare of people as a whole. On this ground, if the state tries to ban all sorts of addictive drugs, the anarchist oppose it, in the name of curtailment of personal freedom. So the basis of welfare also cannot hold justifiable to anarchists. As such no power can be justified, hence no law, no protection and eventually the rule by the strong according to the process of natural selection.
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Risk factor
One of the most common arguments that most of the people give in favour of the factory owners taking lion’s share of the profit is the risk involved in starting/running an enterprise. However does the risk factor hold enough justified a reason to take the share of somebody else’s hard earned labour?
I, in that case, suggest a different option. Why not the factory owner give in loan the capital to all the workers. In that case, the factory will belong to each worker and if the business fails and the factory owners(which now includes both the employee and the employer) decide to dissolve the business, each employee will eventually have to return their share of the capital invested to the capitalist.
This process however involves great risks to the proleteriat who have nothing to lose and have nothing to invest except for the labour. Considering this once again the concept of the state being the capital provider gains ground.
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Marriage
When Karl Marx spoke about free love in a socialist society, many of the eyebrows were raised. However this is just an outcome of a society where the woman is not economically dependent on his husband and where the society has progressed enough to provide social security to a single independent woman. Moreover when the children are no longer economically dependent on the parents, what is left behind is just an emotional relationship in a marriage. The legal laws will not then be necessary to bind a family together since the society or the state will be responsible for developed enough to provide for the well-being of each member of the family. With the growing independence of the woman in today’s world, the divorce are also growing in a directly proportionate way. Will a day come when a family won’t be necessary any more? What will be its impact on a society? What change will it bring? Is the change a welcomeable change?
To answer these questions let us examine what the benefits of a family are:
1) Economic stability: A Marriage is more of a financial institution than an emotional one where two people share common wealth and properties. If 2 people are committed to each other, is a legal law really necessary to bind them?And if a legal is really necessary, isn’t the committment itself a questionable one?
Now when the economic stability is provided by state will not this use of a family be rendered useful.
2) Emotional support: Emotional support may be provided by people towards one another even when they are not bound by legal laws. However human emotions are transitory and human beings are whimsical. Marriage is a way of ignoring the value of human emotions emphasizing that they can be tamed and altered for economic and social security. Nonetheless, when economic and social security is ensured, emotional support will be a matter of choice and not a legal obligation.
3) Social security: With the increasing social security of woman and children, the role of marriage in it have been diminishing rapidly.
4) National Savings: One of the main reasons of extreme consumerism of the western society and spending nature of western economy is due to the fact that it does not have a strong family system which encourages saving in eastern society and economy. This eventually leads to economic stability in a state having a strong institution of marriage. Nevertheless personal matters like marriage cannot be enforced for increasing national savings.
Moreover legal marriages have also led to many unhappy marriage, huge economic loss due to alimony and emotional immaturity in people due to an unhealthy children.
I would still emphasize the importance of commitment in relationships not by binding laws but by choice!
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India
What is a country made of? Is it made of the lifeless mountains that surround? Is it made of the flowing rivers which perhaps say nothing? Is it made of the gold and coal mine which is useless if not utilized? Is it made of the big landscpaes which still needs eyes to view and poets to call it beautiful. Perhaps no. It is made of the people therein. The society, the culture, the traditions, the scientific advancement, the civilization, the people. India is not about the its hills and sceneries and reserves, it about the people who gives value to relations and family. It is made of the parents who does not leave their children after 18, it is made of the children to does leave their parents when they are old. It is made of the farmers who commit suicide when they cannot pay off their debts, it is made of their sense of self-esteem. It is made of the people who fought their war of independence through non-violence. It is made of ’Upadnishads’ and Vedas which stesses more on character building then anything else. It is made of the teachings of Vivekananda who asked people to serve the living God – ie the downtrodden ones, rather than the God whom we have never seen. It is made of Indian people who lives in unity among diversity. Lets celebrate the Indian humankind.
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Money matters
We speak of religious riots in India, regionalism, language discrimination, caste discrimination and racial discrimination. But is it really that big an issue. Even though cultural prejudice exists, if we dig deep into their reasons mostly it boils down to money matters, struggle for survival in a society which has not been able to provide enough for all to live. Let talk about the war on language in Assam, the main of reason is that many people of Assam are all able to get a required job and as such are trying to drive away Bengalis and Biharis from Assam. The main reason is the unemployment problem and not regionalism or language discrimination. Caste system of India is also a symbol of power supremacy. Earlier the Brahmins were more powerful. We remember how Galileo was sentenced to death for telling that Earth revolved around the Sun. The Popes and religious leaders were the most powerful at that time. Then came the monarchy system of Kings and Emperors, the Kshatriyas were powerful which lead to imperialism. And now is the time of the Vaishyas, the merchants, business man, – now money rules. Even the racial discrimination originated from the fact that the ‘Africans’ were economically poor and technologically less advanced and as such were bought as slaves or rented as laborers in industries. Such practices as we see for decades become a part of culture and leads to regionalism, language discrimination, caste system and racial prejudice. To get rid of such practices we have to first get rid of the supremacy of money. Right to employment should be a fundamental right for everyone and exploitation on the basis of demand and supply of labor has to be eliminated. Moreover the working hours is to be limited to 8 hours per day according to WHO recommended standards. The supremacy of religion was eliminated with the rise of renaissance, industrial revolution and scientific thinking. The rise of Khastriyas was eliminated by the concept of liberty, justice, equality and democracy. Will the supremacy of money and the rising inequality between men on the basis of money, the unequal distribution of wealth in the human society, the unequal distribution of facilities, the practice of giving more importance to profit than people cause a revolt in the society again. Will the 60% of the poorest population which earns less than the 1% of the richest section of the people rise in revolt one day and say that they want that percentage of the profit which was made by their labor, that they will decide for themselves how much remuneration they need to get of their labor. Will they one day refuse to give more than the interest for the capital invested and the rent for the land. Will they be aware one day? According to Vivekananda, it is time for the ’shudras’ to rule the world,- those people who make the big industries, those people who produces food for us, those people will demand a decent standard of living and demand to enjoy the fruit of their labour.
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The practice of dating/mating before marriage is adopted from the West. Indian Culture had earlier been consverative about that. Nevertheless the convervative nature of Indian Culture had its own reasons. It is been said that earlier the society had been too much indulgent and there was no rule and order in people in olden times. As such during the ‘Adarshwadi’ yug, the then learned people of the society decided to vehemently oppose indulgence, addiction and enjoyment which had lead to lawlessness in the society. People were not involved in anything productive and used to waste time and resources in mere entertainment purposes. As such, in the adarshwadi yug, strict moral principles and guidelines were formlated to make people productive and prevent wastefulness. Strict family principles were laid out, poets were discouraged to compose love songs, and drugs and addiction materials were banned. The tradition here in India was so strong that people were afraid to break the rule else they will be outcasted. Then came the ‘Chayabadi’ period when poets used to use symbols and metaphors instead of direct words to express their feelings of love and appreciation of beauty. With the advent of British rulers inIndia people slowly and gradually started to open up. Many western cultures were adopted however with reservations. The practice of love marriage is one among them. However, Indian culture is still not open to the idea of casual dating. Dating in India generally starts after the committment. Whereas in western world, there is the process of casual dating only for the sake of fun. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages.
The practice of dating after being committed leaves little scope for the couples to know each other before the committment which many times eventually leads to break off and break break, once they find that they not compatible. Casual dating as they say do not remain so after a certain amount of time since emotional involvement are not casual involvments. It is more so in case of women who are generally considered more emotional in nature. It leads to a process of continuous frustrations in the end when one of the partners need the relationship to be serious. There is another serious flaw of this hook-up culture. Young people becomes too much dependent on others to become happy in life. They do not know to enjoy the freedom, independence and self-sufficiency of a single life and this leads to an incomplete growth of an individual.
Now, how to overcome the flaws of both systems.
Relationship counsellors nowadays proposes a period of courtship before committment, which is not an emotional relationship but rather a period of conscious dating to know whether the other person is compatible with ones requirements, needs and wants. This generally happens in arrange marriages nowadays in India. Conscious dating is perhaps the best way, in which a consious decision is made based on facts and figures rather than based on attraction or infatuation. It eliminates the hurt break after a failed committed relationship and the frustrations of a casual one in which one person feels used or utilised for the entertainment of the other.
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Debates
Even though debates and discussions had always been considered an excellent way of exchange of ideas, knowledge and opinions it is really unfortunate that very few people know the right way of debating. Some of the wrong ways of debating seen common among people:
1) Using quotations and proverbs of famous people. This is as good as saying that I believe more in the intelligence and logical thinking of other people than my own. Some day some great men had told something does not necessarily mean that it is correct. We human beings are prone to error. The basis of debates should be logic and not proverbs.
2) Name calling and personal attacks. Personal attacks and calling names are the signs of accepting defeat and before really getting defeated. When you do not have points to refute the opponent you try to escape by attacking the other personally.
3) Getting angry is also a sign of frustration. One of the major difference between prejudice and conviction is that you can convey your conviction without getting angry while you cannot convey your prejudiced opinion that way.
4) Arguing without showing evidence.
5) Showing some internet links as evidences. In today’s world it is very difficult to prove the authenicity of such evidences as internet links and newspapers. We see fact being distorted by newspaper media. Until and unless, it can be proved that the sources of evidences are reliable and famous for their authenticity, written documents in internet blogs and nespapers cannot be used as evidences.
Nevertheless keep debating, it is a wonderful way of exchanging information and also of knowing how misinformed people are 
.
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Prejudice
I am often considered as a conservative traditional old fashioned village girl when I oppose against the much practised alcohol culture among the youths. Nevertheless we fail to understand that moderity is as much a prejudice as traditional or cultural conservativeness. We are too much inclined to follow blindly the Western culture because they are monetarily and technologically more advanced than the Eastern counterparts. We rarely realise the effect of our actions in society, people and ourselves. Moreover in a profit based economy it is of no wonder that alcohol industries which one of the largest industries in US, will be always supported by the government. Today one bottle of alcohol is cheaper than one bottle of milk or one packet of cut vegetables. The sport event are often sponsored by different alcohol manufacturing industries. The government which gain so much revenues from alcohol industries is bound to campaign for it in the media. The alcohol industries sell products (e.g. Vodka) in the name of famous personalities like Che Guevara who had once banned alcohol among his troops. While some countries campaign for alcohol, some other countries like Cube always campaign against it in mass media.
Today when hundreds of people die due to terrorism we raise our voice to protest against it out of social consciousness. When more than one lakh people die every year because of alcohol, why does our social consciousness goes to sleep. Why don’t we start a non-cooperation movement against alcohol when just like we do against war or terrorism when we know that many more people have died because of alcohol or smoking than those that have died due to all of the wars in history combined.
Alcohol is the largest drug addiction in US and one reason for it is its social acceptabilty. More than 40% of the families today in US are affected due to alcohol. It is the largest 3rd reason of cancer and the 3rd largest reason of mortality. Most of the domestic violence and most of the traffic accidents are attributed due to alcohol. Many people die even due to beer addiction.
Even though moderate drinking of alcohol may not be that harmful as binge drinking, accoding to WHO reports of 2004, the chances of breast cancer (both in males and females), colorectal cancer, and digestive track cancer increases linearly due to alcohol even though the percentage being 15%-20% increment in chances of cancer for 5-7 drinks per week. Every increase in drinking category shrinks the brain by 0.25% and brain shrinkage is conducive to many other disease of the nervous system. Some research scholar had said- “Every time we are very happy by drinking alcohol some of the brain cells are damaged” . And brain cells are the only cells in the body which do not reproduce itself. Social drinking of alcohol for prolonged period of time decreases the brain capacity so much so that people fail to do anything more than routine activities. “Alcohol not only blocks thiamin assimilation but injures the small intestine, making nutrient absorption in general very difficult”. (http://www.vitamins-supplements.org/thiamin-deficiency.php) And thiamine deficiency causes several brain disoders and brain malfunctioning and causes diseases like beriberi and Wernicke’s encephalopathy. According to Professor Roberta Pentney of the University of Buffalo, – ” Alcohol does not kill brain cells but damages dendrites, reducing message traffic between neurons. Even though the change is mostly reversible, neuronal structure is changed in the process. So most function returns to normal but some does not.” (http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=alcohol.ubu) . Moreover according to WHO report every person who drinks runs the risk of health problems, dependency and intoxication. Alcohol is not compatable with more than 150 medicines and should be taken when using those medicines. Research shows that even low amount for alcohol causes cognitive impairment and as such it is illegal to drive or use heavy machinaries after drinking. In fact, researchers said low to moderate alcohol consumption may account for nearly 13 percent of the cancers of the breast, liver, rectum and upper aero-digestive tract combined. (http://blogs.kvoa.com/health/?p=447)
Every though moderate thinking of alcohol might increase cardiovascular activity due to presence of flavonoids (specially resveratrol in red wine), the same benefit can be achieved by eating red grapies, canberries and red-berries and by doing exercises without the harmful effects of drinking.
Moreover my people does not know how much drinking is too much. For man it is two drinks per day while for woman it is one drinks per day, many people cross this limit. There is a prolonged period of alcohol dependency or alcohol abuse which inevitably leads to alcoholism.
Many people do not know the signs of alcohol dependency like drinking to get rid of stress, drinking to do to sleep, drinking alone, requirement of more quantity of alcohol to get high. Almost 45% of the youth between 18-25 years age group abuse alcohol. Moderate drinking may not be as harmful as binge drinking or alcoholism by it do support the alcohol industry and the alcohol culture which helps create a society where our children are at risk from drunk drivers, addicted criminals, over-taxed police (who are so busy with alcohol-related calls that they’re less available to respond to other emergencies), overwhelmed healthcare system and social service organisations.
Alcohol culture is not just a personal health problem. It is a social problem and has to be eradicated at a social level. The alcohol culture which has become a symbol of status quo among the richer section of the society have lead many youths to binge drinking and alcohol dependence since they do not know how much is too much and since many cannot control themselves. Its time to change our perspective now.
In today’s world alcohol is the greatest epidemic. As such should we not non-cooperative against the alcohol industry which mislead the teanagers and adolocents with their advertisements. Government can lay down rules like- an individual should not be allowed to buy more than one bottle of alcohol in one week. More taxation should be imposed on alcohol. And mass media should always highlight its ill affects. Banning of alcohol advertisements is also necessary. And above all it is the citizens that should campaign and protest against it. We have heard enough of our fundamental rights to drink and enjoy. We now want to hear of our fundamental duty towards the society which has given us the right to drink at its own risks. Let us strive to make the world a better place to live in.
Filed under: health | 1 Comment
Tags: rights and responsibilities
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