Imperial Life in the Emerald City

Did anyone catch Rajiv Chandrasekaran on The Daily Show last night?

The former Baghdad Bureau Chief for the Washington Post was on plugging his new book Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Chandrasekaran talked about the “post-conflict reconstruction” efforts of the U.S. government in Iraq–specifically about life in the heavily guarded “Green Zone,” which houses the Coalitional Provisional Authority.

Chandrasekaran, originally from northern California, is a Stanford graduate. He became the first Asian American to hold the position of assistant managing editor at the Washington Post –when offered the spot last year.

Here’s the first part of the interview (and here’s the rest).

Yunus Takes It To the Bank

Banker to the poor, Muhammad Yunus accepted this year’s Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo last Sunday.

The 66-year old Bangladeshi economist shared the award with his revolutionary “Grameen Bank.” For the past twenty years, Yunus and Grameen have helped impoverished people get out of debt, and go on to become self-sufficient entrepreneurs. Most recipients of the bank’s small loans (known as “microcredits”) are women.

“We must address the root causes of terrorism to end it for all time,” Yunus told guests at Oslo’s City Hall. “I believe putting resources into improving the lives of poor people is a better strategy than spending it on guns.”

Read the complete transcript of Yunus’s speech here.

For more on the Grameen Foundation–and to find out how you can help this holiday season–visit their website.

Racist Attacks in Russia

An Indian student at St. Petersburg’s Mechnikov Medical Academy has been seriously injured in what appears to be a racially-motivated attack.

The student, who has requested his name not be revealed (to save his parents some anxiety), was beaten by a group of Russian youths while on the way to his dorm last night.

Yesterday’s attack comes just three months after Nitish Kumar, a sixth year student at the same medical school, was stabbed to death.

In an unrelated assault that also took place yesterday, a group of unidentified Russian assailants attacked three Koreans in the port town of Vladivostok, killing one man.

The growing number of hate crimes–directed primarily toward Asian and African nationals–has become a real issue for the post-communism nation.

Ten Years Since Dr. Salam’s Death: Isn’t It Time for Pakistan to Recognize Him?

I was heartened to read these two editorials in leading Pakistani newspapers this past week: The Daily Times’ “The tragedy of our treatment of Dr. Abdus Salam” and DAWN’s “Lest we foget.” The Daily Times piece opens with these words:

Dr Abdus Salam (1926-1996) died ten years ago. He was the first Pakistani to get a Nobel Prize in 1979. But he might be the last if we continue to allow our state to evolve in a way that frightens the rest of the world. Our collective psyche runs more to accepted ‘wisdom’ than to scientific inquiry; and even if we were to display an uncharacteristic outcropping of individual genius the world may be so frightened of it that it might not give us our deserts.

It doesn’t seem like Pakistan will act on the message of these editorials, but it’s encouraging to see them nonetheless.

Newly-elected Councilmember Anu Natarajan

Anu Natarajan (anu4fremont.com)

Role model C. J. Cregg

Earlier this month Anu Natarajan became the first Indian American elected to a city council in northern California’s Bay Area. Appointed two years ago to the city council of Fremont, the Bay Area’s fourth largest city, she received enough votes in the recent elections to finish out the rest of her four-year term as an elected member.

Natarajan’s background in architecture and planning should prove useful in the city’s upcoming dealings with the Oakland A’s—the team has announced plans to move to Fremont and and build a high-tech baseball stadium there.

Like most elected officials, Natarajan has her detractors. But there is one position she holds that should face little to no resistance among the pro-“West Wing” faction. That would be her choice of Allison Janney/C. J. Cregg as role model (bio)!

More information: City of Fremont, http://www.anu4fremont.com/home/

View From a Grain of Sand Screening

View From a Grain of Sand stills.

The trailer for Meena Nanji’s View From a Grain of Sand—premiering Monday, November 13, at 8 p.m. at the REDCAT in Los Angeles—opens with shots of young women walking and smiling on the streets of 1970s Kabul, Afghanistan. With their clothes and hairstyles and upbeat attitude, they could’ve blended in on the streets of any major city in the U.S. of that time.

The next scenes show women on the streets of that same city in 2003, and the picture is starkly different, with all of them wearing head-to-toe blue burqas and some being corporally punished in public. Nanji’s documentary gives a portrait of the last thirty years for Afghan woman, from the rule of King Mohammed Zahir Shah to the current Hamid Karzai government to the activist work of RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan). Shot in Kabul and in refugee camps in Pakistan, the film shares the stories of Shapire, a teacher; Roeena, a physician; and Wajeeha, a social activist.

More information: “Directing Awareness,” October 2004, Nirali
Los Angeles premiere details: REDCAT

Election Day Goes OK

The votes are in, and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) reports that 79% of the people it surveyed have favored Democratic candidates.

Preliminary results released by the Fund—which include the input of 4,600 Asian American voters in eight states—suggest that 13% of the participants were first-time voters.

Highlights of the exit poll include:

* In Michigan, 76% of those surveyed voted against the state’s Anti-Affirmative Action Referendum–significant as it perhaps indicates their rejection of the idea that Asian Americans are harmed by affirmative action policies. The proposal to “end race- and gender-based affirmative action programs in education, hiring, contracting, and health initiatives” ultimately passed, however (58% to 42% against).

* A staggering 99% of those polled in Chicago voted for Democratic incumbent Gov. Rod Blagojevich—who defeated his Republican counterpart by 10 points.

“The decade-long trend of Asian American voters favoring Democratic candidates contributed to the dramatic shifts in political power that took place in Tuesday’s midterm elections,” said AALDEF’s Executive Director Margaret Fung.

For more, visit: https://www.aaldef.org/

Violence Against Women: A Cultural Problem?

BC’s Attorney General Wally Oppal.

Three violent attacks on South Asian women in Vancouver in the past few weeks have the Canadian public broadcasting station, CBC, raising questions about violence as an insidious part of the South Asian culture:

It’s a deeply unsettling string of crimes. But the three violent attacks on women–rooted in B.C.’s Indo-Canadian community–are raising concerns across the country. Two women were killed, including a pregnant mother whose charred remains were found several days after her disappearance. And one woman–who was shot in the head by her estranged husband–remains in hospital.

Earlier this week, a popular Surrey B-C station called Radio India opened up its phone lines to callers over this issue–they say the phones haven’t stopped ringing since. Many of the callers are women seeking help. We aired some of the sound of the station–and then Radio India’s business manager, Ashiana Khan.

Listen to the whole broadcast here.

British Columbia’s Attorney general and prominent Indo-Canadian politician Wally Oppal has called South Asian violence against women a cultural cancer, commenting that any culture that celebrates the birth of sons and devalues the borth of daughters is bound to have problems around domestic violence.

Do you agree that violence against women is still an issue in the South Asian community outside of India, and that these beliefs are widespread?