May 2013 – Ramana's Musings

Woolwich Again II.

I live in a country which has the world’s second largest Muslim population. I have lost friends to acts of terrorism on our soil. I have soldier friends who till today bear wounds acquired fighting an enemy sworn on Allah’s name to bleed us with a million cuts besides having fought wars with us. That country harbours known enemies of my land and regularly sends terrorists from sanctuaries there into our land to carry out acts of terror. I am naturally concerned about what is happening to the religion which has driven some of its adherents to violence and to killing innocent people in the name of Allah.

There is one young member of my family who thinks that I am nuts. He has got some muslim friends who reacted to Woolwich with tweets saying things to the effect that islam is a religion of peace. In fact, it was that information from him to me that led me to blog on Woolwich.

My posts that followed on Woolwich and Woolwich Again have generated some email traffic for me and two of them directed me to two different messages.

The first one is from a friend who asked me what I made out of the interview in the BBC shown here.

The other mail led me to this article in the Wall Street Journal.

Are we beginning to see a tipping point?

Tomorrow.

I hope that you enjoy reading this post on the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where eleven of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by Grannymar. The ten other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Maxi, Maria SF, Padmum, Paul, Rohit,Shackman, The Old Fossil and Will. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!

If only!

Woolwich Again.

This is an incisive and thought provoking article in the City Journal by a physician writer who has spent time within the prison system.

Dr. Dalrymple concludes his article with : “What these cases show is that it is not Islam that makes young converts violent; it is the violence within them that causes them to convert to Islam. The religion, in its most bloodthirsty form, supplies all their psychological needs and channels their anger into a supposedly higher purpose. It gives them moral license to act upon their rage; for, like many in our society, they do not realize that anger is not self-justifying, that one is not necessarily right because one is angry, and that in any case even justified anger does not entail a license to act violently. The hacking to death of Lee Rigby on a street in Woolwich tells us as much about the society that we have created, or allowed to develop, as it does about radical Islam preached by fat, middle-aged clerics. “

All those who are puzzled as to why Woolwich and other such incidents happen, nothing could give answers better than this. This article deseves a much wider audience and I hope that my readers will spread it around too.

The Eternal Triangle?

My mother never asked me that question but I can sympathise with Jim Brown for the predicament that he found himself in, as this is a question many mothers ask their sons after the latter gets married.

My mother had different ways of getting the same message across to her daughters in law. Very subtle she was too about it but her daughters in law were were clever too and knew how to manage the situations. I do not know much about quite how the Scottish daughter in law managed, but the two Indian ones had very effective strategies and tactics to outwit the mother in law. When the intended effect was not achieved within a reasonable amount of time, my mother would simply shift her theater of operation from one son’s home to another’s or to her daughter’s to retreat and fight another day.

There were other mothers in law in her circle where notes were exchanged and acceptable strategies were discussed. Occasionally, one particularly gentle father in law, my mother’s brother, would chip in and suggest that perhaps the time has come for the mothers in law to retire and leave the daughters in law alone, only to be told in no uncertain terms to keep quiet.

From those days I always believed that the eternal triangle was not the great romances that were much written about, but the triangle of son, caught between the wife and the mother.

I have also seen a change in the scene among my generation mothers in law. I suppose having seen the other in action, my sister, my late wife and my sister in law, all three studiously kept themselves out of their daughters in law’s hairs. So the triangles may have to be the other type if at all.

Okay, this may be more in the case of India and the situation at least as I understand it, is different in the West where the mother in law is actually the wife’s mother who tries to run the son in law’s affairs! Correct me if I am wrong, but in any case, surely this should also qualify for the eternal triangle tag rather than the romantic one?

Do please read the linked to article in full. It is very informative and quite amusing in a droll way.

“Rummy” Is Just One Of My Names,

As if I do not have enough trouble! My attention has just been drawn to this site with the question as to whether it belongs to me! You can click on it to enlarge it.

I can assure all my readers that I have nothing to do with this site. It is just a coincidence that a popular Indian game of cards is named Rummy.

The Gift Of Siblings.

This article could have been written by me, except that I am the Mark in the story and the age difference between me and the youngest, the sister Padmini is six years.

I have read the book The Sibling Effect by Jeffrey Kluger in which he points out ““Siblings are the only relatives, and perhaps the only people you’ll ever know, who are with you through the entire arc of your life.”

The four of us have been separated by distance sometimes substantial, sometimes not but the bonds have been very strong and continue to be.

What is heartening is also that the next two generations of cousins seem to find the relationships very comfortable also.

I am all for a Siblings Day. Unless it already exists.