Intolerance
and conspiracy theories have haunted the margins of France’s ‘‘yellow vest’’
movement since the first protests over fuel taxes roused the discontented
middle of French society. The men and women in safety vests blocking traffic
and intimidating shoppers on the Champs-Elysees vent a range of grievances
against the government. But over 11
weeks of protests, views from the fringes have bubbled through the diffuse and
leaderless movement and have been amplified: anti-Semitic rants about banking,
a Holocaust survivor harassed on the subway, assaults on journalists, and
claims the government concocted terrorist attacks or deadly accidents to divert
attention from the demonstrations. There
has been scattered violence, with clashes between protestors and police, and
the authorities worry that the extremists have taken over the center of the
movement.
Intolerance ! ~ what or how
would people react !!
The ancient
"Babylonian" story (539 BC) depicts the conflict between Prince
Belshazzar of Babylon and Cyrus the Great of Persia. The fall of Babylon is a
result of intolerance arising from a conflict between devotees of two rival
Babylonian gods—Bel-Marduk and Ishtar.
Heard
of St. Bartholomew's Day massacre - in 1572, was a targeted group of assassinations
and a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots (French
Calvinist Protestants) during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally
believed to have been instigated by Queen Catherine de' Medici, the mother of
King Charles IX, the massacre took place a few days after the wedding day (18
August) of the king's sister Margaret to the Protestant Henry III of Navarre
(the future Henry IV of France). Many of the most wealthy and prominent
Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic Paris to attend the wedding. The
massacre began in the night of 23–24 August 1572 (the eve of the feast of
Bartholomew the Apostle), two days after the attempted assassination of Admiral
Gaspard de Coligny, the military and political leader of the Huguenots. The king
ordered the killing of a group of Huguenot leaders, including Coligny, and the
slaughter spread throughout Paris. Lasting several weeks, the massacre expanded
outward to other urban centres and the countryside. Modern estimates for the
number of dead across France vary widely, from 5,000 to 30,000.
People would conveniently
not speak of such ‘intolerance; Intolerance is a
1916 epic silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Regarded as one of the great masterpieces of
the silent era, the three-and-a-half-hour epic intercuts four parallel
storylines, each separated by several centuries: (1) a contemporary melodrama
of crime and redemption, (2) a Judean story: Christ's mission and death, (3) a
French story: the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of
1572, and (4) a Babylonian story: the fall of the Babylonian Empire to Persia
in 539 BC.
Intolerance
(noun) would mean : unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or behaviour that
differ from one's own.
To us, it is
nothing new ~ the intolerance debate
heightened in 2015, when over 50 authors and artists returned government
awards, saying not enough was being done to control intolerance. Often some fringe actors who have lost their
market, would criticize the Govt at the centre blaming them for all the woes
(including their films not running enough days!) – the actor who thinks himself
to be an intellectual would reel out a long sentence dotted by commas, stating
that the Centre is intolerance. The tolerance-intolerance debate in India has
often trudged such depths, with multiple protests, some of them against
protestors of a different hue.
While
lot of hue and cry would be aimed at the Centre, ruling BJP, everyone of them
including the actors would remain silent, if it happen in a State not ruled by
BJP – selective memory, selective scathing criticism. Please tell honestly, whether you have read
or seen this newsitem in many main media and whether any actor voiced anything
against Kerala Govt (I don’t expect though !) .. .. what would you want the
Police to do, when there is news on a criminal hiding ? – if you ever thought searching the premises for arresting a
criminal, sorry ! – your thinking is flawed.
For, before, you need to ask and find out, where it happened, who is the
victim, who is the perpetrator and in which place it occurred .. .. remain mum,
if it is Kerala and done with the support of Red Kerala Government !
A
young woman IPS officer has been moved
out summarily from the post of deputy
commissioner in Kerala reviving to
commoners the question of political
interference in police administration in the state.
Chaitra Teresa John
was shifted within hours after she raided the office of the Thiruvananthapuram
district committee of the CPM. The decision to transfer her was apparently
taken by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, reports the Telegraph. Teresa John had gone to the party office
after she gathered information that some workers belonging to the CPM youth
wing DYFI, wanted in connection with an attack on the local Medical College
police station, were present there.
The youths had
apparently tried last week to forcibly free from the police station two DYFI activists
arrested in a case registered under the Pocso Act. The officer could not find
any accused in the party office. The CPM took serious offence of her action and
demanded her removal. “Raiding the party office was not a right action. The
officer could not even find an accused inside the party office. I have got
complaints against the police, after which I also asked the DGP to probe the
action,” Vijayan told the Assembly on Monday. The
Opposition did not pursue the issue further in the House. This is not the first time that
workers of ruling parties have tried to browbeat the police force. It is a
common practice in Kerala, irrespective of whether the Left Front or the
Congress-led United Democratic Front is in power. Only, the tendency of ruling
party workers meddling in the working of the police force is more evident
during the Left rule.
Allegations that
district and even local party offices control the police are common whenever
the CPM had come to power. This is more rampant in party strongholds such as
Kannur. The current state secretary of the CPM, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, had once
threatened to turn police stations into bomb-making units. The action
against an officer who was doing her duty has come at a time the police force
under Vijayan has been accused of “inaction” in a number of cases. This
is the one reason that has been cited by the district CPM secretary while
demanding removal of the police officer for “demeaning the party”. Teresa John had booked leaders of the
CPM-backed union of government employees for vandalising an SBI office opposite
the state secretariat during the recent Bharat bandh. This was not to the liking of the state CPM
leadership.
The action against
the officer certainly has not gone down well with the public’ but there have
been no cries of intolerance, award-wapsi, nay not even any mention in Kerala
media ! – that is secularism and press in India. Shame !!
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
30th Jan
2019.
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