[See SAJAforum's full coverage of the Mumbai attacks]
There's already a lot - a lot! - of opinion pieces, commentaries, essays, etc, about the Mumbai attacks - and I am having trouble sorting the bad from the good. So I'd like us to do something we did at other such landmark events over the course of SAJA's 15-year history: highlight some essays worth reading. But unlike events such as 9/11; the death of Kalpana Chawla and other astronauts in the Shuttle disaster; the tsunami, etc, technology now allows the SAJA community to share the good pieces directly, rather than waiting for SAJA moderators to do the posting.
Here are some to get us started. I'll add some here as I find them, but please add your favorites in the comments below. Thoughtful, important pieces only, please. And please post using the same format I am using here.
SUKETU MEHTA, author of “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found” and journalism professor at New York University, writing in The New York Times:
What They Hate About Mumbai
EXCERPT: Mumbai is a “soft target,” the terrorism analysts say. Anybody can walk into the hotels, the hospitals, the train stations, and start spraying with a machine gun. Where are the metal detectors, the random bag checks? In Mumbai, it’s impossible to control the crowd. In other cities, if there’s an explosion, people run away from it. In Mumbai, people run toward it — to help. Greater Mumbai takes in a million new residents a year. This is the problem, say the nativists. The city is just too hospitable. You let them in, and they break your heart.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/opinion/29mehta.html
SHASHI THAROOR, author and former UN official, writing in Tina Brown's TheDailyBeast.com:
City Under Siege
EXCERPT: This year alone, terrorist bombs have taken lives in Jaipur, in
Ahmedabad, in Delhi and (in an eerie dress-rehearsal for the
effectiveness of synchronicity) several different places on one searing
day in the state of Assam. Jaipur is the lodestar of Indian tourism to
Rajasthan; Ahmedabad is the primary city of Gujarat, the state that is
a poster child for India’s development, with a local GDP growth rate of
14%; Delhi is the nation’s political capital and India’s window to the
world; Assam was logistically convenient for terrorists from across a
porous border. Mumbai combined all four elements of its precursors: by
attacking it, the terrorists hit India’s economy, its tourism, and its
internationalism, and they took advantage of the city’s openness to the
world. A grand slam.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-26/terror-in-mumbai/
FAREED ZAKARIA, journalist and author, gave an interview to Newsweek.com:
The Mayhem in Mumbai
EXCERPT: I think India is showing remarkable resilience. They're trying to get back to business as usual. They were planning to open the stock market, which is not far from the Taj; they ultimately decided that that might have been a bridge too far, but they're encouraging people to go back to work. That's the best thing about an open society. They're trying to project an image of resilience.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/17100
SANDIP ROY, New America Media editor and radio show host, wrote in a piece that also ran in Salon:
Mumbai Terrorists Wear Uniform of Young India
EXCERPT: The assailants, even as they demanded American and British passports, apparently were not English-speaking. They spoke in Urdu and Hindi. In a country where every car entering one of the grand new shopping malls has its trunk inspected by uniformed security, how did they know they could walk into the five star hotel with AK-47s and grenades? In the hushed glamor of the Taj with its 24-hour coffee shops and golden luggage carts, did they walk in through the front door, past the liveried doorman like they belonged? Did they stride into the dining room of the five-star Oberoi where diamond merchants make deals and Bollywood starlets wait to be spotted by gossip columnists like they wanted a table – dinner for three, we have no reservations. "These are the places where what Indians call 'the creamy layer' hang out," says Mira Kamdar, author of Planet India on a recent webcast organized by the South Asian Journalists Association. She says these are the places where Bombay's elite feel safe and cocooned. It's their "islands of security" amidst the chaos of South Bombay. "It's the elite of Bombay who are really going to be shaken," says Kamdar.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=050dc87c7cffe019c7177175cefe1ad8
ROHIT CHOPRA, media academic, writing in the AntiHistory blog:
Islam, Terror, and the Failures of the Intellectual Left
EXCERPT: Here are some reflections on my blog on, Islam, Terror, and the Failures of the Intellectual Left, based, in part, on the horrific events of the last two days and the kinds of reactions I suspect we will see. The Right has already started with its blanket condemnations of Islam. And the Left has also started its usual apologetics about how Indian state action, anti-Kashmir action etc compels Muslims to
take such actions.
http://antihistory.blogspot.com/2008/11/apologetics-from-left-about-bombay.html
TAREK FATAH, Toronto-based writer, in the Ottawa Citizen (his daughter's piece is below):
Real target of Mumbai terrorists: Severing the hand of friendship
EXCERPT: The mayhem in Mumbai had barely subsided when I received the first e-mail suggesting the terrorist attacks had been carried out by agents of Mossad ---- Israel's military intelligence -- masquerading as Islamic terrorists to give Muslims a bad name. Alex James of Toronto forwarded a news item claiming, "India's Internal Security Police are now holding and questioning an identified Israeli Mossad agent, who had been in communication with some of the alleged terrorists in India two weeks before the BLACK OP attacks took place." As ridiculous as this may sound, chances are countless Muslims are deluding themselves into believing that it is not their co-religionists who are responsible for the savagery let loose on India, but some hidden hand that is part of a U.S.-Zionist conspiracy against Islam.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=e7a2a383-f713-48d8-aa82-d26c079167d0
NATASHA FATAH, Tarek's daughter, writes in CBC News about the city her grandfather and great-grandfather left behind when they left when India was partitioned in 1947:
Lament for Mumbai: Tears as the City of Joy Burns
EXCERPT:
A particularly sinister type of evil crept into Mumbai this week. The type that stalks innocent people as they board commuter trains at a busy downtown station. The type that opens fire on families eating quietly at a cafe. The type that takes dozens of visitors and newcomers hostage while they are still coming to terms with a foreign land. t was with deep sorrow that I watched the news as the city of Mumbai burned. As those groups of highly organized, hate-filled young men stormed and destroyed some of the most glorious spots of that most beautiful city, a sense of hopelessness washed over those of us who love Mumbai.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/11/27/f-vp-fatah.html
Post essays worth reading below. If you want to comment on a particular essay posted here already, please be clear which piece you are talking about.
