Wednesday, July 29, 2009

HyperMilitarism vs. Social Justice

1. July 30, 2009 2:24 am Link

NYTimes

Hypermilitarism vs. Social Justice

More than anything else, this news analysis (See link below) tells us how profoundly affected contemporary South Asian nation-states are, by the centuries-long divide and rule legacy of British colonialism and imperialism.

The cooked-up borders devised and imposed by the Brits still haunt us today. Millions of innocents died during “partition”. The sores fester, the scars remain. This dehumanizing colonial legacy still affects every action by our indigenous neo-colonial elites, most of whom have inherited the mindset of those who colluded with, and profited from, the British Divide and Rule strategy.

The challenge for our leaders today is to give up the colonial dependency mindset of hypermilitarism as illustrated by your report on the new female recruits to India's BSF. Our colonial dependency mindset has been compounded by the neo-imperial projects of the US and US-led NATO in our region.

However, our leaders have no incentive to reverse direction and change course. There are limitless profits and political capital to be made, from hypermilitarism. Our leaders can only be held accountable by We the People. Our democracies are fragile and flawed but our civil society is still our best hope against the colonial ideology that continues to favor militaristic solutions to social justice problems.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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NYTimes Copyright
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/women-deployed-to-indias-wall-of-death/#comment-341587