Mediafile

Citing fantastic evidence, Prof A.D.T.E. Perera writes in the Colombo Island that Jerusalem´s famous Dome of the Rock, holy of holies to Islam and Christendom, is actually the site of a monastery built by Punnathera, "a well disciplined disciple of Gautama Buddha". Samundragiri Vihara was supposed to be by the sea? Answer: like the great seas in the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts, the Dead Sea must have shrunk from the time when it lapped the shores of the temple in Jerusalem. "The good scholar claims that ´salem´ derives from ´sila´ or ´saila´ in Sanskrit or Pali, meaning rock or stone. Well, what about prefix ´Jeru´? Nothing so far but more research will yield a link says he. While this is where the Arabs believe Mohammed ascended to heaven, Mr Perera believes the reference could be to an historic event "when Gautama Buddha visited and sanctified the rock shrine and placed his sacred footprint on the stone altar." The same Ven Punna apparently built another monastery called Makulakarama, which Mr Perera claims is the present-day Mecca in mainland Arabia. Why not also lay claim to Machu Picchu and Uluru and the ziggarauts in Mesopotamia!
If war desecrates cultural property, the Photoshop programme on the computer has the incendiary ability to spark societal havoc. It is now possible for anyone with a desktop scanner and computer to turn out artificial images, and Pooja Bhatt´s head placed on a nude torso might have caused her some consternation. But the use of Photoshop for purposes of political propaganda goes beyond titillation, and can fan the flames of communalism. Take this Kashmir propaganda brochure produced in Pakistan on the "treachery" of Sheikh Abdullah and his son Farooq Abdullah. While the latter may well have on occasion put on a turban and even a tika, what has been presented in the picture is clearly computer manipulation. A close examination of the full-colour cover of the booklet shows that the image is a computer-generated collage. The hand on Farooq´s chin is fake, and the tika and turban too are computer-generated, or at the very least computer-enhanced. In colour, one can note that the tika and the turban have exactly the same shade of orange, clear proof that someone is using the computer "paintbrush". Let us hope that the propaganda war on Kashmir doesn´t dip any further.
Bhutan is definitely the darling of the international press, and this conviction is buttressed by scanning the International Herald Tribune of 13 May. There are three references to Bhutan, two of them inadvertent, which says to me that the land of the Druk dragon has managed to sneak into the subconscious of journalists, which is quite a feat for a small country that claims a population of no more than 650,000. Firstly, there is the lead picture showing Prime Ministers I.K. Gujral and Nawaz Sharif together seemingly felicitating King Jigme Singye Wangchuck at the SAARC summit. Next, a front-page article on the spread of the free market in Asia whose lead para starts with, "From Beijing to Manila and Bhutan to Mongolia, American calls for deregulations and liberalisation at last appear to have…" Another front-page story on the Asianisation of "Western" influence Asiawide provides anecdotes on Thai real estate in Burma, Cambodians watching violence-prone Japanese films, and, Hong Kong videotapes in "the remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan". Well, you can´t always be remote, if you are forever in the press!
While Arundhati Roy was doing her international book tours, another very deserving author was doing the rounds in the United States but in a lower key. It was the estimable P. Sainath, selling his book Everybody Loves a Good Drought (I believe Himal´s editor has a review somewhere in this issue) as he went along. Speaking to Barbara Crosette of The New York Times, Mr Sainath said something with which Chhetria Patrakar agrees. Talking about modernisation and Westernisation, he said, "It is a simplification to reduce everything to the word ´Westernisation,´ and a bit foolish to make the argument that anything and everything that comes from the West is bad. Millions of things have moved both ways over the centuries which we all live with and are comfortable with. What I see is something different. The super-rich are seceding from their nations. So what you have is not a Western or East Asian or Southeast Asian or Chinese model. We are building enclaves of super-privilege. What you´re having is not a global village but a series of global ghettos. The Western elite is not the sole villain."
"A Futuristic Partnership" between India and Nepal, announced the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in a full page ad in The Kathmandu Post to mark Inder Kumar Gujral´s visit to Kathmandu in early June. The copy showed two charts indicating the exports of one country to the other. To make Nepal´s abysmal performance look somewhat better, the value for Nepali exports to India is shown in a scale of 500s, whereas that of India to Nepal is shown in 5000s. Visually, at least, the trade volumes look well-balanced. Likewise, while India´s exports to Nepal do reflect a natural and dramatic rise, the rise in Nepal´s exports to India obviously has something to do with the 1989-90 embargo slapped by New Delhi against Nepal.
Disaparedos was a term we always used to describe political activists "disappeared" and killed by the state in Latin American dictatorships. Well, guess what, the term is moving closer home. According to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, the phenomenon has almost disappeared in Latin America. No disappearances were reported in 1996 in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Nicaragua. On the other hand, the case of disappeareds was rising in Asia. An emerging pattern of disappearances is reported in Tibet, according to the Working Group, which says that there were 17 new cases of disappeareds in China last year, 16 of them Tibetans, including eight monks. In India, the number is as high as 250 cases, mostly Kashmiri and Sikh disappeareds. Meanwhile, seven disappearances were reported in Pakistan, where there were about 50 other outstanding cases, mostly members of the Mohajir Quami Movement. Some serious introspection needed here, for the lack of disquiet this has caused in our media, and among our intelligentsia.
I do hope that the Taliban commander who threatened to blow up the Buddha statues at Bamiyan has re-thunk his sacrilegious thoughts. As someone who has climbed up the tunnels of that rock-conglomerate cliff to look down upon the larger of the two standing Buddhas from on high, I would refer the said commandant to a speech given by E. Clement of UNESCO at a seminar on cultural heritage law held in Kathmandu recently, as to why it is important to protect cultural heritage in time of war:

Loss of or damage to treasured structures cause despair and feelings of overwhelming suffering to the inhabitants of the affected area; it also makes the rehabilitation of their community much more difficult when the conflict is over.

There has never been any doubt in the minds of international lawyers that the protection of cultural property in time of armed conflict is part of the international humanitarian law. Identity is inextricably linked with the visible symbols of culture.
Therein lies a catch, however, with regard to identity being linked to culture. What do you do when, with the march of history, the present-day custodians of a heritage site do not identify culturally with it. This is the case with so many Buddhistic sites in Pakistan and Afghanistan, from Taxila and Gandhara to Bamiyan. (In Bangladesh, on the other hand, even with the Islamisation of centuries, there is still visible cultural pride of being the cradle of historic Buddhism.) And so, the only thing to do is to appeal to the potential desecrator´s sense of history and imagination. For while the Taliban commander might not think his Islamic identity is linked to the two mute Buddhas towering over him, their flanks defaced by earlier marauders, he might spare a thought to the millions of Buddhists and other spiritual seekers around the world, if and when his platoon does overrun Bamiyan village.
Type Bhutan.com, Bhutan.net or Bhutan.org, the most obvious addresses for Druk Yul on the World Wide Web, and what do you get? Not any snarling dragon or Takstang Monastery shrouded in cloud. If you type Bhutan.com, for example, you get the image of a man lounging in a hammock beneath palm trees. It turns out that John Black, a businessman from Vancouver who has dealings in the Caribbean, has "captured" the address and is willing to sell it, for USD 50,000! His entrepreneurial spirit was not applauded in Thimphu where, reports The Asian Wall Street Journal, the officials were just waking up to the need to counter "misinformation regarding the nation´s treatment of ethnic Nepalese" on the Net. So Kinley Dorji, editor of Kuensel, has started Kuensel.com, but not before he dashed off an editorial on the cyber-speculators. "Anyone who is ready to believe that the world is full of well-intentioned people need to seriously review their naivete," wrote Mr Dorji. How naive!
One would forgive the media for forgetting momentarily who govern Nepal, due to the faceless men who have been running the country for some time now. In fact, the present prime minister, Lokendra Bahadur Chand, is so uninspiring that the country goes for days without even thinking about him. Nevertheless, it does not do for the editors of the Calcutta Telegraph to show King Birendra as the head of state/government in Nepal. In the lineup of Nawaz Sharif, Sheikh Hasina, Chandrika Kumaratunga, King Jigme, how does King Birendra fit? He is titular, and may it long remain so.
On 5 June, the Dainik Dinkal newspaper, reportedly a mouthpiece of the Opposition BNP of Khaleda Zia, published a sensational front-page report naming 59 senior journalists allegedly receiving monetary favours from the Indian High Commission on a regular basis. Then the cowdung hit the fan. There was, as they say, babaal. The High Commission reacted furiously against the newspaper´s "malicious intentions", and some of those named on the list threatened defamation suits. On 6 June, the newspaper apologised. End of episode, apparently.

Chhetria Patrakar´s coveted Magazine Design Award of the Year goes to folio, the book-sized monthly put out by The Hindu of Madras whose latest issues is on Cuisine. The use of colour photographs on newsprint, the understated layout, use of small type, and overall unostentatious creativity is just the counterpoint to imported Western glossies such as Cosmo and Elle. Congratulations to ´Designations´, the outfit credited with the design for folio.

Seeing an item on the possible extinction of the Indian (pardon me, South Asian) rhino in The Hindu, I wonder whatever happened to the lady caught with one of the largest hauls of rhino contraband ever, Deiky Wangchuk, aunt of King Jigme? The royal was caught entering Taiwain in 1993 with "a consignment of nine bear gall-bladders and 22 rhino horns worth 769,000 dollars," the paper reminds us. Knock, knock.

Chhetria Patrakar