Pace of writing

The pace of critical writing that I like to do is too slow. I'm in my early 40s and, I would say I started unraveling my conditioning in my mid 30s and, my desire to write about my reactions to reality has only doubled. 

However, my pace is slow and I have depleted energy. Why? Things just get in the way, my household and caring duties. This makes me slightly angry and frustrated with myself. Why can't I find the energy and focus to find the time? 

I watch a lot of news and these days, am watching more and more of analysis and commentary from left-wing and progressive YouTube channels such as: 

BreakThrough News

Novara Media

Democracy Now!

newslaundry

I also watch a lot of The Print to get analysis with Shekar Gupta. There are other senior analysts/editors too in this channel like Jyoti Malhotra and Praveen Swami. This isn't strictly a leftist media channel. It is independent. 

newslaundry too is an Indian channel and, I love its witty and very funny take. 

We don't seem to have a good independent leftist in Pakistan. We have a massive progressive and leftist footprint on Twitter and Facebook but I don't now of a dedicated channel. 

There is ProperGaanda but they aren't as prolific and consistent in their output as the other outlets that are listed here. 

Same for Africa. 

At the time of the Queen's death and assertion of Empire that followed, we were told again and again about the Queen's life of service. Amongst the many reactions I had, I thought about what service actually meant. I thought about a lifetime of sticking up for the truth every day. I thought about Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! and, that she has been doing this for 25 years! 

I would love to be part of an endeavour like this, perhaps a feminist news channel, or a progressive news channel that focuses on Africa. A feminist news channel would of feminist activism, feminist analysis. As for Africa, I feel we don't have enough analysis on events on the continent. Most often, we only get a passing mention of a coup, of an ambush by a rebel group, or starvation and misery, and so on. What's the larger geopolitical picture? We never seem to get it or there isn't enough of it. 

I pay attention to conversations a lot more and, try to sift through bias, conditioning, and ignorance. 

My pace of writing about my reactions is too slow and, rest of my duties and moods come in the way. What to do about it? 

My last thought for this ramble of thoughts: the social media format to write short but dense reactions to anything and everything is in itself not bad. I've been on Facebook since 2007 and, actively on Twitter since a few years now. I'm constantly poised on my keyboard to write a scathing attack at whatever has riled me up, makes me angry or a more thoughtful measured response to an issue. I admit, I think about writing a concise reaction that can make an impact, rather than a long rant. But that often inspires longer notes on my blog. Social media formats for writing are good exercise in terms of making a concise but compelling point! 

Pink and purple sunset

Please appreciate these photographs of today's sunset. Please know that I haven't used any filters or twiddled with any settings. These are photos from a very ordinary USD $ 200.00 smart phone! 

If this building weren't in the way, but still what a glorious sunset

Dry season is almost here

The sun was out today and, I sweated so much more than usual. We are getting close to the dry season, it seems. We couldn't fill the water tank with the water harvesting system these past couple of days. The main reason I'm so obsessed with these seasons is because the LEC doesn't work at all in the dry season. It's very stressful to know that those type of good times are up ahead. 

Strictly speaking, the rainy season starts mid April to mid October. I remember being told this when I arrived here in Liberia in 2003. I remember everything being very damp and humid. I remember stepping into leaking, dilapidated buildings for various meetings. 

Let's not stress about what is not even here. 

I really enjoyed my evening walk. The Coach is getting really serious. He sent off unruly members for extra laps on the Hill. He also weighed everyone. We all had to get in a line and get weighed. We are to make videos of squats and planks and upload them to the group chat. Getting serious o! 

Hope you enjoy the sunset shots. 

Liberia Emerging Political Leaders Training by USAID takes the cake

The Americans have a paternalistic relationship or rather shadow with/over Liberia. Liberia is a settler colony founded by African Americans and fully supported by the American state. In Liberia, Americans found a buffer state against Soviet influence, a quasi colony to build a major imperial presence in Africa. 

USAID from Wikipedia: 

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the United States government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $50 billion USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance—the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms.*

USAID was established in 1961 by JFK. Its areas of help are:

• Disaster relief
• Poverty relief
• Technical cooperation on global issues, including the environment
• U.S. bilateral interests
• Socioeconomic development

Fair enough - even if it is true, what have Americans achieved in Liberia since 2003? Have they built anything in Liberia? Roads? Hospitals? Universities? Schools? Can they boast of any institution they built? Which would actually count as socioeconomic development? 

Instead the postwar assistance is about soft projects like training and workshops. See the posts from Internews and IREX below. 

I've been reading about training of journalists and radio stations (and teachers , civil servants, etc) for the longest time. This particular post talks about helping media develop digital strategies. I literally can't take it seriously! More than taking it as yet more evidence of how Americans control media and destroy independent journalism. 

Same goes for IREX' post: so Americans are training Emerging Political Leaders? I'm literally on the floor laughing. I can't breathe! There's an acronym for imperialism!!!!!! 

Before I go, check out Armed Forces of Liberia article in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_of_Liberia. This gives you a better idea of the American interests in Liberia. 

* US gives about 3-4 billion Dollars to Israel every year. This is military assistance. Cumulatively Israel has received 300 billion USD to Israel. Egypt also receives massive assistance. USAID's budget is peanuts compared to Imperial Moolah doled out by the Americans.  So, let's stop pretending Americans are tirelessly working to eradicate poverty. 

Things to read

 These are some of the most useful articles I've read about the Pakistan floods:

1) Opinion: Pakistan must get rid of colonial mindset on water by Daanish Mustafa: 

So what does decolonising water mean? What does it mean in the context of the Pakistan floods of 2022? 150 years ago in colonial India of which Pakistan was a part thinking about water was locked into a modernist view of water as a ‘resource’ to the exclusion of its multiple values within local cultures.The modernist view treated water as simply a resource for irrigation water supply and sanitation. The aesthetic cultural spiritual and ecological values that local societies ascribed to water were simply occluded by this view. Under modernity rivers were a giant plumbing system carrying cubic metres of water and were expected to stay within the imposed iron limits of average flows.

2) The British Monarchy Helped Mortgage Our Collective Future by Priya Sadia 

Pakistan is under water, England faces an energy crisis, and the Queen has died. But the frantic analysis of the monarchy remains blind to its role in the existential climate crisis we face: the surrogate sacred object it offered to a society that ceased to find meaning in the earth and fellow beings.

3) The Floods Devastating Pakistan Are More Than a Natural Disaster by Ammar Ali Jan 

Activists in Pakistan are also demanding that creditors in the Global North cancel Pakistan’s debt provide investment and technological transfer for building climate resilient infrastructure and hold their fossil fuel companies responsible for polluting the planet. This is on top of the $100 billion dollars committed to poor countries in the Paris Accords a commitment that has not been honored as yet. These demands should not be confused with a nationalist claim in which South and North become reified categories. Rather as suggested earlier the role of the ruling elites in Pakistan (and arguably across the Global South) in handling economic and climate issues has been dismal.

4) Flooding has devastated Pakistan – and Britain’s imperial legacy has made it worse by Shozab Raza

While landlords can escape to their properties in these cities as several told me they did during the 2010 floods peasants like Bashir have nowhere else to go experiencing what one scholar describes as an “emplaced displacement”. Their tragic predicament is ultimately a consequence of empire and an accomplice elite which together have viewed Pakistan’s peripheral regions as sites for plunder and profit.Calls for climate reparations for Pakistan therefore make sense but not just because of its recent experience with a global north-induced climate crisis. They are also necessary because of this much longer history. Beyond climate reparations what Pakistan really needs are colonial reparations.

I love this line by Kader Khan

Do you feel free?

Aboo: "I saw Queen Elizabeth when she came to independent Pakistan in 1954. I was at Government College Lahore and we went to see her procession on the Mall. " Aboo, how did you feel? Like a free person or still being lorded over ?

Beating the Monday pre-school blues

Kavita starts school tomorrow and, I had to go to the shops to get Kavita a belt. It's a requirement to wear a belt with pants. So, we went to Benson Street and, then walked up the Hill. But not before enjoying coconut!  

It was a sunny day today. I don't mind change of seasons but it means the LEC is going to be terrible. The electricity is much more stable in rainy season because the hydro dams work. 

Good evening

This is the Harbel Supermarket, Randall Street parking lot. 

Admiration for Uju Anya 's truth

I totally loved Uju Anya's Tweets during this great reckoning with Queen Elizabeth's death! What an uproar , created by liberals and Monarchists, making us believe that the Queen didn't have a racist bone in her body and, that it is bad form to celebrate someone’s death. This selective morality that only protects that power of a colonial institution is an absolute lie! 

And, see this Tweet. Please let there be no doubt about what aid is : a successor to colonialism that is funded by the same imperial powers. It does not address the problematic world order that spends trillions on war. Aid is a geopolitical tool used by the same powers to appear good but keep the Global South in permanent crisis. Aid, as small and ineffective as it is as a permanent solution, is often withheld as punishment. Aid feeds a career industry  and, perpetuates Do Gooder /Saviour morality and, defends capitalism. Aid is so shockingly apolitical in its project-based work. And, women who work in this industry, especially white women, project White Feminism in all its glory.