Back in Dec’09 it was 25 years since the Union Carbide plant accident took place.

In December 1984 India saw the beginning of the worst industrial disaster in history. It has come to be known as the Hiroshima of the chemical industry. 40 tonnes of deadly methyl isocyanate gas, used in the manufacture of the pesticide Sevin, spewed from the plant into the surrounding areas.

8-10,000 people died within the first 72 hours and another 15,000 people have died as a result of their exposure to the gas. Another 120,000 have chronic medical conditions that require constant healthcare.
The death toll stands at 25,000+

The following footage from the You Tube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/BhopalMedicalAppeal is unbelievably graphic in terms of showing:

1. Still no clean-up?!
2. The extent of damage is vast and water is still contaminated, getting into the food chain.
3. The fact that people can still walk about and enter the plant complex

Please see the videos below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Indra Sinha, who was Booker-nominated for his book on the Bhopal disaster, explains in the following article why the gas leak that killed 20,000 people 25 years ago – and continues to create health problems for countless more. The pictures in the article are also haunting.

In addition, the following video, you can see the need for more health resources and the appalling fact that you can see the contaminated soil that is still present.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The sad news is that people are still suffering.

What is so so sad is the fact that as we enter the 26th year of the tragedy, those who have the power to help appear to be not!?  Maybe public pressure can help. I certainly missed this news item. Does this mean that what we do not see can not move us? Do we forget because the public eye facilitated by the media is blind?

Or, on a positive note now that we know that people are still suffering, we can reach out and help.

Recently, over a thousand party revellers turned out to a party in an abandoned building in London, all on the whim of a Facebook invitation. It is a pity that we do not exercise our disgust and demand for justice using such tools!

The Bhopal Medical Appeal funds the Sambhavna Clinic. Sambhavna is the only place that offers free treatment to anybody affected by the toxic gas or the toxic water.  This Medical Appeal offers free health care and hope to the survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak disaster and those suffering from the present day water poisoning.  Find out more at: http://www.bhopal.org

I recorded it on 7th June 2009 and am grateful to my editor for helping to putting it all together.

The video aims to raise the need for continued justice but also interestingly there were a lot of suggestions from the people I interviewed. They outlined a need for both Justice and Hope. Hope that we can never see such a attrocity again and that we can respect each other.

I’ve recently been elected as chair of the Interfaith Youth Trust.  The aim is to help youth better understand each other with an aim to gain mutual respect.  Last year we held an event at the House of Lords where different youth based groups came together. They suggested that once people of different faiths get together, they develop a better understanding of their own faith. They also appreciate common themes. I wonder if such groups exist in places like India?

Here is my entry for 2009  in 2 parts:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In November 1984 thousands of innocent Sikhs lost their lives.
To date there has been no justice. The perpetrators are still free.

The first video features Bhai Rubin Paul Singh highlighting human rights issues in a creative way/poetic way at at conference entitled: Lahir 2008.

The second video is a trailer to the movie Amu. It found away to make people aware that this issue still needs to be addressed.

The short intro summary to the film reads…

Her trip back home turned into the journey of a lifetime…
Amu is the story of Kaju, a twenty-one-year-old Indian American woman who returns to India to visit her family. The film takes a dark turn as Kaju stumbles against secrets and lies from her past. A horrifying genocide that took place twenty years ago turns out to hold the key to her mysterious origins.

How were Kaju’s family involved in the killings? What happened and why? Who were the culprits? Who benefited? Will Kaju have the courage to pursue the truth no matter the cost? Will it destroy her relationship with her mother? Will it affect her burgeoning romance? Will it change everything she knows about herself and about India?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A few months later for 3 immediate days after Indira Gandhi assignation thousands of innocent Sikhs were killed. The total number of Sikhs and non-Sikhs killed has never been officially recorded but it is in the thousands. What is known in many cases, is the names of the instigators of the violence that occurred. After 24 years and major national enquiries no one has been brought to justice over human right abuses and targeted slaughter of a community.

Today India offers a manufacturing base that competes with the Far East. In terms of India�s strength in computer software development and support, again there is no doubt that India can offer immediate financial returns and committed employees. In recent years I have visited Bangalore and was impressed by the scale of development. India now has digital telecommunications, high speed voice and data networks. Investments have also taken place in Hotels.

Investment also means investing in equality for all parts of the population and also assuring justice and honesty. Although Dr Manmohan Singh has acknowledged the wrong that was done at the time, we still need those that committed the crimes of communal violence to be brought to trial.

For humankind there is a need for a concerted effort to ensure that justice does prevail. After 24 years victims of the 1984 Bluestar operation and Delhi genocide families are still suffering.

At a Facebook group inviting people to attend a rally in London (Hyde Park) on 8th June I read the following – It sent shivers down my spine!

See : http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=15741218422&ref=ts

Amritsar resident’s account

One resident of Amritsar gave an eyewitness account to the editor of the Sikh Messenger, a British publication. “The army pounding of the Golden Temple area continued over the next few days confirming our fears of deliberate and vindictive destruction. On the night of the 5th, the aged and chronically ill father of the couple next door finally expired and on the morning of the 6th the army gave our neighbours special permission to take him to the crematorium. Even before reaching this site, they could smell the stench of putrid and burning flesh. On entering the crematorium grounds they saw a sight that literally made them sick with horror. Grotesque piles of dozens of bodies were being burnt in the open without dignity or religious rites like so many carcasses. The bodies had all been brought there by dust carts and from the number ofcarts; the attendant estimated some 3,300 had so far been cremated

Mono:

Stereo:

He was passing through London and I had a chance to meet and interview him for a friend in an organisation.

It had some amazing points to make about the importance of justice and equality, through his work with
The Rainbow Push Coalition – The Rainbow PUSH Coalition is a progressive organization fighting for social change.
As a mighty coalition of conscience; workers, women and people of color have the power to make the
American Dream a Reality!

They believe that the issues consist of:

The Issues
RPC is dedicated to improving the lives of all people by focusing on cures for social, economic and political ills.
Our issues include but are not limited to:

• Jobs and Economic Empowerment
• Employee Rights and Livable Wages
• Educational Access
• Fair and Decent Housing
• Voter Registration and Civic Education
• Election Law Reform
• Fairness in the Media, Sports, and Criminal
• Justice System
• Political Empowerment
• Trade and Foreign Policy
• Affirmative Action and Equal Rights
• Gender Equality
• Environmental justice

and in terms of the UK http://www.equanomics.org.uk/
Equanomics UK is a growing coalition of organisations across the UK who want to develop more economic
analyses and approaches to equality in the UK. It is a project incubated at the 1990 Trust.

It was fascinating to hear him talk about the need for greater equality and ways that it could materialise, for example:

* Investing in firms, through stock purchasing
* Making people aware that the recent sub-prime mortgage problems may impact selective communities.

With regard to the latter, there will be marches held in December 2007, in both Wall Street and London’s stock
exchange area to highlight the need for a rescue package. The Rainbow Push Coalition on their site suggests…

It is time to act. Join us on December 10 on Wall Street and in cities across the country.
Stand up to stop the wave of home loan defaults that threatens to foreclose not just on their homes but on our hopes.
The problem keeps getting worse. Two million homeowners face foreclosure over the next year. Their neighbors will
lose billions in the equity they have in their homes. Millions will find themselves stuck, unable to get a decent price
for their homes in a flooded market. Tens of millions more will tighten their belts. Communities will struggle with budget crises….

It is interesting some banks were quick to lend. However, now that there is an issue, they need to show both
Corporate Responsibility and justice. Now is the time for creative solutions to ensure that people, all who are hardworking
can manage their existence and dreams.

 

I strongly believe that ruthlessness is not the route or path to success. I live in hope that people are essentially good but if one is faced with a situation of threat to human rights. We have to stand-up and ensure that evil does not prevail.

Back to debate on TV bullies. Does this mean that to make TV watch able we need to see such terrible behaviour? If we believe in the old adage, ‘What goes around, comes around’, then maybe these bullies will have to face the music eventually. Do some of these people sleep at night? Remember the film, Flatliners? The movie features how one could be possibly haunted by all the bad things you’ve done during your life!

The government is clear that we will not stand for bullying in schools, yet everyday successive and appetite fuelling reality TV programmes showcase bullying in all shapes and sizes. Whether it is race, sex or weight, the formula of placing one judge as a ‘hate’ figure is the same. What adds further spice is often the arrogance of the bully in question. He is mocked but still appears smug in his/her comfort zone.

If motivation is the key issue, then I have to say that bullying never works. Instead it can cause deep rooted emotional cuts.

Personally, I can reflect on my childhood of being bullied for the first three years at senior school. Everyday I was the target for an easy fight. A punch here and there from anyone that past my way became an unfortunate acceptable norm for me.

It was not until my 4th year aka year 10, that I managed to redeem some element of respect. I remember the fight to this day. I was in a brawl with one of the schools biggest bullies. I won the fight. Considering the technique, I wasted a lot of energy by punching the opponent in the back. The scene was barbaric; I was surrounded by a circle of kids, probably 10 deep, all shouting, ‘Bundle, Bundle’.

My redemption was through showing strength. I could not take being a punch bag anymore.

Today we have more rules and a different atmosphere to assist our kids. However, some TV executives are probably the bigger bullies, being sadistic rather than being creative.

We should be projecting our energies for the common good, not supporting the common bad. The last thing we want is for a double standard both from a corporate and personal perspective, who knows where it could end up!

One has to ask why and a hope that it will not be repeated? Yet, I wonder if the underlying reasons for him ‘snapping’ were more than his apparent inability to be ‘in with the in crowd’. Maybe he was mentally disturbed or his condition could have been as a result of an accumulative set of circumstances.

If people feel left out, unfortunately little is done to help them reach out and find a support group or a proactive approach to help get involved in team activities, for example: school games, competitions or techniques to bring out the positive qualities of individuals. I believe that today there are many lonely people in a world. Ironic, as we are surrounded by over six Billion individuals. Clique mentality exists everywhere but little is done to expose possible areas of stress.

In the case of the Virginia Tech shootings I am certainly not giving any excuses to the person who’s loose screw eventually made him lose any sense of reality.

What continues to confuse everyone about this killer is the potential difference between his online and off-line persona. Maybe he hid his true mental situation well and that no amount of profiling would have exposed this would be killer? Although I mentioned the need for a proactive approach to pick-up on potential killers, it appears that in late 2005 a special Justice’s order directed the Virginia Tech killer to seek outpatient treatment and declare him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself. Why did no one pick-up on this fact? This fact alone fits the federal criteria of him (the killer) being unable to purchase a gun i.e.: The stated circumstance should have immediately disqualified him.

I am not implying that we need Big Brother type policing. However, today we certainly have sorting algorithms and data mining tools to review and correlate data in an attempt to profile potential killers.

Finally, a lot has been written about whether the world should have been exposed to his online documented persona. One argument is that this exposure immortalises him and that may have been one of his aims. However, I believe that the reverse is true. We see from his videos and pictures that he was truly beyond reason and had ‘lost the plot’. His videos expose him as a fraud and deluded.

For our proactive approach to halt such a reoccurrence, we are able to learn more about opening up our attitudes to people and the need to urgently consider new strategies to capture potential lost souls.

During the period of slavery traders became rich. In parallel many slaves were raped and abused. Imagine living on a farm but before you are put to a lifetime of work you are branded on the chest. How could a man not see the other as equal? The slave owners had no respect or love in their hearts for their fellow humans.

I wonder how an attitude of abuse could prevail throughout society at the time.
Is it a case that there was no compassion, respect or understanding?

The same question has to be put when someone commits an act of communal violence, ethnic cleansing and racial abuse.
All of the latter are a matter of scale but are based on the same premise – surpression based on power and the morals of the day.

When the Nazis killed / exterminated of 6,000,000 Jews their hearts and minds were not filled with remorse as they had been brainwashed.
The question to ask is: Could this attitude of abuse, torture and hate raise its ugly head again?
Unfortunately, the risk is yes, as humans can be manipulated. History shows us this but why do we do not learn?!

When 1,000,000 people marched through London approx 4 years ago to take a stand against invading Iraq, what difference did it make?
I’m certainly not implying that we should give-up the need to strive for peace and respect.

A sad fact is that over the last 200 years slavery has survived. In addition, Human rights abuse continue.
Take a stroll over to: http://www.amnesty.org/ and see the proof for yourself – We need to remember that the world is still in turmoil.

Visit also: http://www.antislavery.org

One of their campaigns includes the situation in Sudan, i.e: During the 20 years of the Sudanese civil war between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ Army, which ended in January 2005, conflict, raids and abductions in the Southern part of the country were carried out by various militia groups, leading to the enslavement of approximately 14,000 men, women and children. Despite some efforts by government and civil society, the majority of those abducted remain in slavery today, along with thousands more children born to them while in captivity.

This siite also outlines today’s environment of slavery to the ‘things we buy’: Please see: http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/campaign/whatwebuy.htm

We need to work together to ensure freedom for all. It is up to us to support those that want the right morals for the world, else we will regret the power we all have to help others. After all why are we here in the world, if not to ensure that we all are free.

Last week the world’s media talked about nothing else but the apparent viewing of hate and bullying in the UK edition of Celebrity Big Brother. However, maybe over time that is all it will be perceived to have been. As Shilpa (or quote Jade’s mother ‘whatever her name is’) Shetty said recently, ‘Today’s news is tomorrows garbage’ – or words to that effect.

Many of you know my views on reality TV but on this occasion I have also been dragged into the obsession of watching fellow humans inside their artificial cage.The other day I considered Big Brother as similar to what the Apes set-up in Planet of the Apes (book and movie one). They considered putting their ancestors, humans in this case into ages (a parody on what a zoo is today). This was in an effort to learn more about themselves, forgetting for an instance that they themselves were mutants.What is the fascination of watching and analysing each other? Some argue that the extremes can lead to a closer analysis of how we all ‘tick’. A separate discussion is yet to take place about why such behaviour was allowed to go on, against channel 4’s broadcast charter.

The current debate sparked off by Celebrity Big Brother regarding:

* Racism Vs Ignorance
* Upbringing Vs Upbringing
* Cultural non-awareness Vs Racism
* Pack mentality Vs natural grouping
* Racism within races
* Mutual respect Vs victimisation
* Bullying Vs Hunter and Prey mentality
* Anger management Vs Jealousy
* Positioning Vs boundaries of acceptable behaviour
* Manners Vs plain and simple rudeness. suggests that a polarisation of views.

During the early days of the allegations of racism, by a pack against one contestant, hosts of the various spin of BB programmes suggested a lack of understanding someone’s culture as the possible cause – or should we collectively view this as just an excuse or running away from the real issue of what actually exists in today’s society.The hard fact is that if you have ever faced racism in the UK, whatever your background you can absolutely identify with what took place in the BB household.

From a personal perspective I was a victim of bullying at school and with little support from the teachers I had to overcome it through a physical battle in Year 9. I’m not suggesting that this the answer but one of the issues that does arise from what happened is the lack of effort or initiative to resolve the issue.

We can all read the papers and discuss / state that what happened was wrong but who is championing the cause that such behaviour is both unacceptable and requires proactive measures in society to stop the cause.