Are Stone Pelters “The Real Heroes”?
VIEWPOINT BY JUNAID AZIM MATTU
A lecturer at Gandhi College in Kashmir recently asked his students to answer a rather controversial and politically charged question in an exam paper – “Are stone-pelters the real heroes?”. I wrote an article condemning such blatant, conscious and deliberate politicization of academy and curricula in general and exam papers in particular, as warranted by this incident. Since then, the article has generated a heated debate and evoked sentiments on both sides of the line. A lot of people have personally attacked me for my views – in the most obnoxious ways there could be. But, what’s heartening is that a greater number of young men and women – students mostly – some of whom took this exam, have communicated their endorsement. I have also spoken to some of these students to gauge their views on this. I now, follow up that article with an attempt to answer Mr. Bhat’s misplaced question, in fourteen hundred words, placing myself in that exam hall.
In the year 2000, on the Lebanese-Israeli border, Edward Said – a Palestinian-American literary theorist, activist and founding figure in the study of Post-colonialism and Orientalism – was pictured allegedly throwing a stone at an abandoned Israeli guard station. Activists were quick to see this as the moral legalization of stone throwing as a romanticized expression of dissent, in Palestine and other conflict torn regions of the world. The David vs. Goliath metaphoric romanticism was hastily invoked from the arid Gaza strip to eventually the old inner city of Srinagar to reinforce an apparent justification for teenagers to pelt their suffocation and suppression away – one stone at a time – expressing their unwillingness to be coerced into submission.
Days after, the famous Edward Said picture was published in newspapers and magazines around the Middle East, academics and theorists the world over started debating on the moral and political repercussions of Said’s action. Said’s scheduled lectures and talks at some renowned universities were cancelled, as the world now perceived Said as a passive combatant. Impetuous praise poured in from Palestinian organizations, activists and even bandwagon anarchists from other parts of the world. Said’s little stone toss was soon immortalized in postcolonial revolutionary history as a cornerstone in the evolution of stone throwing as a form of symbolic resistance. Today the tragedy is that Kashmiris know Edward Said the stone-thrower and not Edward Said the founder of Orientalism. And in that tragedy, lies my argument.
We have conveniently forgotten the bitter fact that Edward Said came back to categorically state - that his picture was taken out of context and all he was guilty of doing was indulging with his young son in a stone-throwing competition. But much to Mr. Said’s anger and disappointment, he had become an unwilling poster-boy for the educated and virtual sympathizers of stone throwing – people who never knew what Edward Said stood for all his life. His daughter would later disclose that Mr. Said died with this shock in his heart, five years later. Edward Said in an interview about this incident, also spoke of this concept of “healthy anarchy” in stating why stones where thrown at Fatma Gate, a crossing at the Lebanese-Israeli border. Edward Said’s overt references to stone throwing were in the context of symbolism, not active combat against military/paramilitary forces. But who will tell this to the ideological pillars of stone-throwing in Kashmir, who ironically call Edward Said their hero?
I don’t know if stone-pelters are heroes or not but I certainly know this – stone pelting at it’s moral best is a symbolic expression of dissent not a form of combat and battle, as Edward Said would have said. I don’t think any political dividends can merit having an entire generation out on our roads with stones in their hands, battling troops in military gear, when they should be in schools – studying, growing and expanding the horizons of their minds. The Kashmir issue is multi-layered, too complex to be settled through a four month long annual war of bricks and stones. No quantity of stones can make an army flee, no number of self-imposed economic sanctions can make a State sacrifice it’s ultimate strategic interests. Is this question - are stone-pelters the “real heroes” - a derivative of the bigger, vague notion that self-destructive anarchy is the “real struggle”? That by closing our shops and offices we can make New Delhi scurry to the table? And, for a moment let’s hypothetically assume that Delhi does come to the table – are we willing to talk? Does our leadership have the freedom to take an autonomous call on that decision? Can our leadership bypass Pakistan’s apparent reluctance here and engage with Delhi in an integrative negotiation? Then how are anarchists, the “real heroes”? What is the happy ending they have in sight? In which castle does this Mario’s princess lie?
As a student who came to answer questions on literature, grammar and comprehension – predictably out of the text that was assigned to us – I’m emotionally unsettled to answer this question but will try my best to not mince any words. I’m a young Kashmiri boy who has witnessed blood and gore as the sixth and seventh elements of life. My life has been as much of a testament to political suppression as anyone else’s – having been born into this never-ending turmoil, a stranger to the very semblance of normality. I have grown up with more questions in my mind than answers I could seek. Now, I’m asked to answer another such question – one I have sought an answer for within my own teething, crawling conscience for months.
I have a moral dilemma with stone pelting. My friends mock me, call me a pacifist – a coward who would rather write about suppression than confront it – with a stone in his hand. My character comes into question. How could a Kashmiri condemn stone pelting as a medium of dissent, they say! In condemning stone pelting, I apparently become this monstrous “pseudo-intellectual” who won't put his money where his mouth is – a person whose prattle about Kashmir outweighs the stones that he pelts. The guilt is shoved down my throat repeatedly. In this anarchy, I’ve begun to see fascism – bloody fascism – in how moral codes are set, in how my choice is arbitrarily judged, in how one man and his disciple impose sanctions on their allegedly own nation and in the manner in which diktats are enforced under the presumption that Kashmir is one big political monolith – all I see is fascism in the guise of anarchy.
Tufail Mattoo, a young boy of seventeen, the first fatality in the recent summer agitation was not a stone-pelter. He fell to a paramilitary tear-gas shell while he was on his way for his tutorial class, a bag slung across his unassuming shoulders. Do I then presume that Tufail Mattoo is not a “real hero”? Zahid Farooq, another young boy, fell to the unprovoked bullets of a BSF jawan while he was playing an innocent game of cricket with his friends. Zahid Farooq wasn’t a stone pelter either. Would I assume that Zahid was not a “real hero”? Fancy Jan, a young hardworking girl fell to a stray bullet while she stood at the window of her house in Batmaloo. Fancy was not a stone pelter. A young eight year old boy was crushed to death during another such agitation this summer. I wouldn’t think that an eight-year-old kid could be a stone-pelter. So do all these losses amount to nothing beyond collateral sacrifices the “real heroes” are willing to make to both validate and sanctify their prolonged dream of an unhealthy, aimless and perpetual state of anarchy? I went to most city hospitals this summer with my dad, and found out – to my utter surprise – that most of those injured and dead were not stone pelters. Are they then not the “real heroes”?
I’m still not sure how throwing a stone at my neighbor’s car can possibly avenge for actions of the paramilitary forces. I’m still not sure if blocking roads that lead to specialized healthcare institutes is any less cruel and dictatorial than the atrocities we condemn. I’ve never pelted a stone in my life and never will. I want to grow up and have the moral high-ground to condemn fascism and senseless violence. I might be a traitor in the eyes of those who are out with masks and stones but I shall not be a coward. No, Sir – stone pelters are not the “real heroes”.
(Junaid Azim Mattu is the Founding President of the World Kashmiri Students Association and can be reached at www.facebook.com/junaidazimmattu)
In the year 2000, on the Lebanese-Israeli border, Edward Said – a Palestinian-American literary theorist, activist and founding figure in the study of Post-colonialism and Orientalism – was pictured allegedly throwing a stone at an abandoned Israeli guard station. Activists were quick to see this as the moral legalization of stone throwing as a romanticized expression of dissent, in Palestine and other conflict torn regions of the world. The David vs. Goliath metaphoric romanticism was hastily invoked from the arid Gaza strip to eventually the old inner city of Srinagar to reinforce an apparent justification for teenagers to pelt their suffocation and suppression away – one stone at a time – expressing their unwillingness to be coerced into submission.
Days after, the famous Edward Said picture was published in newspapers and magazines around the Middle East, academics and theorists the world over started debating on the moral and political repercussions of Said’s action. Said’s scheduled lectures and talks at some renowned universities were cancelled, as the world now perceived Said as a passive combatant. Impetuous praise poured in from Palestinian organizations, activists and even bandwagon anarchists from other parts of the world. Said’s little stone toss was soon immortalized in postcolonial revolutionary history as a cornerstone in the evolution of stone throwing as a form of symbolic resistance. Today the tragedy is that Kashmiris know Edward Said the stone-thrower and not Edward Said the founder of Orientalism. And in that tragedy, lies my argument.
We have conveniently forgotten the bitter fact that Edward Said came back to categorically state - that his picture was taken out of context and all he was guilty of doing was indulging with his young son in a stone-throwing competition. But much to Mr. Said’s anger and disappointment, he had become an unwilling poster-boy for the educated and virtual sympathizers of stone throwing – people who never knew what Edward Said stood for all his life. His daughter would later disclose that Mr. Said died with this shock in his heart, five years later. Edward Said in an interview about this incident, also spoke of this concept of “healthy anarchy” in stating why stones where thrown at Fatma Gate, a crossing at the Lebanese-Israeli border. Edward Said’s overt references to stone throwing were in the context of symbolism, not active combat against military/paramilitary forces. But who will tell this to the ideological pillars of stone-throwing in Kashmir, who ironically call Edward Said their hero?
I don’t know if stone-pelters are heroes or not but I certainly know this – stone pelting at it’s moral best is a symbolic expression of dissent not a form of combat and battle, as Edward Said would have said. I don’t think any political dividends can merit having an entire generation out on our roads with stones in their hands, battling troops in military gear, when they should be in schools – studying, growing and expanding the horizons of their minds. The Kashmir issue is multi-layered, too complex to be settled through a four month long annual war of bricks and stones. No quantity of stones can make an army flee, no number of self-imposed economic sanctions can make a State sacrifice it’s ultimate strategic interests. Is this question - are stone-pelters the “real heroes” - a derivative of the bigger, vague notion that self-destructive anarchy is the “real struggle”? That by closing our shops and offices we can make New Delhi scurry to the table? And, for a moment let’s hypothetically assume that Delhi does come to the table – are we willing to talk? Does our leadership have the freedom to take an autonomous call on that decision? Can our leadership bypass Pakistan’s apparent reluctance here and engage with Delhi in an integrative negotiation? Then how are anarchists, the “real heroes”? What is the happy ending they have in sight? In which castle does this Mario’s princess lie?
As a student who came to answer questions on literature, grammar and comprehension – predictably out of the text that was assigned to us – I’m emotionally unsettled to answer this question but will try my best to not mince any words. I’m a young Kashmiri boy who has witnessed blood and gore as the sixth and seventh elements of life. My life has been as much of a testament to political suppression as anyone else’s – having been born into this never-ending turmoil, a stranger to the very semblance of normality. I have grown up with more questions in my mind than answers I could seek. Now, I’m asked to answer another such question – one I have sought an answer for within my own teething, crawling conscience for months.
I have a moral dilemma with stone pelting. My friends mock me, call me a pacifist – a coward who would rather write about suppression than confront it – with a stone in his hand. My character comes into question. How could a Kashmiri condemn stone pelting as a medium of dissent, they say! In condemning stone pelting, I apparently become this monstrous “pseudo-intellectual” who won't put his money where his mouth is – a person whose prattle about Kashmir outweighs the stones that he pelts. The guilt is shoved down my throat repeatedly. In this anarchy, I’ve begun to see fascism – bloody fascism – in how moral codes are set, in how my choice is arbitrarily judged, in how one man and his disciple impose sanctions on their allegedly own nation and in the manner in which diktats are enforced under the presumption that Kashmir is one big political monolith – all I see is fascism in the guise of anarchy.
Tufail Mattoo, a young boy of seventeen, the first fatality in the recent summer agitation was not a stone-pelter. He fell to a paramilitary tear-gas shell while he was on his way for his tutorial class, a bag slung across his unassuming shoulders. Do I then presume that Tufail Mattoo is not a “real hero”? Zahid Farooq, another young boy, fell to the unprovoked bullets of a BSF jawan while he was playing an innocent game of cricket with his friends. Zahid Farooq wasn’t a stone pelter either. Would I assume that Zahid was not a “real hero”? Fancy Jan, a young hardworking girl fell to a stray bullet while she stood at the window of her house in Batmaloo. Fancy was not a stone pelter. A young eight year old boy was crushed to death during another such agitation this summer. I wouldn’t think that an eight-year-old kid could be a stone-pelter. So do all these losses amount to nothing beyond collateral sacrifices the “real heroes” are willing to make to both validate and sanctify their prolonged dream of an unhealthy, aimless and perpetual state of anarchy? I went to most city hospitals this summer with my dad, and found out – to my utter surprise – that most of those injured and dead were not stone pelters. Are they then not the “real heroes”?
I’m still not sure how throwing a stone at my neighbor’s car can possibly avenge for actions of the paramilitary forces. I’m still not sure if blocking roads that lead to specialized healthcare institutes is any less cruel and dictatorial than the atrocities we condemn. I’ve never pelted a stone in my life and never will. I want to grow up and have the moral high-ground to condemn fascism and senseless violence. I might be a traitor in the eyes of those who are out with masks and stones but I shall not be a coward. No, Sir – stone pelters are not the “real heroes”.
(Junaid Azim Mattu is the Founding President of the World Kashmiri Students Association and can be reached at www.facebook.com/junaidazimmattu)
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