French Culture - secular, colonial, traditional

I had read two book about Bernadette, one about her life and one about a present day journalist on a work tour of Lourdes to discover what is going on there, constructed along the lines one has come to expect from most well constructed such works - events that can be called miracles or coincidences, keeping all readers (and for films, viewers) pleased with their interpretation while keeping the author (or producer etc in case of film) out of trouble with everyone.

Life of Bernadette, the peasant girl who had visions and discovered the miraculous spring at Lourdes, is interesting for more than interest in her. She was young and innocent and pure, and so was able to perceive a vision from above directly, hear the vision and have conversations too. The then church authorities immediately went against her, suspicious of anyone with an access to Divine outside the approved channel of authority, and she suffered much including a possibility of fate such as Joan D'Arc. This she was saved, fortunately. In exchange the church had monopoly over the spring - and the town's facilities - at Lourdes.

It is interesting that she went through so much trouble due to her visions even after she found the miraculous springs, only because of a dogma that normal persons could not access heavens above and an authority, a central fixed one at that, had to certify all miracles - and now the same authority monopolises access to Lourdes, where one can only go by applying and permission from the said authority, Rome - and this continues in the so called secular nation of France, where anyone in an attire or cultural symbol other than traditional to France is likely to be treated worse than criminals (one presumes criminals get a trial, while a decent person of another culture, someone perfectly innocent too, is treated abominably) even in civil places such as airports - or even a so called French cultural centre in another country, and this is even true about people of the said other country entering the French centre in their own towns.

Such is the hubris of French culture and pride thereof, with the false badge of secular attached to cover a slave of Roman domination visible under a thin veil. Of course, when asked about secularity of certain laws a French visitor to another nation with a greater ancient tradition takes refuge in tradition of France, while the French centre silently but very unmistakably discriminates against the local traditions (and this is about those traditions that are other than any discrimination or worse against any part of humanity, for all that) and anyone supporting them to any visible extent thereby encouraging and perpetrating not only a colonial mindset but also a blatant hypocrisy.

Of course, anyone familiar with the colonial times of the empires is aware of how British kept the local cultures as they were, when it suited them - which it did quite often in that it kept the colonial power held up with help of local powers - while French attempted to impose French values, culture, et al , with little facsimile of a regard for another culture. This today continues in the French cultural centres across the globe, regardless of the country hosting those centres, regardless in more than one way.

Anyone from US (or UK) visiting France knows about the attitude in matter of short time of course, but then again there is another side. On the other hand one has met such friendly behaviour and unexpected gracious behaviour there too that one never loses the impression of charm and beauty. The secular, the sincere, the true of France is forever at war with the authoritarian, the controlling, the imposing. One hopes the better side wins, ever.

Beautiful Himaalaya, strife, illusions of freedom

Beautiful and lofty Himaalaya extends from eastern borders, of the land known forever outside the land named India - by all those that had to cross the river named Indus by those that had to cross it to get to India - to the northwest, where a desert and the river named Sindhu in India (which was distorted to Indus since Sindhu seemed difficult to pronounce if one did not speak Sanskrt and had not such clarity of pronounciation) were the boundaries of the land, until the river met the ocean that continued the borders to the other two sides.

Shaped like a diamond and famed for diamonds and other objects that signify wealth, the land produced fine cloth, fine artifacts, excellent quality metalware including household pots and weapons for armies, and more - spices, sandalwood, and anything a human might need or wish for. So those that lived there had no need to think of going anywhere else except for pure wanderlust, and even that was more than provide for by roaming in the stupendous Himaalaya and reflecting on the nature of existence till one found one's soul and was one with Divine.

Meanwhile the kingdoms within the land had schools and universities - the oldest in the world - and education of every possible sort flourished. From the testimony of those that came visiting these universities to learn, there was no slavery, not in India. With such contentment, a languor set in, poetry and philosophy and discussions being as much serious occupations as trade or agriculture or production of various objects of art and crafts.

And then came the hoards that were not satisfied with trade or learning and were far more intent on occupying the world - all the world that was then known, from borders of Pacific in Mongolia to Europe known through trade, and plunder and loot of India was a major stop on the way where some stayed on and others left to go occupy parts of Europe and war with Rome. India was never the same after the intrusion by those that would kill for conversion or simply for greed of what belonged to others, and they looted and plundered and massacred. Laws of war were moreover never followed by the intruders and women or children or old or unarmed were never safe, and freedom suffered as did education, both going indoors for protection, private rather than public unless the specific small region happened to be ruled by Indian rather than a outsider. Which to a large extent explains the divide between the various regions in these two respects - some have hardly any ancient constructions left while others have not only ancient buildings but trees thousands of years old, some have women mostly locked indoors and never stepping out in public without male protection and covering their face at sight of a stranger male while others have women walking in public for whatever need - education, work, or household chores of shopping - unafraid of men and ignoring them as indeed they are ignored in turn, security being in such careless ignoring of people.

But the north, and the northwest in particular, suffered the worst what with repeated assaults and plunders and hoardes passing through on their way in to deep in India, and Himaalaya the much beloved regions of all India in particular never recovered from the assaults that turned the routes of trade and mountains of spiritual retreats and kingdoms famed for wealth into the desolate, poor, harsh surroundings with lack of all possible needs of human civilisation, civil amenities and education and freedom of movement and freedom of worship and freedom of thought and everything achieved by the ancient civilisation of India - this region, in various pieces, occupied by nomads of the Mongolian steppes and ferocious tribes of other regions of Asia.

At that Tibet retained much of civilisation what with close contact with India in spiritual and intellectual matters and aspirations for civilisation, and Kashmir had peace at least, with some semblance of civil amenities for the rest of northwest. Until the partition demanded at literally points of knives - Calcutta had a bloodbath on what those demanding partition called "action day", called for by their leader and obediently so made to happen by his followers, before the national leaders caved in and agreed to a partition, with a separate nation for those that could not live with others, and a mainland India for those that could.

Everyone had a choice in theory. In practice, all but Muslims of Pakistan were either massacred, thrown out at knife points, or raped and kidnapped. And since this was not enough to provoke an official war, Pakistan then proceeded to occupy Kashmir, free until then. This was the attack that made the until then undecided ruler panic and ask for protection for the state from India, signing over Kashmir into being a part of India.

Pakistan occupied Kashmir is misnamed "free" by the rulers of Pakistan, which is a bit of propaganda as thin as China naming occupation of Tibet "day of freedom" and erecting monuments to the lie, while proceeding with a genocide of Tibetans. The world is going to forget Tibet was a separate country just as the world forgot that Prussia was not a part of Germany and that Prussians were people with a separate language not related to German before the crusading Germans thought it was far too much trouble to go to holy land and instead turned to the nearby lands to massacre and occupy.

And nevertheless another US benefactor of the poor of Pakistan occupied Kashmir and regions surrounding - Northwest Frontier Province (they were occupied by Pakistan with blessings of the British, but they never wished to be a part of the partition, and wished to join India, and were very angry at the British and Pakistan alike - but the British never did face them and Pakistan had no intention of conducting a survey or a poll) and Afghanistan (again, territories of various regions that were assigned to this country really belonged elsewhere, India or Central Asia which subsequently was part of Russia, but it suited British to separate Russia and India by hook or by crook and no one paid the slightest attention to dangers of China occupying regions nearby and forming a forced border with India and with Pakistan along with Afghanistan) - so the regions remained poor, occupied, neglected, and in need of benefactors who then would have to go with the formal propaganda of the rulers in order to survive in the region, calling it "free".

Lies one agrees to go with for sake of benefiting others can only benefit so far. One lie by a power occupying and executing a king of the occupied has resulted in genocide in Europe two millennia later. Lies of Pakistan and China not refuted by powers of the world have resulted in creating millions of refugees thrown out and at the very least a couple of million massacred during last century, unrecognised as much as ignored and neglected. As refugees in India they can survive, prosper, but their homelands are lost to them forever.

And yet, Mortenson calls those lands "free". Perhaps for him and his like, freedom is only that which is allowed by an intolerant faith. Thus his willingness to go with the official lie of the lands he is a benefactor to, never mind facts, never mind Truth. As long as the indoctrination suits purposes of ones life and career, eh, one with a good mission?

For the mission he has taken up is truly good, great - but an official lie accepted by such a person for whatever reason might subsequently result in another, devastatingly destructive lie in action.

And meanwhile India still holds Himaalya as region of worship, land of heavenly abode, of Gods - never mind the temporary blip of the marauding hoardes occupying the land and driving out all civilisation, impoverishing the land, spreading grief in the regions that were abode of spiritual achievements and earthly splendour. For what is a millennium in a long history of an ancient land? A mere blip.