SV: attack on Professor S. Bahulkar

[George Thompson]

Jonathan,

The thing that destroyed the old Indology List wasn't my 'politicalism.'  It
was the presence among us of people who wished vehemently to do what was
just now done to Prof. Bahulkar and to BORI.  Far be it from me to pull your
head out of the sand.

iti vaa iti me manah.

George



-----Original Message-----
From: Indology [mailto:INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk]On Behalf Of Jonathan
Silk
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 6:15 PM
To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
Subject: Re: SV: attack on Professor S. Bahulkar


George Thompson says:

>
>In these awful times, it is, in my opinion, no longer possible for a
scholar
>to be apolitical.
>

No one is asking George or anyone else to be apolitical--just to
choose not to be political everywhere, or more precisely, to choose
certain places where we can all agree to restrain our politicalism
(or forebear to enter). I read the emails which come from Indology. I
don't trash them unread, and I don't want to begin doing that, or
drop out of the list, or encounter any of the problems that drove the
old Indology out of business. This desire to keep Indology as a forum
for exchanges of an apolitical, and if I might dare say even
atemporal, nature is not equivalent to sticking our collective heads
in the sand and pretending that we do not live in a political world,
and indeed one in which many of our (putatively!!) shared values are
under attack. To be sure, I'm not saying we should not post links to
information about the almost unbelievable attacks in Pune, only that
once that information is available, we do not have to follow up with
a descent (as I see it) into culture wars talk. It is easy enough to
set up a web site or what have you to continue such discussions
*elsewhere*.

iti samaaptam.
--
Jonathan Silk
Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures
Center for Buddhist Studies
UCLA
290 Royce Hall
Box 951540
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540
phone: (310)206-8235
fax:  (310)825-8808
silk at humnet.ucla.edu