2011

'For You Tagged Ones.'

by

Hajra Komal Feroz
 

Thank you for all that you've done for me,
Thank you for the times near the fallen tree.

Thank you for the movie dates and the dinners too
Thank you for being so freakin' cool.

Thank you for guiding me in times of need,
For being my shoulder, my ear, my friend indeed.

Thank you for giving me permission
to say what I want
and do as I please.

Thank you for listening to my stories,
so very patiently.
And for all those times of,
laughter fits,
emotional breakdowns, &
pms,not judging me.

Thank you for accepting me for who I am
and reading between the lines,
for being a positive ray of sunshine.

For all the times ive needed you,
for always being there.
To reassure me, that i'll make it, sometime, somewhere.

For always knowing what i'm thinking or what i'm about to say,
for being able to make predictions of what is about to come your way.

For taking me out, coming to the rescue, when you know there's no other way, and accepting wholeheartedly that i can be extremely gay.

For laughing at the silly jokes and the annoying habits I posses,
For letting me quote you for my silly little moments note,
i know its irritating, i confess. :p

Some of you are new,
and some of you are old.
I believe everyone is a diamond
it is 'so yesterday' to be gold.

I could go on forever and ever
but i think ive made my point
piglet is adorable, oink oink oink.

You give true meaning to me and my existence,
In a small and/or big way,
All that matters at the end is your presence and how I wish for you to stay;
in my life, in my happiness and in my sorrow,
in the times of need and times i need to borrow,
an ear to listen,
a shoulder to cry on,
a shirt to wear,
mascara to apply on.

I say goodbye to 2010 with you
And hello to 2011 too.

Arundhati Roy

Roy has emerged as a prominent social activist over the years in India, I had heard the name quite often, she is after all the author of 'The God of Small Things,' for which she won the Booker Prize in 1997. But. What amazed me was her courage as an Indian Woman to make the statements and take the steps she took.

She fearlessly spoke for the rights of the Kashmiri people and how wrong it is what is happening to them. She said: "And if no one is listening then it is because they don't want to hear. Because this is a referendum. People don't need anyone to represent them; they are representing themselves.” The fight of 'who' is going to represent Kashmir according to her is uncalled for.

Roy says that the claim that Kashmir is an integral part of India is irrelevant while the people in Kashmir suffer everyday because of this very reason. This territory has been disputed on by Pakistan and India for so many years due to which the people living there have been suffering. She highlighted this topic which is a ‘grey’ area for both Pakistan and India and how wrong it was what was happening there.

On being charged for sedition, Roy stated that India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru should be charged for the same. Which may sound absurd but she has given reasons which should be considered.

She said that her purpose of the statements made was for the sole purpose of the freedom for Kashmir and was a call for justice. “What I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians.”

It is truly inspirational to see a woman have such bravery in voicing out her views regardless of the consequences for the mere reason of freeing a people who have been dragged into a fight they do not deserve.

Neo-Liberalism & Pakistan

Neo-liberalism basically promotes free trade, maximization of profits and doing that efficiently, and to make all its objectives possible it’s necessary that regulations on imports and exports be removed or lessened. It emphasizes on both social justice and economic growth. The supporters of liberalism date from European and Western colonizing days.

Joseph Stiglitz in ‘The End of Neo-liberalism?’ writes how “For a quarter-century, there has been a contest among developing countries, and the losers are clear: countries that pursued neo-liberal policies not only lost the growth sweepstakes; when they did grow, the benefits accrued disproportionately to those at the top. This mixture of free-market rhetoric and government intervention has worked particularly badly for developing countries. They were told to stop intervening in agriculture, thereby exposing their farmers to devastating competition from the United States and Europe. Their farmers might have been able to compete with American and European farmers, but they could not compete with US and European Union subsidies. Not surprisingly, investments in agriculture in developing countries faded, and a food gap widened.”

We can see today what the decision of colonizing has done to the colonized countries. From psychological issues like image distortion or what I’d like to term as the ‘Gora Complex’ to self esteem issues. And today we find out that it was just so that the European and American economies could flourish that they decided to colonize, because in order to flourish it was necessary to maintain the power and exploit labor power; while all along we thought they were trying to ‘civilize’ the so termed ‘uncivilized nations.’

Taking into account all of the above, and seeing as the cons seem to outweigh the pros. We can clearly link what has been mentioned as the drawbacks and see them in action in our very own country, Pakistan. Due to free trade we see how the local industries are suffering, the poor have only gotten poorer and the rich seem to keep minting money. We live in a capitalist society, where there is no level of equal distribution of wealth, where unemployment is at a rise and the workers that are employed are being exploited by overtime work or being paid less than what they deserve.

Our labor being cheap is taken advantage of by powerful countries and because of our lack of care for our citizens we let these countries take advantage in the greed for money, that which too goes to benefit the elite class in the end.

We see McDonalds taking over Mr. Burger, Coke taking over Pakola and Doritos taking over Slims. We see that thanks to Nestlé’s pure water the government could care less about the tap water which the poor drink from, which is full of germs. Sad thing is, there is a lack of the dirty tap water too. We have these designers using cheap labor for embroidery purposes and making a profit of twice the cost.

So really, neo-liberalism has done no wonders for our country. It can’t be practiced in developing countries because of its lack of consideration of what globalization may do to the local industries and in general the masses which in developing countries are the poor.

Hence seeing the condition of Pakistan, the Keynesian approach needs to be applied. In this approach restrictions are put on trade, and there is sufficient amount of intervention from the public sector. Instead of a market economy, it promotes mixed economy and even though it seems that we have a mixed economy, we really don’t. Also, believing that an economy is capable of self regulation is very 19^th century, in today’s day and age, regulation of an economy has to be made and that is something that was introduced by the Keynesian approach.

Joseph Stiglitz from his article on ‘The End of Neo-liberalism?’ states that “Neo-liberal market fundamentalism was always a political doctrine serving certain interests. It was never supported by economic theory. Nor, it should now be clear, is it supported by historical experience. Learning this lesson may be the silver lining in the cloud now hanging over the global economy.”

Grameen Bank

Muhammad Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 and is a Bangladeshi banker, economist, Head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient for his efforts to create economic and social development from below.He developed concepts of microcredit and microfinance and found a bank that works solely for the poor, ‘Grameen Bank.’ 

The Grameen Bank gives small loans to the poor people without requiring any form of security. Instead a group ensures that the borrowers utilize the loan in a productive manner which embraces the skills that they have. What’s interesting about the bank is that the majority of borrowers are women; this has enabled women to raise their status, become less dependent on their husbands and improve the standard of living of their homes and children. 

The U.S. President, Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 12 August 2009, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 16 people for making a difference in the world, and being agents of change, out of which one of them was Muhammad Yunus. President Obama said: "They remind us that we each have it within our power to fulfill dreams, to advance the dreams of others, and to remake the world for our children." 

His ideas were and still are innovative. He challenged main-stream economics, and brought forth something new that truly helped the masses of his country and is now helping countries all over the world.

His idea of empowering women is also worth writing about because in a country where women are given hardly any rights he decided to empower them, to give them the right to take loans and build on the skills that they have (example: embroidery) and hence become independent. Also, once women and men are both productive in a country, it leads to economic growth. Without the productiveness of both the male and female population, economic growth is highly unattainable, demonstrating Muhammad Yunus’ long term vision.

The best thing about the ‘Grameen Bank’ was that it helped break the vicious cycle that would have carried on for centuries to come. The fact that it has helped 21,000 students from illiterate poor families to attend engineering schools and medical schools ensures that the new generation will break through and bring prosperity to Bangladesh.

Muhammad Yunus began at such a small scale, and what inspired him was to make the condition of the people of his country better. This patriotic spirit is something we all have lost along the way and reading about his achievements is inspirational. Grameen Bank signifies change and the emergence of new ideas and their success.

The emergence of this Bank has shed light upon the concept of every human being having the right to live a healthy life with at least the necessities, and this bank has proved that the poorest of people if given the chance can be agents of change in their own lives, and develop into successful individuals in their own small ways. No one wants to be poor, no one chooses to be poor, and it’s the lack of opportunity that pushes people towards poverty. And micro-credit is one of the opportunities that Muhammad Yunus provided through his bank in order to do away with poverty.

Falak Sufi

The Falak Sufi scholarship is a scholarship that has been introduced by The Graduate School of Arts & Science of New York University. Candidates for the master’s program in Near Eastern Studies are eligible to apply; including applicants to the program’s joint degree with Journalism, the concentration with Museum Studies, and the business track.This scholarship is also to support those individuals who belong to countries in South Asia with a majority Islamic population.

The Falak Sufi scholarship is in honor of Falak Sufi who was a Karachiite, born in Pakistan in 1983. She graduated from the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore with a first class Honors degree and carried on to pursue her graduate studies at NYU. She was an upcoming scholar who focused on issues related to women and gender in South Asia. Falak Sufi, aged twenty-three, died on 19 March 2008, not much can be found on how she died exactly.

I was skimming through the paper and found an advertisement for this scholarship by NYU and it was amazing to see the honor that this female from Pakistan has gotten and that to at such a young age.

We tend to complain about the neglect women and scholars of our country face, while we ourselves are neglecting them. Who knew Falak Sufi before this scholarship was announced? I know I didn’t know her. And it gives me great grief that I never met this fine young woman who belonged to my very own country. Before we stereotype what the world thinks of us as Pakistani’s we must look into what we are not told most of the time. This girl was a Muslim, Pakistani, female-all three of which are said to be discriminated against in their own way in today’s day and age; yet I see an institute as prestigious as NYU has honored her in a way that we would have never deemed possible. So really, I urge the people of Pakistan to look through the bubble we all have been put in and into a world that may seem alien to us today but very much exists.

The Fallen Tree

The Fallen Tree at SZABIST was cut down on November 28, 2010. Due to the complaints of students for lack of seating space and cleanliness in that area, a tree that was approximately 100 or so years old was cut. Promises of benches with shades have been made; but the loss of the Fallen Tree makes this news bitter.

For those of you who don’t know the story behind the Fallen Tree, it was a tree at SZABIST, 100 Clifton. This tree was no ordinary tree, it was beautiful. Its branches were long and tilted, hence the 'fallen' bit in the name. This tree wasn't just any tree, it had a name, and it was an actual location in our campus; "come to the fallen tree" we'd say. It was with us on concerts, for society meetings, at different events and was the place where pictures always came out pretty.

Yes, it was a home for many birds who would occasionally share their waste with all those who sat under the tree however; we never hated it for that.

I’m no environmentalist. But. When I came to SZABIST today and saw the ruins of the tree, saw how that entire area had been ripped apart, how it would never be the same again, it hurt; viewing pictures of the cut down tree on facebook was painful enough.

I’m writing this because the fallen tree was a separate entity, it had an identity, and I believe (not to sound melodramatic), an actual life has been taken.

 

 

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That Woman

I was walking on the road at Saddar, opposite Zainab Market, and saw a car pass by me. I wouldn't have noticed but the car slowed down as it passed and that is when I saw that woman. Her face was covered with a veil and all I could see were her eyes. She leaned against the passenger seat door while the man driving the car leaned towards her pulling her towards him with her veil. He grabbed on to it and all I could see was fear in her eyes. For the first time in my life I saw fear in someones eyes. The car simply passed by.

The woman who cooks, who cleans, who carries a child in her womb for 9 months and goes through labor to deliver that child, the woman who listens, who is a partner in life and in bed; does not deserve to be abused by a man who is obviously physically way stronger than she is. She does not deserve to be treated any less then a daughter by her in laws, she does not deserve to be burned, to be cheated on, to be sexually harassed. She does not deserve to be buried alive with her dead husband or have her infant daughter buried. She does not deserve to be killed if raped, doesn't deserve to be raped in the first place.She does not deserve to be judged on her physical appearance rather than her qualification. She does not deserve to be frowned upon if she does not have a spouse.

That woman does not deserve the abuse, in all its forms, that has been and still is laid on her.

I'm no feminist and even I know that.

Bharkeelay Sholay

At an event at SZABIST called 'CARNIMUN' there was a stall that one couldn't miss even if it were seen from a distance. The stall displayed wooden crates being used in there finest form.

With paint, skill and imagination a bunch of architect majors from Indus Valley came up with an idea and named themselves, 'Bharkeelay Sholay.'

On inquiry I found that they were collecting money to go to Prague, to do an internship related to their field. It was amazing to see how hard they worked and how fast too! These pieces are made by using staple pins, jute rope, discarded wood crates & paint. One can get a ready made piece or even a personalized one. Orders can be made by emailing them and visiting them on their facebook page. What is great about them is that they don't sell at unbelievably high prices, and knowing that the money will help them excel in their field of work is an added insentive for the buyer, I believe.

Bharkeelay Sholay, I wish you the best of luck!

  

The Social Network (Movie Review)

The very awaited movie 'The Social Network' is a story about the people behind the social networking site, Facebook. 

Facebook is obviously one of the most important social netwoking sites to date, from keeping in touch with friends to sending invites to getting the feel of building your own farm even!

This movie was interesting because it gives the viewers a look into the background work that was done into making Facebook. Anyone who is fimiliar with the workings of facebook will find the movie interesting and will be able to relate to the objectives with what the site was made for. 

The only criticism for the movie is that sometimes the dialogues were full of all these technological terms that only maybe computer whiz's can comprehend. Even in the movie itself, Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook played by Andrew Garfield gets confused with the tech-talk.

But all in all it was an interesting movie that takes the viewer into the world behind the wall-to-wall, the likes, the add a friend and poking bit. 

"You dont get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies." is the thought provoking tag line of the movie. Mark Zuckerberg & Eduardo Saverin, to hell with those enemies, you made facebook happen! 

Inception

Inception I believe was slightly over-rated. Yes it was undoubtedly a very interesting movie but not as amazing as was being propogated. After the Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan, has without a doubt explored his directive talents but the Dark Knight personally will always be two steps ahead of Inception.

Leonardo Dicaprio wasn’t given the opportunity to fully show his talent as an actor in the movie. After movies like Goodwill Hunting and Titanic, a lot is expected of him and should rightly be so.

Ellen Page, the actress from Juno, truly shows her talent in the movie. She plays a similar role as far as the attitude is concerned similar to Juno however plays a more mature character.

The movie is about a group who invades human minds through their dreams by using various technological devices. The graphics in the movie were brilliant. The movie highlights the idea of how the unconscious mind has information about you that you may very well be unaware of. 

Its definitely a watch and that to at the cinema, 3D would put the icing on the cake.  

Sheema Kermani Who?

Sheema Kermani is a classical dancer, teacher, drama artist and women’s rights activist. I have always been a big fan, since I’ve known about her; because she represents change, innovation and challenges the mainstream culture of Pakistan. Till date, dance isn’t acceptable wholeheartedly, there will always be those 10 people in a crowd of 15 who will object or frown upon it. And what’s amazing is that she has been dancing and performing since the time of Zia-ul-Haq. No joke. And it amazes me how being a woman in a society like ours she was able to go against the narrow minds that prevailed then and still linger now in an attempt to shed light upon a bigger picture.

On researching I found that there is so much more to her that is admirable then just the fact that she is in the true sense an innovator. The beauty in it all is how she doesn’t need a political backing, she doesn’t need an audience full of the elite class and she sure doesn’t need a gun to change minds; because her weapon is the stage and her ammunition is her performance on that stage. 

Sheema Kermani has lived in Delhi and studied the classical forms of Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Kathak dance. She gives many talks, workshops and lecture demonstrations on the history, significance, beauty and importance of this form of art which in turn has helped in its awareness and acceptance. In 2005, Kermani was nominated as one of the “1000 Peace Women from across the Globe”, for the Nobel peace Prize. 

She started working for peace and joined the anti-war movement in the late sixties and initially started her fight for women’s rights by organizing female factory workers and opened women's literacy and day-care centers at textile mills. On realizing that, that was not enough, she formed a group called ‘Tehrik-e-Niswan’ (The Women’s Movement) in 1979 which comprised of women from all walks of life. The purpose of the group was to address human rights and especially the rights of women. They started off with workshops but realized that, what was needed were cultural changes and hence staged plays addressing women and their oppression in all forms. They began raising awareness through the use of dance and the performing arts. Her troupe performs plays on social ills in low income urban and rural communities that touch on taboo topics, including domestic violence, rape, child molestation, the fate of unmarried women, and the importance of education for girls. In addition to working for women’s empowerment, Tehrik-e-Niswan also performs plays to portray their dislike for war. 

I happen to be a strong believer of the arts, in all forms. Be it dance, music, drama, literature or paintings, they all are dangerous because they change minds, they influence, they ignite and empower. And Sheema Kermani embraces this fact and uses it positively to change the lives of the unaware through her performances.

 

Erasing

Memories don’t necessarily have to be about someone you’ve dated or have been married to, it can be related to anything in your life. Think for a second, if you lost that memory, that thought, the one you really want to let go of because the thought of it hurts, if you woke up one day and forgot about it completely, would it change who you are? 

These memories are an important part of your life, if it’s a bad memory you remember it, and learn from it, and if it’s a good memory, you smile at the thought of it. You may not realize it until its gone. In ‘The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’ the writer wants to explain the feeling of losing the memories, and how it changes your life once you lose them. He explains the importance of memory by showing the fictional process of the erase-al of memory. We can’t really erase our memory or even a part of it, and that for us is the sad sorry truth, how we wish sometimes to have something that could help us erase it;  he shows us how even having that done can be very painful.

The Eternal Sunshine of the spotless has been writted by Charlie Kaufman and
Pierre Bismuth and directed by Michel Gondry. It has won the Oscar in 2005 and won and been nominated for many other prestigious awards.

The movie rotates around 5 characters, Kate Winslet as Clamentine, Jim Carrey as Joel, Kirsten Dunst as Mary, Elijah Wood as Patrick and Tom Wilkinson as Dr. Howard Mierzwiak.  It revolves around Joel's reflections of love while they were being erased. The movie was intense, required absolute and undivided attention. The scenes constantly changed from the present time to the past and even took us to a world of imagination.

“Be careful for what you wish for,” cliché much? It’s true.

The Other Guys

The other guys is a hilarious movie about two partners in the police force who get involved in a situation which was unexpected and get recognition never deemed possible for the ‘loser’ label they have been given.

Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, is in the beginning of the movie, he wasn’t on the poster so his unexpected appearance was intriguing and kept the audience watching.

The movie has been written by Adam McKay and Chris Henchy and Directed by Adam Mckay. Will Farell and Mark Wahlberg perform brilliantly and are absolutely hilarious. The marital relationship between Mark Wahlberg and Eva Mendes were the cause of numerous laughing fits throughout the movie.

All in all, the movie was a work of brilliance in the line of comedy and action.

The Negritude Movement

  The literary word is a powerful device; it can change minds, cause, prevent or resolve wars, and bring about revolutions. Hence, the literary word is seen as a threat. The power a word generates is undoubtedly alarming. As Manly Hall has said: "Words are potent weapons for all causes, good or bad." The beauty in this movement is that it has no end; its realms exist amongst us till today.

The Negritude Movement was a francophone literary movement that took place in the 1930’s in which Black writers living in Paris came together to protest against the French colonial rule, the policy of integration and in order to assert their identity. The movement comprised of the rejection of European colonization, to reinforce pride in being black, and to evoke African values and culture. The movement’s leading figures were Leopold Sedar Senghor, Leon Damas and Aime Cesaire.

The term ‘Negritude’ was coined by Cesaire in his poem ‘Cahier d’un retour au pays natal’ and according to him it means "the simple recognition of the fact that one is black, the acceptance of this fact and of our destiny as blacks, of our history and culture."

The Negritude movement I believe marks a very important part in history. In sociology we learn how Marx came up with a theory that through a process of alienation the proletariat would realize that they are being exploited by the bourgeois. Similarly, this movement occurred when the black felt alienated from their surroundings and realized that this integration of European culture with theirs would eventually eradicate their culture completely, and make the assumption that Black people have no history, true. Additionally, the realization which occurred after observing history and all the humiliation, torture, oppression and suffering their ancestors had borne could have been another reason for the movement. Furthermore, observing the role black people played in the world wars could’ve upset the black community because these black people weren’t only forced to fight in wars they knew little or had nothing to do with but were treated badly during the wars as well.

Also, I believe the realization that being viewed as an inferior race was having a psychological impact on the black community; this was alarming because this would only serve as a loss to the community as a whole. Thus, a movement took place to stop this from happening. See, once some people figure it all out, they want to extend their knowledge onto the masses of their kind and what better way than to use the literary word?
Hence, they used the literary word in order to reach out to the roots of the black culture and to promote a new vision for the black population to adopt. It comprised of black culture, black values, norms, and reinforced a feeling of pride and dignity in being black. The Negritude movement I believe responded to the alienation the blacks had witnessed in the past and hence a sense of realization. Through the rejection of the concept of colonialism, by highlighting the impact colonization had on the black community and by celebrating black identity, the negritude movement serves as an impactful movement till date.

In the negritude movement, the writers did not use indigenous languages; they used French and other languages. However, the impact of the negritude movement on writers like Chineu Achebe, enabled them not only to write about post-colonialism and the impact of colonialism but also write it in the pidgin lauguage, the indigenous language, as Chinua Achebe does in his book ‘Anthills of the Savannah.’

This movement may have influenced black people back then, but today it also shows a ray of light for the other parts of the world that have been colonized and that they too can come up with such a movement where penning down thoughts and ideas could help make people realize how amazing they are and encourage them to be comfortable in their own skin.

There is no clear date that clearly states when the movement ended, perhaps because it probably never did. That’s the beauty of literature, the written word never seems to fade away, you go to a library and can read books that are decades old and they may influence you with the intention they were written with or may enlighten the thought for a revolution.

Literature as we can see has had a huge impact on the way black people have come to view themselves, then and even today. The greatness of the literary word is that it connects people from different regions, like take the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance and the Negritude Movement. One movement was taking place in New York and the other in France however what connected the two was the thought of being ripped off of their roots, which was in turn penned down by the various leaders of the two different movements. These writings were read, influenced, and still influence man. We can see the result of these movements in texts, movies, music, dance, and even paintings.

TCF

I volunteered for The Citizens Foundation (TCF) in the summer of 2008 and it was an awakening experience to be able to teach underprivileged children and their want to learn. We think that parents of poor families do not wish to send their children to schools because they would rather send them to work but that isn’t true most of the time. If there is an institute that provides uniforms, books, shelter from 8am-2pm for its students and well-versed teachers, education in the English Language, and unbiased ways of teaching, at a cost of 10rps minimum per month, which parent could refuse?

TCF is a non-profit organization that was set up in 1995. The vision of TCF is to “remove barriers of class and privilege and to make the citizens of Pakistan Agents of Positive Change.” The group of people who began this organization were obviously looking at a bigger picture. We may feed the poor, we may clothe the poor, but do we provide any security for their future? TCF does.

By providing education at a minimum cost and free for some TCF helps these children get better paid jobs and hence increase their standard of living which breaks the cycle that they would have been pulled into if they weren't given this kind of opportunity.

When a country goes 'bhaow! bhaow!'

Playing cricket has become a crime now I believe. For innocent teenagers are being killed for the sake of settling a score. For innocent teenagers are accused wrongfully. For our police and ironically even the rescue team's presence does not really help. For they are too busy well, laying eggs. Because that can be the only excuse they can give, for it is quite a rigurous process-you know laying eggs, to have neglected a situation to the extent at which a 15 and 17 year old, still minors, were beaten before and sadistically after their death on August 15, 2010.


What will happen now? The media got some new juicy gossip, a few videos here and there, talk show hosts can drill the government. And like any other and every other murder this one might and probably will be forgotten. Cynical much? What choice does one have after watching such videos on tv? What choice does one have when the citizens of a country and mind you absolutely ignorant ones take on the law and order and punish without due reason?

I do not care if those two boys got into a tiff in a game of cricket! I do not care if those two boys were murderers! I do not care if those two boys were rapists! I do not care if those two boys were robbers! I do care if they were beaten, I do care if they were hanged, I do care if they were wronged.

Problems are easily identified. Its time for solutions. We need to take action against these conspirators, the people who are behind this chaos. The authorities can rant on about doing their best 'to dig out the ground realities in the double murder.' Regardless of what these two boys did, what happened to them is sick, and will not be tolerated! And it is our job as the educated lot to make sure the government of this country understands that action must be taken against these people, the people who did this to two boys who by law were not only minors but had the right to an attorney and had the right to prove themselves innocent.

August 15, a day that should be recalled as the day when our country went 'bhaow! bhaow!’