Month: July 2021

Last Updated on 20230324(09.08)

hej guten morgen ash…,

wanted to continue here for publishing reasons, i hope you manage to get into again.

habe mich gefreut, dasz du geschrieben hast und es auf deutsch versucht hast; schön, deine bemühungen zu sehen, dieser scheiszsprache herr zu werden. however i like more writing with hand and send you these strange hybrid letters, i want to continue here again with some of (questions) which i am in need to get answers, i told you sometime. there come up time to time naive thoughts to send to faraway instead of making the effort of finding out by suchmaschine udgl. (udgl: and similar).

i take a course maintenant on :climate change fiction: and we will have some panel the next friday to which i want to be prepared with some questions. in the moment we read amitav gosh: the hungry tide and i thought you maybe can provide some (insights) from faraway.

before that book we read j. safran foer: we are the weather, main thing seemed to be the consumption (human) of meat. i have now some question to you:

is it so, that in (faraway) people do not eat very much meat and mainly live vegan? does that count for all your folks? let me explain my thought…

i consider eating meat fulfilling an important role in (recreation) of physically hard working people. i can observe this in my case very well…, having had an 8h day on the cemetary i long for something that is sizzled and smells, i feel not nourished with just a salad or some sojawürfel or other vegetarian food. this is i think no persuasion, but rather a real physical experience.

so question is: do also the people who work hard with their bodies do not eat meat in general of which you can tell? what do they eat instead? how long do they live in general and how (lucky=glücklich cvd. zufrieden) are they? do they feel something missing? is their fleischverzicht just out of convention (to not stand outside society) or does really none of them feel for the nourishing effekt of eating animal products?

please read this as some really naive question from (cis-white-bauarbeiter), i am seriously concerned about my meat consumption relative to climate issues. i just dont want always be confronted with some picture of people in (faraway) who seemingly get along without meat and so why shouldnt the (cis-white-bauarbeiter) of industrial countries get along as well. do you get the point? if the argument, that there is not really meat needed for living a healthy life, counts also for the people (maybe outside the debate being cis-white-bauarbeiter) working physically and :not: just for the auditory of gosh and foer (which i assume explicitly not to work hard physically) i would be willing to think about fleischkonsum a nouveau.

i would be happy if you respond with some thoughts to this; you dont have to be consent with my view, clearly…, but since youre for me the one to ask instead of (suchmaschine) i adress this to you, hoping to not annoy you. i told you i will have questions, this was one, others are in store. i would be happy if we continue writing here so that i maybe can reference that in the class. so be careful what you publish, “its gonna be glitchy.”

for today else just some weather report: we experienced serious water from above this week which i be fine with since air is getting like on a sverige lake. i appreciate that. die sonne kann mir gestohlen bleiben.

also grüsze aus dem berlin sonntagmorgen, langsam erwacht der hof um mich rum und leute klappern mit geschirr. eine gute zeit dir, hugs, st.

11277.schon wieder post…

hej ash…, night on in berlin. i missed some commentaire from you…, but you see, its all much fixe ideen with which i come up and ask strange questions nestcepas… / i sent a link to the workshop today also to imani, but i think i appear rather strange doing like that…

you may wonder why post so often this times…; dont know…, the pandemie somehow seems to go into final rounds i have the feeling, although i dont feel myself any securer than last years summer. but people, media…, do strangely enough speak of back to normal. i am bit afraid of whats next then; kind of psycho thing…, i had really good adapted to this mode of being present online. you develop some very intense relations to unknown people you would normally not meet. the barriers that are only built up by the frontend are much easier to overcome than real life barriers between people. sure, you all lose those people again after one project is finished, but in times of the project one is very close, for my impression. all things complicated in social relations are here diminuished to bit of introduction and then fast working together. i like that. i have in the hu group set up a selfpaced reading experiment on basis of a javascript and we really did come to an end of the project now with great effort by me adapting the script to our needs. i didnt really had much knowledge in this, but with long very long hours in coding by trial and error since i cannot yet understand the code completely i managed to get to some nice results. i like this way of learning much more than to learn for some abstract aim in an uncertain future which would be some diploma etc., here i am in need to develop skills in order to bring forth the project, people depend on me learning and this practical work is much less ennuyant than just read and learn for klausur. / you can tell me more about your coal thing, i really want to know where your energy goes…, maybe you post some work here, nestcepas…, its open and people read timetotime…, i am glad had started this in the academy times, it was now just a fixe idee mal wieder to bring the participants together but over years developed some character strongly connected to what the academy meant for me…

okay ash…, maybe you dropped by and leave notes…, shabbes is, bit cold outside, im fine with that, its schwedenwetter i love. hugs, alles gute, grüsze, st.

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Lieber Steph

Entschuldigung für ich schreibe hier und nicht über die Blog. Mein Passwort ist im altem Handy, aber versuche ich am nächtens. Wann du willst, du kannst die folgenden Text postieren da.

The link between meat and climate change is culturally a very Western notion. In countries like India, it is caught up in the issue of customary law, which is often confused to be religion. Meat eating is a very integral part of Indian society and history. There are references to early Vedic texts, especially Rig veda (probably the oldest texts written in North India) where horse meat and cow meat were very popular. But after the advent of Buddhism (also in North India, but closer to Nepal and Bihar), brahmanic Hinduism (which was a different version) turned towards vegetarianism for the brahmin classes. The current Western view that Indians are vegetarians is actually very wrong, and it only means that certain privileged classes/castes do not eat meat. 

How did the image come about? I think it is mostly due to Indians abroad, who mostly consist of richer Indians who for the past two centuries had the money, connections and social capital to travel abroad and establish an image of India as if it was brahmin (priestly caste), baniya (trader caste), both of whom (mostly) do not eat meat. But there are exceptions, say Eastern Indian brahmins who eat meat. Indian Americans also help fuel this image of a warped notion of vegetarianism, which is again to say that even today, most Indians abroad are highly privileged and lack knowledge of real India. Gandhi was famously from a bania caste, and his vegetarianism is only a small part of perpetuating a vision of unequal caste society and Hindu dominated status quo in India. Kamala Harris, current Vice President of USA, once in a cooking show with Mindy Kaling said “everyone in South India is vegetarian”. But South India is actually one of the highest meat consuming parts of India. Less than 3% of South Indians are vegetarian. Both Harris and Kaling come from Tamil Brahmin communities, which were historically notorious for being overrepresented in positions of power and privilege. It only speaks of the magnitude of unequal access to wealth and social privilege that thrives even today. I am from southern India and we have chicken and mutton shops for every lane, everywhere you go. 

Who eats meat in India? Except in Western India (where most people across castes eat less meat), majority of Indians are meat eaters. Chicken and mutton (goat) are the most popular dishes. There are varieties of spices and condiments and thousands of dishes based on variations in spices and cooking techniques. The most famous Indian meat made dish with simultaneously cooked meat in rice, is the biryani. Fish and seafood are very popular in coastal regions. Beef is relatively less popular, but is consumed mainly by Muslims and Dalits. Even so, it amounts to a very huge number.

Dalits (or “broken people” or “depressed classes) were kept at the bottom of the caste system, which lives to this day. In a nutshell, caste system divides people into hereditary groups, ranked on a scale from purest birth to most impure birth, which have a scale of all rights to no rights. (Reminds of Fascism? They are similar, but this is a more evolved and sophisticated form of fascism in my opinion). A large amount of rapes, maiming, physical violence, discrimination, structural violence, suicide abetting, etc keep Dalits poor and destitute and in menial professions, by barring them from entering professions with higher income and power. Except for a few positive systems such as reservations (70 year old governmental system), most dalits remain poor. Some castes of dalits were forced to pursue manual scavenging (even today), tanning, and removal of dead animal caracasses. Some of these dalit castes are associated with beef eating. 

As per Muslims, they have become another discriminated minority over 150 years. They were the minority ruling class before colonial British era, but now they are an impoverished minority. Pogroms, discrimination, rapes, denial of public service, profiling, etc have risen against Muslims since the 1990s, mainly due to the growing power of the current ruling party. The current ruling party BJP is known for it’s Brahmanical nature, and had since tried to establish a Hindu state by making all castes of Muslims and all dalits powerless. Their aim is to generate India as solely belonging to the “upper castes” and rest of the people, are condemned to have no social or economic power. Indian vegetarianism is a part of that. Since 2014 when new government came to power, many incidents took place across the country where Muslims were lynched for eating beef, and the police and the government praised it and encouraged it. In some low income states (where poverty and inequality are very high), beef eating is outlawed and made punishable, despite having a large number of beef eaters. The notion of Indians considering cow to be holy is used to back such laws. But that is a lie, because many Indians, including some Hindu castes eat beef. As per meat eating and vegetarianism, it is a ridiculous claim that Indians are vegetarian. 

As per veganism, it is even more impossible. Most Indian diet is made up of dairy. Milk, milk products such as curd, ghee, butter, and milk derived sweets and confectioneries are as widespread as rice eating or wheat eating. The small minority of vegetarian Hindus consider dairy to be essential and indispensable part of vegetarian diet. Indian veganism for the most part comes from Western notions of care for animal rights. Some religions such as Jainism has sects which do not eat animal derived products, but that is an even smaller minority. 

As per climate change and meat production, the argument is that livestock production and rearing increases land use and agricultural land use by a great extent, and by cutting down on the energy spent on the land used for animal husbandry, emissions could be reduced. It has completely different origins than in the case of India. India is the highest livestock-populated country in the world, and the largest producer of milk. However, a large majority of buffalo and cow rearing is limited to milk production and not meat production. Therefore, the emissions argument to reduce meat eating via land use, does not hold in the case of India. 

I hope some of these thoughts are helpful. The Wire .in is a rare Indian news outlet that covers some of these issues, if you are further interested. 

Hope you are keeping safe and healthy. 

Best
Ashoka

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hej ash…, good evening…,

thanks for taking the effort of responding that elaborate…, i dont mean my doubts are gone with that and every clever student would have probably come to this conclusion by searching for that, but i am very glad to hear you speaking from faraway about what i was asking. still i have to think about how much and precisely which animal products to consume being responsible, but i am now bit relieved concerning the usual clichee of people in india do not eat meat. sure in the indian restaurants you be served as you say mainly chicken and lamb, but still the opinion being told was the above in contrast to the people here consuming lots and lots of meat. it is here i think some similar phenomenon…, the working class which cannot afford buying the usual stuff in the biomarket doesnt due to not spending time there spend too much time on thinking about which meat to eat if eating it anyway; and the second step (after considering different ways of producing meat which is like above not considered) namely to eat vegan or vegetarian can not as i think be taken without the first, one first being made sensible. i still be working class but try to not buying meat of mass production, but only had the opportunity to discover the alone quality difference by chance of formerly having enough money to consider that some way of consuming at all which is not possible for everyone to experience. that theres still a major gap in co2 footprint between the responsible vegetarians and me i have in mind. but like in my questions i see different physical needs for people (digging graves) and some creative sitting on a stool whole day. i will do science on that promised to prove me wrong.

so that was nice you answered some my questions, i put it up here and send you new credentials to further again participate. for tonight good night, i stay safe and vaccined, hope you too. wish you good week for your things, bisdann, alles gute, st. (i will soon come up with more naive things to ask…)