{"id":1083,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1083"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:27","slug":"37-facts-and-opinions-2-10-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/02-karmayogin-volume-02\/37-facts-and-opinions-2-10-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-37_Facts and Opinions 2-10-1909.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nFacts and Opinions<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nVolume <\/b> I – Oct.<\/b> 2, 1909 – Number 15<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tThe
\n Rump Presidential Election<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                <\/b>
\nT<\/font>he Lahore Special Correspondent of the Rashtra Mat<\/i> telegraphs to his paper a story of the proceedings at the
\nPresidential election for the Rump Congress at Lahore, which, if
\ncorrect, sheds a singular light on the proceedings of the valiant Three who are defending the bridge of conciliation and
\nalliance between the bureaucracy and the Moderates which now
\ngoes by the name of the Indian National Congress. According
\nto this correspondent, the account of Sir Pherozshah’s election cabled from Lahore is incorrect and garbled. What really
\nhappened was that eighteen gentlemen assembled at Lahore as
\nthe Reception Committee, of whom more than half were employees of Mr. Harkissen Lal’s various commercial ventures.
\nThis independent majority voted plump for Harkissen Lal’s
\ncandidate. Sir Pherozshah, but the rest were strong and firm for
\nSj. Surendranath Banerji. This revolt in the camp led to much
\nanxiety and confusion and great efforts were made to bring back
\nthe insurgents to their allegiance, but in vain. If this account is
\ncorrect, no criticism can be too strong for the misrepresentation
\nwhich suppressed the facts of the election. Was it not circulated
\nthat Sir Pherozshah would not accept the Presidentship unless
\nit were offered unanimously ? A strenuous attempt was made to
\nsave the face of the Dictator by representing in the Lahore cables
\nthat the nomination of Sj. Surendranath by the Bengal Convention Committee was only a suggestion in a private letter. But
\neven then, what of Burma ? What of this remarkable division in
\nthe toy committee itself at Lahore ? We imagine that the Lion will
\nput his dignity in his pocket or in his mane or any other hiding
\nplace that may be handy and accept the Presidentship; and if he
\ndoes, we also imagine that he will roar discreetly at Lahore about
\nthe touching and unanimous confidence placed in him and the
\nimperative voice of the whole country calling him to fill this great<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 215<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nand responsible position of a Rump President ! We have a suggestion for our highly esteemed Lion. Why not save his dignity
\nand effect his object by appointing some lieutenant like Mr.Wacha as President ? In that case Sir Pherozshah would be as
\nmuch President in fact as if he enjoyed the doubtful and mutilated honours of the Rump Presidentship.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n Nation-Stuff
\n in Morocco<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe Powers of Europe are highly indignant at the tortures and
\nmutilations practised by Mulai Hamid on his vanquished rival,
\nEl Roghi, and his captured adherents. There is no doubt that
\nthe savage outbreak of mediaeval and African savagery of  which
\nthe Moorish Sultan has been guilty, is revolting and deprives
\nhim personally of all claim to sympathy; but European moral
\nindignation in the matter seems to us to be out of place when we
\nremember the tortures practised by American troops on Filipinos
\n(to say nothing of the ghastly details of lynching in the Southern
\nStates,) and the unbridled atrocities of the European armies in
\nChina. Be that as it may, we come across a remarkable account,
\nextracted in the Indian Daily News<\/i>, of the stuff of which the
\nMoorish people are made. The narrator is Belton, the Englishman who commanded the Sultan’s army and has resigned his
\npost as a protest against the Sultan’s primitive method of treating
\npolitical prisoners. Death and mutilation seem to have been the
\npunishments inflicted. Belton narrates that twenty officers of
\nEl Roghi had their right hands cut off and then seared, according
\nto the barbarous old surgical fashion, in a cauldron of boiling
\noil, to stop the bleeding. Not from one of these men, reports
\nthe English soldier with wonder, did there come, all the time, a
\nsingle whimper. And he goes on to tell how one of them, after
\nthe mutilation, quietly walked over to the fire where the cauldron was boiling,
\nand, while his stump was being plunged in the boiling liquid, lighted from the flame with the utmost serenity a
\ncigarette he held in his hand. Whatever may be the present backwardness of the Moors and the averseness to light of their tribes,
\nthere is the stuff of a strong, warlike and princely nation in the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 216<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nland which gave birth to these iron men. If ever the wave of
\nEgyptian Neo-Islam and Mahomedan Nationalism sweeps across
\nMorocco, Europe will have to reckon with no mean or contemptible people in the North West of Africa.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n Cook
\n Versus Peary<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIt is with a somewhat sardonic sense of humour that we in India,
\nwhom that eminently truthful diplomat, Lord Curzon, once had
\nthe boldness to lecture on our mendacity and the superior truth
\nof the Occidental, have watched the vulgar squabble between
\nDr. Cook and Commander Peary about the discovery of the
\nNorth Pole. Long ago, most of the romance and mystery had gone out of the search
\nfor the Pole. The quest, though still extremely difficult and even perilous to an incautious adventurer,
\nhad no longer the charm of those gigantic dangers which met
\nand slew the old explorers. It was known besides that little was
\nlikely to reward the man who succeeded, and there was small
\nchance of anything but ice and cold being discovered at the North
\nPole. What little of the interesting and poetic was left in the idea,
\nhas now gone out of it for ever, and only a sense of nausea is left
\nbehind, as the controversy develops and leaves one with a feeling
\nthat it would have been better if the goal of so many heroic sacrifices had been left undiscovered for all time, rather than that it
\nshould have been discovered in this way. The spectacle of two
\ndistinguished explorers, one, we suppose from his title, an American naval officer and the other a savant not unknown to fame,
\nhurling at each other such epithets as liar and faker, accusing each
\nother of vile and dishonourable conduct, advancing evidence
\nthat when examined melts into thin air, citing witnesses who,
\nwhen questioned, give them the lie, while all Europe and America
\njoin and take sides in the disgusting wrangle, is one that ought to
\ngive pause to the blindest admirer of Western civilisation and
\nbeliever in Western superiority. We certainly will not imitate
\nthe general run of European writers who, arguing smugly from
\ntemporary, local or individual circumstances, talk in the style
\nof self-satisfied arrogance, of Oriental barbarity, Oriental trea- <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 217<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nchery and mendacity, Oriental unscrupulousness; we will not
\nsay that the continents of Europe and America are peopled by
\nnations of highly civilised liars, impostors and fakers of  evidence
\nwithout any sense of truth, honour or dignity, although we have
\nas good cause as any Western critic of Asia; but at any rate the
\nlegend of European superiority and the inferior morals of the Asiatic has, by this time, been so badly damaged that we think
\neven the Englishman<\/i> might think twice before it bases its opposition to national aspirations on the pretensions of the Pharisee.
\nIt is evident that we are as good as the Europeans; we think we
\nare in most respects better; we certainly could not be worse.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 218<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facts and Opinions Volume I – Oct. 2, 1909 – Number 15 The Rump Presidential Election                   The Lahore Special Correspondent of the Rashtra…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-karmayogin-volume-02","wpcat-23-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}