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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: New York

The Weekend Flâneur

18 Sat Jan 2014

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Society

≈ Comments Off on The Weekend Flâneur

Tags

badaud, Battery Park, brunch, Central Park, Central Park Zoo, champagne, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Charles Baudelaire, Chelsea Pier, Cherry Walk, Elmo, flânerie, flâneur, flâneuse, Franz Hessel, Gilles Deleuze, Guy Beringer, haeccity, Honoré de Balzac, Hudson waterfront, Hungarian Pastry Shop, Kazuza Lounge, Lafayette, Loeb Boathouse, Manhattan, mimosa, Minetta Tavern, New York, Pampano, Pierre-Félix Guattari, Riverside Park, Russian Tea Room, St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral, Statue of Liberty, Tertulia, The Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society, Walter Benjamin

There used to be a time when laziness was classy and required work. Flânerie connoted wealth, intellect, an active idleness, and perhaps a tinge of hedonism. In the 16th century, the term meant strolling, with an implication of idle curiosity. However, the 19th century saw flânerie rescued by several French intellectuals such as Honoré de Balzac, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, and Charles Baudelaire. The German Franz Hessel popularised the idea in his heimat via his famous collection of essays, Spazieren in Berlin. In this period, flânerie became not only a sophisticated practice but also an object of scholarly study and its taxonomy was better explored – as one dictionary described it, there were mindless flâneurs and intelligent flâneurs, there were flâneurs of boulevards, parks, cafés, and arcades.

flanerieI will spare you a philosophical inquiry into the writings of 19th century proponents of flânerie, even a fascinating discussion of flânerie and the modern condition by Walter Benjamin, and instead ask you to consider a 21st century bourgeois version of flânerie – weekend flânerie. More and more people can afford to engage in the enriching experience of idle intellectual curiosity than before, at least on the weekend, but it is to my eternal chagrin that the age of reason, technology, and globalisation has made us not flâneurs but badauds, passive recipients of micro-history rather than actors. Laziness has unfortunately come to mean staying in bed all day or turning into a zombie before the idiot box.

While the great cities of Europe seem designed keeping flânerie in mind, there are a few elsewhere that come close to them. In fact, most half-way decent cities allow for some casual, intellectual strolling. More than size, it is about culture, diversity, and public spaces. So what would a flâneur – or a flâneuse – do in, say, New York on a Sunday?

The first thing to remember is that New York is famous for its brunch, a fabulous excuse to start drinking early in the day without people calling you an alcoholic. It is also a time to get your new friend’s name and number if you wish, or simply recover from the previous night’s festivities. City laws do not allow the serving of alcohol before 11 00, so perhaps you might be interested in visiting a nice little Armenian church beforehand – the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral. It’s on the lower east side, but a quick crosstown tube ride will put you in the heart of the brunch district.

st vartanThough consecrated in only 1968, St. Vartan’s is the first cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church to be consecrated in the United States and resembles Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the world’s first cathedral, built around 303 CE by Gregory the Illuminator. St. Vartan’s has all the trappings of a typical Orthodox church, saints on a golden background, stained glass windows, and beautiful liturgies. Its stone cross, the priest told me once, was brought from Armenia and is from the 15th century, and the chandeliers are reconstructed modes of 7th century fixtures found back home. An excellent and quick read on Armenian Christianity would be the first volume (maybe second too) of Jaroslav Pelikan’s five-volume masterpiece, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine.

Okay, so why visit a church? Well, unless you’re a vampire, you won’t burst into flames if you enter one. But more seriously, brunch is a very old Christian custom of a somewhat largish post-church meal – especially as Catholics and some Orthodox fast before mass. The portmanteau, ‘brunch’ was first used by a British writer named Guy Beringer in 1895, but the tradition has been around for much longer. A traditional brunch meal contains Eggs Benedict and champagne, but let’s be libertine, I say, and not fear to go wild with the menu!

russian tea roomOn to the mimosas! Lower Manhattan is a packed with dozens of spectacular brunch places. I particularly like Elmo for the truffle fries (you begin to understand why the Italians and French have fought so many battles over truffle fields in the Piedmont) and because Chelsea just has a nice feel, the Russian Tea Room (just don’t ask them about the Simorgh on the wall!), Lafayette for everything on the menu, and Minetta Tavern for the drinks.

At this point, amateurs may make the mistake of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cloisters, or some such lovely place. However, flânerie is about watching, not doing; You want to engage, even intellectually, but not be completely drawn into the object of scrutiny – that would ruin flânerie. To molest a phrase from Gilles Deleuze and/or Pierre-Félix Guattari, watching is the haeccity of flânerie. Sailing or museums and galleries require work, and we just want to be lazy in style!

Freshly refuelled, you might consider heading over to Chelsea Pier. You can get a nice ride on a schooner there, taking you by Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty; you get a good river-side view of the New York skyline. To be sure, there are several places along the riverfront where you can grab a cruise, but Chelsea Pier is also a nice place to walk around before or after your cruise.

The Hudson waterfront is a great place for a leisurely stroll; there’s a nice park you can saunter through. But remember – flânerie is about observing and quick reflections. People, places, objects, all form a Denkbild to re-experience later. Head north towards Central Park. Those nice floral summer dresses you might encounter on the way just lift your moods 🙂 Around 64th Street, you have the option of leaving the river and heading east to the Central Park Zoo; the polar bears and turtles are especially cute, and the species of penguin they have aren’t too bad either.

loeb boathouseIf you choose to skip the zoo, you have another lovely excursion opportunity around 72nd Street for the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park. If you like the water, you might enjoy taking a rowboat out to the centre of the lake and watching people pass by from there. There is a topless book club (NSFW) that meets in the vicinity but sadly, I’d rather read postmodernist and psychoanalysis tracts than their list.

Alternatively, you can keep walking as 72nd Street is where Cherry Walk, a segment of Riverside Walk, starts. It is named for the cherry trees found further north, near Columbia University, but Riverside Park is nonetheless a scenic landmark.

hungarian pastry shopIt’s evening by now, and you’ve probably worked off your delectable brunch with a good 80-block walk. That sounds like a lot, but taking the day to stroll down a beautiful stretch and watch your fellow urbanites probably made it seem much shorter. Nonetheless, if you are a cookie monster, you are close to one of my favourite pastry shops in the area (Morningside Heights) – the Hungarian Pastry Shop. The area is certainly a little dingy but not too bad by New York standards. Some might try to do the Parisian café routine but it’s closer to one of Bangalore’s darshinis. If you’re feeling peckish, you might want to try out the tiramisu or hazelnut torte and a cup of coffee. The tiramisu, by the way, has a delightfully promiscuous history you might want to look up.

kazuzaConversely, you can catch the tube and head back towards downtown for dinner. Tertulia and Pampano both offer a lovely Spanish cuisine but more importantly, they have sangria on tap. Pampano has several kinds of sangria and you will just have to come back. Note – these restaurants are a little on the pricier side, so you might prefer to grab a quick bite to eat from a street vendor and end the evening at Kazuza Lounge with a ghalyoon and black Arabic tea. The food is not so great, so eat before you get there. Kazuza is in Alphabet City but is, in my opinion, the best place for a ghalyoon in New York – for me, New York is Manhattan until Columbus Circle, and the suburbs extend up until maybe 100th Street but no more than 120th Street).

Flânerie is not about hitting tourist attractions; if that is what you wanted, you’ve wasted a day. Such jaunts are about amplifying and savouring Dasein. Big cities allow many variations of food, drink, people, and sights, but even smaller towns might have some avenues to explore one’s productive laziness – most places have their unique flavour. Chances are, in our daily grind, we don’t notice our dwellings until we’ve left and then we reminisce when we meet someone else from there who is also busy missing the simpler joys.

One might even say that in some ways, flânerie forces us to slow down our pace and pay attention to our lives. Via mobile phones, e-mail, and social media, we are at the world’s beck and call, responding to stimuli elsewhere and on someone else’s schedule. Flânerie brings us back to hereness; for me, that itself is worth the trouble.

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Sikhs For Justice v. Sonia Gandhi

04 Wed Sep 2013

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia, United States

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

ACTA, Alien Tort Claims Act, Alien Tort Statute, ATS, Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, India, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, New York, SCOTUS, SFJ, Sikhs For Justice, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, Torture Victim Protection Act, TVPA, United States

In response to a class action suit filed by a human rights group called “Sikhs For Justice,” the district court of the Eastern District of New York issued a summons to India’s Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi for her alleged role in shielding from justice those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Under US law, specifically the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), also called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ACTA), and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), cases may be brought against other foreigners for violations of the laws of nations even in foreign jurisdictions.

The ATS, passed in 1789 as part of the First Judiciary Act, has for most of its history had an insignificant role. Jurisdiction has been decided only twice until 1980 under this law, once in 1795 and once in 1961. In fact, in 1975, a US court referred to the statute as a legal Lohengrin and cautioned that the ATS’ reference to the law of nations must be interpreted very narrowly if it is not to violate Article III of the US constitution. It was only in 1980 in Filártiga v. Peña-Irala that the ATS was revived when two Paraguayans were allowed to sue a former Paraguayan official for torture and murder of their family member while in Paraguay. The court ruled that the case was brought by an alien, was a tort, and violated the law of nations. Since the law of nations is customary and customary international law has always been a part of US federal common law, US courts had jurisdiction over the case. It is important to note that this case was brought against an actual perpetrator of a brutality, unlike in the case of Sonia Gandhi.

In 2004, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain allowed the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to consider the scope of the ATS. The Court held that the statute authorised federal courts to recognise private damages for a very limited category of universally accepted customary law. This was because a broad reading of common international law would raise questions regarding: 1. the change in the conception of common international law since 1790; 2. the denial of the existence of general common law in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins; 3. why private action is decided by the judiciary and not the legislature; 4. the fallout on international relations of the United States, and 5. whence the mandate to seek out and form new laws of nations came. Given the conservative position of Sosa on the interpretation of the ATS, it is unlikely that the shielding of alleged criminals at least 20 years after the fact will be taken seriously.

In April 2013, SCOTUS ruled unanimously in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum against the extraterritorial presumption of US law, as was recently articulated in Morrison v. National Australia Bank. The case essentially involved a group of Nigerians suing a Nigerian corporation and its Dutch and British corporate parents; the plaintiffs claimed that the corporation was providing food and transportation to government forces that beat, raped, tortured, and killed protesters opposing the corporations environmentally damaging actions. Although the conclusion the nine justices reached was the same, four argued that ATS applied only when: 1. the defendant was American; 2. the event took place in US jurisdiction; or 3. the conduct substantially affected US interest. The other five justices argued that the case did not come under ATS because Sosa urges extreme caution because of the potential for unwarranted judicial interference in foreign policy. Thus, relief cannot be granted when the alleged violations happened outside the jurisdiction of the United States. These methodologies allow for considerably different interpretations, but none that would affect any case against Sonia Gandhi since both views converge on a presumption against extraterritoriality.

The Kiobel ruling seems to be the death knell for human rights activists’ broad application of the ATS. However, the US Congress passed the TVPA in 1992 in a move that can only be taken to mean an express ratification of the understanding on Filartiga. Yet the TVPA also has its restrictions – the law applies only to individuals who were acting in an official capacity and provides relief against torture and extrajudicial killings only, leaving out a plethora of other human rights violations such as genocide and rape. Thus, the TVPA applies to Sonia Gandhi’s official capacity only for 15 of the 30 years since the tragedy of 1984 – as a member of the Lok Sabha, from Amethi between 1999 and 2004, and from Rae Bareli since then. However, as per the wording of the TVPA, the accused in this summons appears to have no role in the 1984 riots.

The TVPA and the ATS usually work in conjunction with each other; however, the TVPA explicitly restricts itself to extrajudicial killings and torture, and the ATS, after Kiobel, seems to restrict its scope and jurisdiction significantly since Filartiga. The summons against Sonia Gandhi under these statutes is thus twice removed – she has been accused of shielding, not perpetrating the crimes, and given that no ruling has found those Sonia Gandhi allegedly shields to be guilty, she is shielding those only alleged to be guilty. Prima facie, it appears very unlikely that a serious case can be mounted against the Congress Party president barring the broadest scope of the ATS.

Beyond the legal (de)merits of the case, the idea that a state’s jurisdiction can extend indefinitely violates the fundamental principle of sovereignty among nations, an ironic situation given that the ATS advocates protecting those very laws it violates. This limitation of sovereignty is adhered to not only by other nations but also every other law of the United States. One would be hard-pressed to find a case wherein SCOTUS has held people beyond the jurisdiction of the United States subject to its laws.

From a political perspective, ATS spells disaster in international relations. Presently, only the United States has a law whereby foreigners could be held accountable for actions they committed outside the jurisdiction of the United States by other foreigners. If this principle were to be expanded to other states, it would not be difficult to imagine lawsuits against Henry Kissinger, George W Bush, Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon, and dozens of other leaders. For example, the arrest of Augusto Pinochet in 1998 sent shockwaves throughout the international legal community. Although the Nuremberg trials established a precedent in 1945 that some crimes were so egregious that they merited universal jurisdiction, few states have put aside their realpolitik long enough to render these principles a reality. From this perspective, the only bar to a state suing the leader of another state is their differential in power.

From India’s perspective, any such arrest is an affront to national sovereignty. Given India’s judicial and political realities, the SFJ’s position is not difficult to sympathise with. However, the notion that India will allow its leaders to be tried like common criminals by foreign powers is destabilising, demoralising, and a matter of national shame; moreover, it is unlikely to be met with reciprocity from other states. It is worth repeating again that Sonia Gandhi’s alleged wrongdoing is nowhere near the magnitude of crimes the ATS or TVPA was intended for, and the suit should hold little water.

In some ways, this event is a lesson to those who have in the past run to the United States with India’s domestic problems, be their actions displayed via epistolary genius or in the orchestration of an effort to deny recognition – visas, magazine covers, speaker’s platforms – to other elected Indian officials. Sonia Gandhi is a polarising figure in Indian politics and there is surely much schadenfreude in some corners, but as one nation, India must strenuously object to the treatment of its leaders thus.


This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on September 06, 2013.

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