Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Punjabi Girl (Vin Garbutt)
From:
Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 Nov 13 - 03:33 AM
Jesus Christ.
@GUEST,marmdad - Why do you keep on refreshing this? What are you looking for that has not been given already?
@McGrath (Betsy, etc) - Can you please take your head out of your ass on this topic, and stop your pointless arguing that, because *you* feel you can label the events "war," that they should be. I have already explained that the 1947 Partition was not a war. And nobody calls it a war either. And to do so carries connotations that are way off the mark. Please accept that while you are presuming that it was a war (i.e. without bothering to ask people what they call it or informing yourself on the details), the simplest explanation here is that the song's author, rather innocently, did the same. Yet, in doing so - and when I brought it up I said "Incidentally..." as in "This is no huge deal to worry about, but something to note" - the author has IMO missed the mark in (this as in other places of) the song.
I have already offered some of the many ways that Punjabis, whose ancestors were involved in this event, refer to it - in English and Punjabi.
How do I know these?
One way is because I speak Punjabi. I taught the language in uni for several years. In fact, I co-authored a textbook on learning Punjabi. And I developed that textbook while an associate at something called the Center for Punjab Studies. At this Center, over the years, we continually invited people from Punjab and scholars on Punjab. 'Partition,' as you might imagine, was a recurring topic. (As I've mentioned, it might be THE formative event of modern Punjabi identity.)
I have translated (and it has been published) the poetry of Punjabi poets, on this topic. My work on Punjabi culture has been published several times in the _Journal of Punjab Studies_ and elsewhere.
I have attended innumerable conferences, in North America, India, and recently in Europe, that are about the Punjabi and especially the Punjabi Diaspora (emigration out of the region).
I have worked for the US govt. on a program related to Punjabi language in Pakistan. Again, this stuff comes up all the time.
Most of all, I have done extensive ethnographic field-work in Punjab. I have traveled to all of the administrative districts, interviewing people in both English and the local language. More than 50% of every conversation I'd have, I estimate, mentioned Partition at some point. This was especially because, not only was I documenting the history of families' migrations, but also documenting changes in music - which was greatly affected by this event.
I am disciple to a (late) musical "guru" whose family, like so many, migrated at the time of Partition. His entire ethnic community migrated, in fact. You would be amazed to hear some of the stories of what they went through and how lifestyles changed.
A large number of my friends are Punjabi, and I am constantly hearing them talk about the topic of Partition. And, in fact, I dated a "girl" of Punjabi extraction, not from the Northeast UK, but from the Midlands (as well as more than a few talks about "cross-cultural" dating with other Punjabi women). So in addition to having an intimate understanding of how people discourse about Partition, both in the realm of professional scholarship and in conversation, and of its emotional resonances, I also know something about how people would react to the portrayal in this song - "barf!"
Britain fucked up Punjab when they got their guy to come in, a guy with no clue about the geography and culture of the area, to come in and chop it up. It was the presumption that they knew best, and could just look at some numbers and say this is how "we" think it should be. What is truly OFFENSIVE is this presumptuousness. Such presumptuousness is being echoed in your persistence in asserting your supposed superior logic of what defines war or what should be called "war." The song, too, to an extent, silences the perspective of Others, in two ways. First, by not giving them a voice at all. Second, by overwriting the facts with a clumsy English voice. The poor taste that I allege many would find in the song is not because it recognizes "the existence of racial prejudice and the like." matt milton explained quite well some of the off-putting features, and yet you simply repeat the "red herring" (as matt put it) of "offensive" and put out the straw argument of how strange people are "these days"...those strangely oversensitive people who are just so offended by everything...
By the way, all that fieldwork I did over years in Punjab? It was about caste and ethnicity - about the (racial) prejudice against certain groups. And as a teacher of ethnomusicology, I am constantly engaging students as such topics, for example blackface minstrel music or Chicano music in the USA. And my research on chanties is practically ALL about recognizing issues of race/ethnicity. So why in hell would you come to such a simplistic conclusion that I or any other reasonably intelligent person is offended by talk about race? If you find it bizarre, that's probably because ... you've understood it wrong (i.e. nobody is offended by that).
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sj
