"Little Mag"

~ A Woman, Her Child, and 'A Rifle' of First World War Vintage ~

~ Civil militia member, 'Doda', Kashmir, photo by DILIP BANERJEE ~

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Don’t know what it says about ourselves, but every time we do an issue on security, we put a Madonna with a gun on the cover. The Terror issue had the yet uncelebrated Banksy’s raffish stencil art, for instance, featuring Mona Lisa in overdrive with an RPG launcher.

This issue’s cover is more sobering. The Madonna and child are from a village in Doda, in Kashmir. After too many villagers — including her husband — were killed by terrorists, the village formed a civil militia of its own. She is one of its number, prepared to hold off attacks by trained guerrillas bearing modern military weapons, armed only with a rifle of First World War vintage, and hindered by the small distraction of the child slung at her back.

In conflict zones throughout the region, people caught between the security forces, government and insurgents, have to make difficult choices for their own safety. But this is only at the bleeding edge of our security problem. Terrorism and insurgency dominate the headlines, crowding out more endemic human security problems which affect the majority of people in this region.

A long history of poverty, aggravated by the caste system, reduces or denies access to education, nutrition, health-care and democratic freedoms. And now, progress is creating new categories of losers — economic and developmental refugees left behind in the race to privatize and globalize rapidly.

~ from The Little Magazine 'SECURITY' Issue 'Editorial' ~ Vol VII :
Issue 3 & 4 ~