, China. The bamboo pole he leans upon was used to hoist and carry the bundle at his feet with the pole over his shoulder and the bundle leaning against his back. On the left side of the image, in the background, another man uses this same technique of bearing a heavy load.]]
Coolie (variously spelled Cooly, Kuli, Quli, Koelie etc.) is:
The Chinese word (Pinyin: kǔlì) literally means "bitterly hard (use of) strength". The most commonly used cultural Chinese term is (Pinyin: gū lí / Cantonese: Guu Lae).
When it first entered the English language, "coolie" was a designative term describing a low-status class of workers rather than a pejorative term for them. However, in the wake of centuries of colonialism and the social inequalities thereof, it has taken on not only the characteristics of a slur in the general sense but also that of a racial epithet. In this last sense, it has been applied to Asian people regardless of their professions or socio-economic standing with obviously insulting intent.
For example, by the 1850s in Trinidad, the annual Muharram or Hosay festival that came over from India was being called "the Coolie Carnival". Through the Caribbean, as well as in Sri Lanka, South Africa, and elsewhere, the word soon came to denote any person of Indian origin or descent.
By the mid- to late 19th-century in the United States, the term "coolie" and other trappings of the "coolie stereotype" were already being used to mock (for example) Chinese-American launderers or restaurateurs who owned their own businesses.
Slavery had been widespread in the British empire, but social and political pressure led to its being outlawed by the Slave Trade Act 1807; within a few decades many other European nations had outlawed slavery. But the highly intensive colonial labour on sugar cane or cotton plantations, in mines or railways, required cheap manpower .
Experiments were carried with Malagasy, Japanese, Breton, Portuguese, Yemeni and/or Congolese laborers. Ultimately the "ideal coolies" were the Indians, shipped to many Indian Ocean islands, East and South Africa, Fiji, Guyana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Jamaica, Grenada, Suriname and Panama to name only some of the lands where 'Taylorization' was applied as a means of increasing productivity worldwide.
Chinese coolies were also sent to the New World. They worked in guano pits in Peru, in sugar cane fields in Cuba and built the railways in the United States and British Columbia (Canada). The coolie trade became regarded as "a new form of slavery".
Most Indian indentured labour was recruited for the British colonies through "Colonial Agents" who travelled to India. In India they engaged the services of arkatias or recruiters who knew the places to find likely enlistees. A male to female ratio of 10:4 was sought, but women proved difficult to recruit for overseas and allegations of deception and kidnapping seem plausible. "Emigration Depots" were set up in Kolkata, Madras, and Bombay although the last was closed rather quickly when abuses were made public in India.
Many voluntary émigrées came from among the very poor people of Madras, Bengal, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. Once established, this system gained momentum as British policies destroyed domestic or cottage industry, crafts and family farms through taxation and the zamindar system. Famines continued to flow out of India for decades.
Around 1845, after the end of the first Opium War (1840–1842), a center for emigration at Shantou organised a network for transporting Chinese from Guangdong, Amoy, and Macau to the Americas, especially to the silver mines in Peru and the sugar plantations of Cuba and other West Indian islands. Most of them would have been kidnapped from Guangdong province.
Indentured labourers from Indochina were recruited primarily by France and sent to other French colonies.
The coolie trade was criticised for unfairness to workers, and for being de facto slavery. Labourers would be transported aboard packed vessels to be sent to their destinations, and many would die enroute due to malnutrition, disease, or other mistreatment. Mutinies were also known to occur during transportation.
.]]
Although Chinese labor contributed to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad in the United States and of the Canadian Pacific Railway in western Canada, Chinese settlement was discouraged after completion of the construction. California's Anti-Coolie Act of 1862 and the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 contributed to the oppression of Chinese laborers in the United States.
Notwithstanding such attempts to restrict the influx of cheap labor from China, beginning in the 1870s Chinese workers played an indispensable role in the construction of a vast network of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. These levees opened up thousands of acres of fertile marshlands for agricultural production.
According to the Constitution of the State of California (1879):
The presence of foreigners ineligible to become citizens of the United States is declared to be dangerous to the well-being of the State, and the Legislature shall discourage their immigration by all the means within its power. Asiatic coolieism is a form of human slavery, and is forever prohibited in this State, and all contracts for coolie labor shall be void. All companies or corporations, whether formed in this country or any foreign country, for the importation of such labor, shall be subject to such penalties as the Legislature may prescribe.
Indentured Chinese servants also labored in the sugarcane fields of Cuba well after the 1884 abolition of slavery in that country. Many scholars debate whether the Chinese coolies of Cuba should be called "slaves", the authoritative scholars of Chinese labor in Cuba, Juan Pastrana and Juan Perez de la Riva, substantiated the horrific conditions of Chinese coolies in Cuba and unreservedly stated that coolies were slaves in all but name. Before the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Havana had Latin America's largest Chinatown.
In South America, Chinese indentured laborers worked in Peru's silver mines and coastal industries (i.e., guano, sugar, and cotton) from the early 1850s to the mid-1870s; about 100,000 people immigrated as indentured workers. They participated in the War of the Pacific, looting and burning down the haciendas where they worked, subsequent to the fall of Lima to the invading Chilean army in January 1880.
Between 1838 and 1917, at least "238,909 Indians were introduced into British Guiana, 143,939 into Trinidad, 42,326 into Guadeloupe, 37,027 into Jamaica, 34,304 into Suriname, 25,209 into Martinique, 8,472 into French Guiana, 4,354 into Saint Lucia, 3,206 into Grenada, 2,472 into Saint Vincent, 337 into Saint Kitts, 326 into Saint Croix, and 315 into Nevis. Belize also received Indians, but they did not come under the indentureship scheme, some where exiled [Sepoy] soldiers and families. In Although these were incomplete statistics, Eric Williams (see references) believed they were "sufficient to show a total introduction of nearly half a million Indians into the Caribbean" (Williams 100).
Another man was to champion the cause of the coolies in Mauritius: Adolph von Plevitz, who denounced the inhuman treatments inflicted on those poorly educated labourers.
* In Indonesian, kuli is now a term to describe especially the construction workers.
* In Malay, "kuli" is term for slave.
* In Thai, kuli (กุลี) still retains its original meaning as manual labourers, but is considered to be offensive.
* The word qūlī is now commonly used in Hindi to refer to luggage porters at hotel lobbies and railway and bus stations. Nevertheless, the use of such (especially by foreigners) may still be regarded as a slur by some.
* In Ethiopia, Cooli is a term that refers to those who carry heavy loads for someone. The word is not used as a slur however. The term used to describe Arab day-laborers who migrated to Ethiopia for labor work.
* The Dutch word koelie, refers to a worker who performs very hard, exacting labour. The word generally has no particular ethnic connotations among the Dutch, but is used as a slur amongst Surinamese to designate Hindoestanen.
* In 2002, Abercrombie & Fitch pulled a line of tee shirts from stores across the United States after complaints that they depicted racist caricatures of Asian Americans. A typical criticism of the said "These are the kind of images we saw in California newspapers a century ago" and "It smacks of Charlie Chan and the coolie stereotype".
Gilbert Gratiant was among the first writers of this region to give some presence to this citizen in limbo. A new awareness was expressed by Marcel Cabon, Loys Masson and Malcolm de Chazal in Mauritius.
Most recently, poet Khal Torabully's Cale d'étoiles-Coolitude (Azalées éditions, 1992) introduces the neologism, "coolitude". Torabully defines coolitude as a postcolonial and postmodern aesthetics, anchored in otherness, that goes beyond the specific condition of Asian migrant labor.
Category:Anti-Indian sentiment Category:Asian American issues Category:Chinese American history Category:History of immigration to the United States Category:Labor history Category:Labour relations Category:Contract law Category:Personal care and service occupations Category:Social groups Category:Slavery Category:Coolie trade Category:Ethnic and religious slurs Category:Tamil words and phrases
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| Name | Joel Parkinson |
|---|---|
| Caption | Joel Parkinson in New Zealand, 2009 |
| Birth date | April 10, 1981 |
| Birth place | Nambour, Queensland, Australia |
| Residence | Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia |
| Height | |
| Weight | |
| Stance | Natural (regular) foot |
| Best year | 2nd - 2002, 2004 and 2009 ASP World Tour |
| Major achievements | Two ASP World Junior Championships, ASP World Title Runner- Up in 2002 and 2004, Perfect 20 at Billabong Pipeline Masters (2008), Vans Hawaiian Triple Crown of Surfing Winner (2008) |
| Website | joelparko.com |
A highly successful competitive surfer, Parkinson has won nine elite ASP tour victories as of July 2009: {| class="wikitable" border="1" |- ! Contest Won ! Year |- | Billabong Pro, Jeffrey's Bay South Africa | 2009 |- | Rip Curl Pro, Bells Beach, Victoria Australia | 2009 |- | Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast, Queensland Australia | 2009 |- | Quiksilver Pro France, South West Coast France | 2006 |- | Boost Mobile Pro, Trestles, USA | 2004 |- | Rip Curl Pro, Bells Beach, Victoria Australia | 2004 |- | Rip Curl Cup, Sunset Beach, Oahu Hawaii | 2002 |- | Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast, Queensland Australia | 2002 |- | Billabong/MSF Pro, Jeffrey's Bay South Africa | 1999 |}
Another career highlight came for Parkinson during a December 2008 Pipeline Masters third-round heat in Hawaii when he matched Kelly Slater's 2005 record of two perfect 10-point rides under the world tour's two-best-waves scoring system. Parkinson went on to win the Triple Crown of Surfing for 2008 and then again in 2009.
In July 2009, while in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa Joel launched his new official website joelparko.com
Category:1981 births Category:Living people Category:Australian surfers Category:ASP World Tour surfers Category:People from Nambour, Queensland Category:People from the Gold Coast, Queensland
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Amitabh Bachchan |
|---|---|
| Caption | Amitabh Bachchan |
| Birth name | |
| Birth date | October 11, 1942 |
| Birth place | Allahabad, United Province, British India |
| Occupation | Actor, producer, singer, television presenter |
| Years active | 1969–present |
| Spouse | Jaya Bhaduri (1973–present) |
Amitabh Bachchan (, , born Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan on 11 October 1942), is an Indian film actor and producer. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema, and has since become one of the most prominent figures in the history of Indian cinema.
Bachchan has won numerous major awards in his career, including four National Film Awards, three of which are in the Best Actor category, and thirteen Filmfare Awards. He holds the record for most number of Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nominations at the Filmfare Awards. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter, and was an elected member of the Indian Parliament from 1984 to 1987.
Amitabh is the eldest of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's two sons, the second being Ajitabh. His mother had a keen interest in theatre and had been offered a role in a film, but preferred her domestic duties. She had some degree of influence in Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should take the centre stage. He attended Allahabad's Jnana Prabodhini and Boys' High School (BHS), followed by Nainital's Sherwood College, where he majored in the art stream. He later went on to study at Kirori Mal College of the University of Delhi and completed a Bachelor of Science degree. In his twenties, Bachchan gave up a job as freight broker for the shipping firm, Bird and Co., based in Calcutta now known as Kolkata, to pursue a career in acting.
Anand (1971) followed, where he starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. Bachchan's role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garned him his first Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. Amitabh then played his first negative role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwaana (1971). This was followed by several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa, directed by S. Ramanathan.
Bachchan starred in comedies such as Chupke Chupke (1975) and Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) and in films such as Kabhie Kabhie (1976). In 1976, he was once again cast by director Yash Chopra in his second film, Kabhi Kabhie, a romantic tale in which Bachchan starred as a young poet named Amit Malhotra who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja played by actress Rakhee Gulzar. The film saw him again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony where he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. In 1978 he starred in all four of the highest grossing films of India in that year. He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade as Amit and Shankar and Don playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also performed in Trishul and Muqaddar Ka Sikander which both earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. He was billed a "one-man industry" by the French director François Truffaut.
In 1979, for the first time, Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred alongside Rekha. His performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Best Male Playback Awards. In 1979, he also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar (1979) and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top grossing film of 1980. In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and rumoured lover Rekha. Other films of this period include Ram Balram (1980), Shaan (1980), Lawaaris (1981), and Shakti (1982) which pitted him against legendary actor Dilip Kumar.
The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident.
His old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during a financial crisis due to the failure of his company ABCL. Therefore Bachchan started to support Amar Singh's political party, the Samajwadi party. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and became a Rajya Sabha member. Bachchan has continued to do favors for the Samajwadi party, including advertisements and political campaigns. These activities have recently gotten him into trouble again in the Indian courts for false claims after a previous incident of submission of legal papers by him, stating that he is a farmer.
A 15 year press ban against Bachchan was imposed during his peak acting years by Stardust and some of the other film magazines. In his own defense, Bachchan claimed to have banned the press from entering his sets almost till the end of 1989.
In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudaata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to Sahara India Finance for raising funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career and had average success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998), but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
In May 2007, two of his films Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did very well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and was declared an overall average hit. A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely. Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box-office. His latest movie was Paa, which released at the end of 2009. Paa was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan didn't took any remuneration to do this film.
On 2 June 2007 a Faizabad court ruled that he had legally acquired agricultural land designated specifically for landless Dalit farmers. It was speculated that he might be investigated on related charges of forgery, as he has allegedly claimed he was a farmer. On 19 July 2007, after the scandal broke out, Bachchan surrendered the land acquired in Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh and Pune. He wrote to the chief minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, to donate the lands that were allegedly acquired illegally in Pune. However, the Lucknow Court has put a stay on the land donation and said that the status quo on the land be maintained.
On 12 October 2007, Bachchan abandoned his claim in respect of the land at Daulatpur village in Barabanki district. On 11 December 2007, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court gave a clean chit to Bachchan in a case pertaining to alleged fraudulent allotment of government land to him in Barabanki district. A single Lucknow bench of Justice said there was no finding that the actor "himself committed any fraud or manipulated any surreptitious entry in the revenue records".
After receiving a positive verdict in Barabanki case, Amitabh Bachchan intimated to Maharashtra government that he did not wish to surrender his land in Maval tehsil of Pune district.
Responding to Raj's accusations, the actor's wife, SP MP Jaya Bachchan, said that the Bachchans were willing to start a school in Mumbai, provided the MNS leader donated the land to build it. She told the media, "I heard that Raj Thackeray owns huge properties in Maharashtra, in Mumbai—Kohinoor Mills. If he is willing to donate land, we can start a school in the name of Aishwarya here." Raj responded to it saying, "Jaya bachchan claims she does not know me then how come she knows how much property I own?". Amitabh abstained from commenting on the issue. However, he apologized to Raj for controversial remarks from Jaya in some other incidence. "
Bal Thackeray refuted the allegations, stating, "Amitabh Bachchan is an open-minded person, he has great love for Maharashtra, and this is evident on many occasions. The actor has often said that Maharashtra and specially Mumbai has given him great fame and affection. He has also said that what he is today is because of the love people have given him. The people of Mumbai have always acknowledged him as an artiste. It was utter foolishness to make these parochial allegations against him. Amitabh is a global superstar. People all over the world respect him. This cannot be forgotten by anyone. Amitabh should ignore these silly accusations and concentrate on his acting."
On 23 March 2008, more than a month and half after Raj's remarks, Amitabh finally spoke out in an interview to a local tabloid saying, "Random charges are random; they do not deserve the kind of attention you wish me to give." Later, on 28 March at a press conference for the International Indian Film Academy, when asked what his take was on the anti-migrant issue, Amitabh said that it is one's fundamental right to live anywhere in the country and the constitution entitles so. He also stated that he was not affected by Raj's comments.
In 1999, Bachchan was voted the Greatest Star of stage or screen of the Millennium by BBC online poll where he defeated many Hollywood legends. In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema. Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been immortalised in wax at London's prestigious Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Another statue was installed at New York and Hong Kong in 2009.
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville. He was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate by the Jhansi University in 2004, the Delhi University in 2006, the De Montfort University in Leicester, UK in 2006, the University Brandan Foster by the Leeds Metropolitan University in Yorkshire in 2007. Another an Honorary Doctorate was conferred by the Queensland University of Technology in Australia in 2009. But he turns down the honour as mark of protest to racial attacks on Indian students.
Severals books have been written about Bachchan. Amitabh Bachchan: the Legend was published in 1999, To be or not to be: Amitabh Bachchan in 2004, AB: The Legend: (A Photographer's Tribute) in 2006 /, Amitabh Bachchan: Ek Jeevit Kimvadanti in 2006, Amitabh: The Making of a Superstar in 2006, Looking for the Big B: Bollywood, Bachchan and Me in 2007 and Bachchanalia in 2009. Bachchan himself has also written a book in 2002: Soul Curry for you and me - An Empowering Philosophy That Can Enrich Your Life.
{| class="wikitable"
|- style="background:#CCC; text-align:center;"
! Year !! Film !! Role !! Notes
|-
| rowspan="4"|2006 || Family - Ties of Blood || Viren Sahi ||
|-
| Darna Zaroori Hai || Professor ||
|-
| Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna || Samarjit Singh Talwar (aka. Sexy Sam) || Nominated, Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award
|-
| Baabul (2006 film) || Balraj Kapoor ||
|-
| rowspan="7"|2007 || || Eklavya ||
|-
| Nishabd || Vijay ||
|-
| Cheeni Kum || Buddhadev Gupta/Ghaspus ||
|-
| Shootout at Lokhandwala || Special appearance, Dingra ||
|-
| Jhoom Barabar Jhoom || Special appearance, Sutradhar ||
|-
| Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag || Babban Singh ||
|-
| Om Shanti Om || Special appearance, Himself ||
|-
| rowspan="5"|2008 || Jodhaa Akbar || Narrator ||
|-
| Bhoothnath || Bhoothnath (Kailash Nath) ||
|-
| Sarkar Raj || Subhash Nagre aka Sarkar ||
|-
| God Tussi Great Ho || God Almighty ||
|-
| The Last Lear || Harish 'Harry' Mishra ||
|-
| rowspan="3"|2009 || Delhi-6|| Special appearance, Dadaji ||
|-
| Aladin || Genius the Gennie ||
|-
| Paa || Auro || Winner, Filmfare Best Actor Award
Winner, National Film Award for Best Actor
|-
| rowspan="4"|2010 || Rann || Vijay Harshvardhan Malik ||
|-
| Teen Patti || Venkat ||
|-
| Kandahar || Lokanathan Sharma ||
|-
| Shoebite (Post-production) || John Periera ||
|}
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