Of Terror and Mumbai: Commando Returns

December 2, 2008 – 9:52 am

Desi dogs do it Indianstyle. Outrage is fat-free, gratifying, and comes cheap at wholesale rates. An all-new season of bash-a-Moslem begins and we expect high TRPs.

Another self righteous deshbhakt whines about the politic*nts while doing a jai mata di on the brave boys in uniform.

This is no worse than we deserve, putting our faith in age and caste loyalties. We prefer the criminally senile in our nation’s highest offices. It allows us to bitch indulgently at the regular little accidents involving colostomy bags. Local sentiments are easily represented by facial hair, and the state has a Chief Moustache and a Deputy Chief Moustache parading their cheap dye-jobs in front of the TV cameras. The crowd cheers.

The equipment and training of our cops (even the AntiTerrorismSquad) is no secret and has once again been tragically highlighted. Call the cops when you want bomb scenes trampled on, or random poor Muslims Confessioned and/or Encountered.

Over two decades of assorted terror attacks across the country, and there is still is no operationally capable central crisis management team or protocols in place. There are no established lines of communication between the police, army, paramilitary, intelligence and special forces (SF). Each is suspicious of and barely capable of operating with the other, leading to further tragic one-upmanship.

The first consequence of this reinforces the charming Indian trait of arriving hours after the party has started. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Feature, Society, politics, south asia, terrorism | Comments (0)

Mumbai: Some Of Us Didn’t Die

November 30, 2008 – 1:52 pm

But some of us did. And for those who did, it’s important that we seek a revolution in this city. In this country. Recurrent chants of “Bharat Mata ki Jai”(Long Live Mother India) are not going to procure any respite by way of pop patriotism that this country is so well renowned for. It’s time for action. Studied and structured. Action.

My beloved city was held hostage at gunpoint for almost three straight days while the f*ckwits who are supposed to lead and guide us swapped accusations, blame and vituperative nonsense. Heinous is a word that not only accurately describes what the terrorists did to us but also what the political machinery of this country has done to us. Such lack of empathy and accountability bewilders me. It enrages me. Sets my heart on fire.

News reports are teeming with obvious gaffes in the professional structure of the security and intelligence agencies of this country: the possibility of this attack was made apparent as far back as October and none paid heed to it.

People have now poured out onto the streets of Mumbai. Because we didn’t die and since we are here, we need to ensure that those who died for us aren’t forgotten. The ire and invectives will fade, but the memory of this carnage never should. What it represents and who needs to face the political guillotine is what this nation needs to decide.

I have fiddled with this thought before and I am convinced of its dynamism now – Courage is a choice. For the 30 something army Major who was an all rounder sportsman at the National Defence Academy, Pune, it was. For the decorated officers of the Mumbai Police Force Force who lead from the front, not the sidelines, it was a choice. For the almost unguarded DB Marg cops who were in possession of archaic weapons at Girgaum, but still took on the armed-to-the-teeth terrorists because it was, quite literally, about doing or dying, it was a particularly important choice.

We must chose to do something now.

Constantly displayed footage of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s mother weeping inconsolably while talking to her dead son, bent over the coffin that carried his body draped in the national tricolor, is a scene I won’t forgive in a hurry. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Current Affairs, Feature, politics, south asia, terrorism | Comments (4)

George W. Bush: Lame Duck Watch

November 22, 2008 – 6:57 am

Barack Obama, in his first press conference as president-elect, stressed that the U.S. has only one president at a time. The rest of us would do well to remember that.

George W. Bush is still in office and still has all the powers he did for the first seven years of his presidency, though his ability to set an agenda is diminished and he can give an exclusive interview to CNN that gets less hype than one from Sarah Palin does.

It’s been tradition for a while among presidents to save their shadiest business for their lame duck period, since our celebrity-worship culture will be enamored of its shiny new plaything, the president-elect. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in north america, politics | Comments (4)

Expat Republicans and Reagan Democrats: Time for a New Party?

November 18, 2008 – 11:33 am

The Republican Party, not having gotten the message in 2006, has been slapped down by the electorate yet again, only this time with considerably more feeling. It used to be the Democrats controlled the coastlines, while the Republicans had the heartland.

Now the Republicans lost some of that heartland and saw North East Republicans become virtually extinct save for Judd Gregg in New Hampshire and the Pigeon Sisters, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, in Maine.

As a Northeast Republican myself and a very low level Gregg operative in the early 1980s, I am mad as hell about this, and I am not going to take it anymore. The party Ronald Reagan expanded with his big tent philosophy has seen fit to hire bouncers and toss various interest groups out on their ear. The few moderates still left in the tent, sit cowering in a corner hoping for order to be restored while the current powers that be seek to insult us by calling us wishy-washy RINOs (Republicans in Name Only.).

Well goddamnit. Let’s form the RINO party and get the hell out of here. I will invoke my imprecise recollection of what Alan Simpson had to say was the reason for his leaving DC. He stated he was startled to hear people say that to compromise was to be “wimpish.” He didn’t understand that, he said, as he felt his task was to go to DC and try to get something done, and to do that, you had to compromise.

If you wanted to write a book about the current Republican Party, let me suggest to you the working title of “Angry White Men and the Women Who Love Them” because that is all that is left. The cultural changes around them drive them crazy, and they make this measure of personal conduct their driving political message.

Screaming Howard Dean said it best when he declared that “Guns, God, and Gays don’t have a thing to do with running this country.” Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in election 08, north america, politics | Comments (2)

Change I Hope We Can Believe In

November 13, 2008 – 9:38 am

“Change. Change. Change. Change… Change. Change. Chaaange. When you say words a lot they don’t mean anything. Or maybe they don’t mean anything anyway, and we just think they do.” –Delirium, The Sandman #41, Neil Gaiman

Change. That was all we heard about on the campaign trail. As soon as Barack Obama had some success with the word, everyone from Hillary Clinton to John McCain jumped to use the word for themselves. And the more we heard it, the less it meant.

Yet with the election of Barack Obama on Tuesday, November 4, the country experienced a couple of huge changes right away. It has been discussed plenty elsewhere, and will continue to be discussed no doubt for many years to come, that Obama is the first African-American president-elect.

This also marks the end of Republican domination of government, which aside from a brief period when Democrats under Clinton controlled Congress as well, started in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan.

Clinton did little to change the larger narrative of government in those eight years in power, but Barack Obama will become president at a different time in history. He campaigned explicitly against Clinton-era policies in the primaries, and he has been swept into power with a larger number of votes than any president before, along with gains for his party in both houses of Congress.

Obama, in other words, has a mandate for change. He also has, in the wake of a frightening economic crisis and two failing wars, an opportunity to enact that change swiftly: Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in election 08, north america, politics | Comments (1)

Meanwhile, Back In Israel…

November 12, 2008 – 11:11 am

Last week’s U.S. election, a solid win for Barack Obama, still left the country in two distinct, opposing groups. There are those who will miss the election and curl up in a ball over its conclusion, grasping at straws to prolong the fun (hey, Al Franken ran!), and those who can’t celebrate Obama’s win or the end of the race because they’re prone on the floor, unconscious from banging their head into a wall for the last 15 months.

But at least the U.S. elections are held at regular, four-year intervals, inevitable and expected each and every leap year’s first November Tuesday.

In those crazy parliamentary democracies, the election can be called for at a moment’s notice. And when Israel is the country involved, early elections are routine, a sardonic-smile inducing feature of life in this sliver of the Middle East.

So of course, amidst world financial crisis, hopeful indirect peace negotiations with one of their hostile neighbors, an uneasy truce with their occupied minorities, occasional Arab-Jew riots, settler violence against their own army, and the developing fear of crazy people making their own nukes, the Israeli government (the Knesset) calls for early elections. There’s nothing better to do, it seems.

While early elections are expected here (no Knesset in the last 20 years has made it through the full four-year term), this one came about in an unusual way. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in middle east, politics | Comments (0)

Prop 8: From Heterosexism to Racism and Back Again

November 10, 2008 – 2:16 am

The big question on November 4th was who was going to be the next president of the United States. For the very first time, no matter which party was elected it was guaranteed to be a historic outcome. As the nation watched the map turn blue another question loomed large in mind of many in GLBTQI community; would their marriages be voted against by the people of California?

Gay marriage has been a hot button issue in politics for quite some time. We are being asked to decide if we socially affirm that marriage should be between a man and a woman as has historically been the case.

The following countries: Belgium (2003), Canada (2005), Spain (2005), and South Africa (2006) have decided to affirm equality and legalize same sex marriage. In The United States the fight for equality is being fought for state by state.

This past election the electorate of California was asked to decide on Proposition 8; an official amendment to the states constitution to affirm marriage as a union between a man and woman as the result of a Supreme Court decision.

“The court concluded that permitting opposite-sex couples to marry while affording same-sex couples access only to the novel and less-recognized status of domestic partnership improperly infringes a same-sex couple’s constitutional rights to marry and to the equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the California Constitution.” [PDF of court decision here]

When the final votes were counted, proposition 8 was passed, thus rendering gay marriage once again illegal in the state of California. To decide marriage should remain between a man and a woman is clearly an indicator of the degree of heterosexist privilege that is alive and well even within the so-called progressive state of California.

As emotions became more and more heated regarding the passing of Proposition 8, the GLBTQI community actively sought some group or organization to blame. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in glbtqi, politics, racism | Comments (2)

Obama’s First Cabinet Picks

November 8, 2008 – 11:15 am

Half of the fun of thinking about a new Obama administration is betting on Cabinet picks. The blogosphere is already abuzz with arguments and suggestions, some of which are based on leaks from the mainstream media while others are wild speculation.

Representative Rahm Emanuel, known as “Rahmbo” to his friends (and enemies) in Congress, has already agreed to take a position as Obama’s White House chief of staff. Emanuel worked in the Clinton White House, and is known equally as a centrist, a hard-core partisan, and a ruthless operator, not to mention the largest recipient of Wall Street money outside of presidential campaigns.

But Emanuel was chosen for his ability to push an agenda, twist arms until they break, and get bills passed. He’s not afraid to offend, and so the reaction to his appointment has been mixed, but no one disputes that he is a tireless worker and an effective one.

The position of Treasury secretary is the most buzzed about at the moment, no surprise with the deepening economic crisis. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in north america, politics | Comments (1)

Obama’s Win and the “Era of Race”

November 6, 2008 – 9:34 am

Jack Carter is a businessman and politician. He is the son of former United States President Jimmy Carter.

It was a night that makes me proud to be an American and proud of all of my fellows who call her “Home”. Barack Obama won a resounding victory with a message of change presented as much by the color of his skin and the sound of his name as by his philosophy of community and shared responsibility as an antidote to the problems before us.

The path before him may not be easy, but it is well-defined. He must move to heal the partisan rift in our country so we can mobilize broad-based support for the targeted solutions we need to stabilize our financial crisis, repair our foreign policy, and develop our infrastructure so we need not fear competition from the rest of the world.

He must do this without antagonizing his Democratic supporters who formed the foundation of his election or bowing too much in their direction.

That is surely easier said than done, but he has several assets on his side: Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in election 08, north america, politics | Comments (0)

Yes We Can, And Yes We Did

November 5, 2008 – 5:04 am

Like many people across the globe I sat on the edge of my seat and watched the election results roll in. Though I have always felt that Obama is a centrist who will govern along that line, with the occasional lean left, I really wanted to see him win the White House.

As the night went on, with more and more states called in his favour, I dared to hope. Then it happened… The words I never thought that I would hear, “CNN calls the election for president elect Barack Obama.” Though I did not expect it, the tears streamed down my face and I knew a sense of joy that I was completely unprepared for.

I am not an American and yet when the announcement came, I found that I had more emotionally invested in the election than I realized.

In my mind I saw a vision of the middle passage. I saw my ancestors chained together, surviving on menstrual blood and feces. I heard the cruel cry of the whip as it sailed through air, permanently scaring the bodies of my ancestors. I heard the weeping of my foremothers as they watched powerlessly as their children were sold away from them. On this night I saw the culmination of all of that suffering for millions of Americans and beyond, for all of us.

The true history of the moment overwhelmed me and I was humbled by the patience, the will to survive, and the grace of my people.

As I watched him give his acceptance speech, I knew it was a moment that I would tell my grandchildren about. It was the moment when I realized that I too had dreamed the impossible dream, and lived to see it realized. My tears flowed freely, and, just for the briefest of moments, I knew what it was to believe that I, a black mother of no real significance, was worth something. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in election 08, north america, politics, racism | Comments (2)