Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Quite a remarkable video. It captures with a certain quiet clarity core aspects of American foreign policy, after cleaning away obfuscation and non-essentials.
Americans should see this video to understand how some people abroad perceive it.
Noam Chomsky would be happy.
Forwarded by zenrainman
(Arvind you can start vituperating now)
Addendum: I guess one thing is that this is somewhat dated. My personal theory is that the US is now in historic decline. However historical context does not hurt
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5 comments:
Terribly unnuanced and misses the whole point. Whats wrong with the world is that powerful always abuse the powerless. This is true everywhere. Just look outside the window in India and see how the powerful abuse the poor. To see Indias great foreign policy, examine how we treat Kashmir and Sri Lanka. Hmm, are we that much better and less hypocritical? No way.
Suppose overnight, instead of America, lets say India were to be the most powerful country? Do you think we will commit less abuse or more? I would venture to guess more - why, because even with our limited power, we maximise hoe extent to which we can abuse it. Our government, abuses its own people (see the policeman use his lathi at will in India), so what do you think it would do if it had power over other peoples.
Arvind
@Arvind...
"see Indias great foreign policy, examine how we treat "Kashmir" "...
was that comment after a shot of coke... or you decided to declare Kashmir as foreign land already...
Then lemme say - look at Indians like you :-(
@!!!
If you prefer read my statement as "how we treat the issues in Kashmir and Sri Lanka"
I think you have to ask yourself if it is foolish to have national identity of any kind and of any nation? For me the answer is a resounding yes.
Of course, if you were to ask me further if one must have any identity at all. To that too my answer will be no. Although the answer to me is clear, someday I hope to find a way to live like that.
So !!!, try to get over your national hang up - this is just unnecessary baggage that you carry - as is any form of identity.
Hi Sidharth,
There is a clear faultline between your position on many issues related to Muslims/Pakistan/ Kashmir and mine and others like Arvind. (Though Arvind's position is anyway irrelevant).
As someone who has experienced at closer quarters the consequences of what happened in Kashmir and what has been happening, there would much substance in what you say. Why don't you do a guest post on this blog, laying out your thinking on Kashmir, what you think is the right solution, and more broadly Indo / Pak relations.
To give you some thing to work against (!), here is what I think. It pleases me to call it the 'enlightened South Indian' position. South Indian, because we have not experienced any of the trauma of partition or seen the Kashmiri problem at closer quarters. So its a detached perspective.
At partition, with Kashmir we violated the rule that was being followed that Muslim majority provinces went to Pakistan and Hindu majority provinces went to India. Among whatever else arguments we used, was the specious one that the ruler was Hindu so it was a Hindu kindgom, or the ruler could choose where it would go. I would say all the problems stemmed from that 'original sin'.
We agreed to do a plebiscite on Kashmir later with the UN -- a fair thing to do. We didn't go ahead with it because we were scared that we would lose.
The agony of Kashmiri Hindus is as much a consequence then of India's actions as of Pakistani actions to take back Kashmir.
What to do now? A fundamental part of the right answer would be to respect the wishes of the people (as was envisaged with the plebiscite). Unfortunately the picture is so distorted with the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus that a straightforward referendum would not be appropriate (it would not be impossible to do a referendum that captures the opinion of all Kashmiris).
A Northern Ireland kind of solution would be pretty cool, with power-sharing between Pakistan, India, and Kashmiris themselves. But with hardline elements in both India and Pakistan still hanging strong, this doesn't seem possible now. Perhaps 20 years more of bloodshed might tire people enough to look for such a solution.
My final question to you is about the composition of Kashmiri Hindus. Kashmiri pundits get a bunch of mention in the media. What about other Kashmiri Hindus. Why this dichotomy ?
Despo, you miss a vital point. There is simply no basis to the rule governing partition. It was an arbitrarily power sharing rule. And like anything to do with power it has nothing to do with justice.
According to your rule, as long as a group of people occupy an area for 300 years and gain majority population the land becomes theirs. So your rule encourages oppressors to stick around longer and then claim the area legally!!
The real problem which you have missed completely and is this notion of group identity. This is one of the banes of human civilization. The more we stay away from this trap, the better off all of humanity will be.
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