I have been reading this book The Glass Palace the last week. As a historical fiction fan I have found it quite fascinating because of the different prospective that it offers. It is written by a Bengali author, in English, and is about the British empire from the late 1800s to WWII from the prospective of an extended Indian/Burmese family. It is a nice change to read something, in its original language, about the colonial era from the prospective of those being colonized, rather then the British colonialists.
The reason I am writing about this is that a part in the book, as well as being in these countries torn apart by violent revolutions, makes me finally "get" Gandhi. As I wrote earlier, I read an autobiography of Gandhi awhile ago and this gave me a much more full picture of his life then I had before. I now know him as more then just a peaceful, Dohti wearing guy, but I still thought before today that he was too much of an idealist.
The thing about Gandhi is that even though he wanted India to be free, he wanted even more to solve India's social ills. In fact, he said that he did not want the British to go until India was ready to rule itself in a just way. Even at the point of independence, he still thought India was not really ready to rule itself. Also, he never wanted there to be a violent revolution. Despite the fact that it took 40 years for India to gain its freedom, he fought ferociously against the elements that wanted to go to war with the British.
When I first read this, I thought it was very admirable, but I did think that it was a little weak. Granted his strategy did work, but it took an incredible amount of time, and only worked because the British got tired of ruling a country that did not want them there. I did think that perhaps if the Indians has taken a more active course they may have still had independence, but just a lot sooner.
The thing that I did not take in to account is that, in general, even if your violent revolution is a success, you end up with a country ruled by violent revolutionaries. The problem is that the kind of people that are effective at fighting a war are also terrible, ruthless leaders after the war is over. A large part of the reason why a chaotic country like India became a stable democracy is that its political revolution resulted in politicians, not generals, becoming its first leaders. I am not an expert on Nehru, nor do I agree with all his ideas, but at least he was a secular politician who believed in democracy. The chances of a violent revolution producing a leader who fits that description are slight at best. The problem is that there is only one Gandhi, so violent revolutions will exist for as long as there are people who do not like their government.
Incidentally, I do realize that the American revolution is the one example I can think of where a violent revolution did not result in an early government with totalitarian tendencies. I am not sure yet why I think this happened the way that it did. One thing I can think of is that it was a different era, and it was English colonists fighting against the English crown, not another race or culture of people. It also, however, makes one think about how unique the early Americans were to take power for England but then give all that power to a democratic government. Perhaps they were one of a kind in their own way as well.
Showing posts with label Social Commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Commentary. Show all posts
Friday, December 7, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Beach Reading and More
While traveling through Asia, I have tried to rectify my deficient knowledge of world history by reading Asian history or historical fiction. No this is not beach reading, but I have never been the type to read about poor beautiful girls in New York trying to find a rich husband. Shogun gave me insight to Japan's rich feudal heritage. In India, the Lewis Fischer's biography of Gandhi and William Dalrymple's The Age of Kali taught me a great deal of Indian history. Thailand has few authors that write about anything except finding oneself, doing drugs, beaches, time in the infamous Bangkok jail, and marrying prostitutes. The real winners combine all 5 in one. Cheng and Eng, a fictional book based on the real Siamese twins, gave me a glimpse of 1800's life on the Mekong in Thailand. Ambitv Gosh's The Glass Palace concentrated more on colonial Burma, India, and Malaysia with a little of Thailand mixed in.
Volumes are written about places where terrible things have happened. I started my breif studies on Cambodian history with First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung. I tore through this 250 page book in only 6 hours on the ferry from Koh Tao. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in a first hand account of what the Khmer Rouge did. In brief, the Khmer Rouge overtook Phenom Pehn in April 1975 and drove the inhabitants of this city and others into countryside work camps. In the following 4 years and 8 months, they enslaved their population in farming camps to fulfill some Utopian communist dream. They summarily executed those with higher education or loyal to the former government. They tortured and killed some 14,000 - 20,000 men, women, and children in a high school in Phenom Pehn now know as S-21 or Tuol Sleung.
Ian and I visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum yesterday. It is quite ironic that the tuk-tuk driver's touts to tourists usually start with "hello, want to see the killing fields and S-21?" The class rooms of this sunny high school were turned into between 1 - 30 cells each. Prisoners were kept shackled to the floor and tortured. Like the Nazis, the KR were fastidious about their record keeping. They took photos of each person alive, and many dead which are all shown in the museum. The people were taken to the killing fields, about 15km away, and bludgeoned before being left to die in a mass grave. In Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp which I visited in 1997, the solemn grounds have been able to mellow after 60 years. However, the barbed-wire wrapped Tuol Sleung still has violence in the air. There is a photo exhibit of men and women who worked (likely forced) in the prison. They are still living among the people of Cambodia, many of whom lost loved ones. There is still blood on many of the floors of the cells. The pictures of the main architects, one was Duch who will received a hearing on Monday in the war crimes tribunal, are scribbled with angry Khmer graffiti. There exist the actual tools of torture, including a water-boarding tank. It's nice to know that some of our presidential hopefuls endorse the torture techniques of the Khmer Rouge.
Finally the North Vietnamese, having recently defeated the Americans and South Vietnamese, invaded to end the Khmer Rouge reign in 1979 because the KR were massacring Vietnamese in the Mekong Delta. Sadly, the KH were responsible for the extermination of between 1.4 - 2.2 million Cambodians either directly or through starvation and tens of thousands of Vietnamese in South Vietnam only 4 years and 8 months of their reign.
Henry Kamm was a NYT correspondent in Cambodia from 1970 - the 1990s. He skillfully penned Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land and answered many of the burning questions I had about the rise, reign, and fall of the Khmer Rouge.
I also highly recommend this book as a thoughtful history and analysis of this dark period in history. It's not exactly beach reading, but that's not what I'm here for.
Check back in a few days for links to pictures I took at Tuol Sleng.
- Nisha
Volumes are written about places where terrible things have happened. I started my breif studies on Cambodian history with First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung. I tore through this 250 page book in only 6 hours on the ferry from Koh Tao. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in a first hand account of what the Khmer Rouge did. In brief, the Khmer Rouge overtook Phenom Pehn in April 1975 and drove the inhabitants of this city and others into countryside work camps. In the following 4 years and 8 months, they enslaved their population in farming camps to fulfill some Utopian communist dream. They summarily executed those with higher education or loyal to the former government. They tortured and killed some 14,000 - 20,000 men, women, and children in a high school in Phenom Pehn now know as S-21 or Tuol Sleung.
Ian and I visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum yesterday. It is quite ironic that the tuk-tuk driver's touts to tourists usually start with "hello, want to see the killing fields and S-21?" The class rooms of this sunny high school were turned into between 1 - 30 cells each. Prisoners were kept shackled to the floor and tortured. Like the Nazis, the KR were fastidious about their record keeping. They took photos of each person alive, and many dead which are all shown in the museum. The people were taken to the killing fields, about 15km away, and bludgeoned before being left to die in a mass grave. In Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp which I visited in 1997, the solemn grounds have been able to mellow after 60 years. However, the barbed-wire wrapped Tuol Sleung still has violence in the air. There is a photo exhibit of men and women who worked (likely forced) in the prison. They are still living among the people of Cambodia, many of whom lost loved ones. There is still blood on many of the floors of the cells. The pictures of the main architects, one was Duch who will received a hearing on Monday in the war crimes tribunal, are scribbled with angry Khmer graffiti. There exist the actual tools of torture, including a water-boarding tank. It's nice to know that some of our presidential hopefuls endorse the torture techniques of the Khmer Rouge.
Finally the North Vietnamese, having recently defeated the Americans and South Vietnamese, invaded to end the Khmer Rouge reign in 1979 because the KR were massacring Vietnamese in the Mekong Delta. Sadly, the KH were responsible for the extermination of between 1.4 - 2.2 million Cambodians either directly or through starvation and tens of thousands of Vietnamese in South Vietnam only 4 years and 8 months of their reign.
Henry Kamm was a NYT correspondent in Cambodia from 1970 - the 1990s. He skillfully penned Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land and answered many of the burning questions I had about the rise, reign, and fall of the Khmer Rouge.
I also highly recommend this book as a thoughtful history and analysis of this dark period in history. It's not exactly beach reading, but that's not what I'm here for.
Check back in a few days for links to pictures I took at Tuol Sleng.
- Nisha
Government Matters
In the US these days, most talk about government or politics focuses on the high level philosophical stuff, Foreign Policy, Abortion, Church and State, etc. Not to say that this not impotent stuff, but this trip has highlighted for me that there is another dimension to government that is rarely talked about, overall competence.
By overall competence I mean the ability of the government to build roads, run schools, keep basic law and order. Basically its ability to provide a stable environment for people to live and work. As I have seen on this trip, the ability of governments to do these things is not necessarily related to how they are selected or what high level positions they believe in. At the highest level we have been in countries that range from stable, multi-party democracies like Japan and India, to Vietnam and Thailand, which are both currently run by unelected governments. All are basically capitalist countries, with somewhat of a socialist bent (Vietnam is officially communist, but that is not very true in practice).
In terms of overall competence I would have to obviously rank Japan as first. The infrastructure is top notch all over the country, the trains are amazing and crime is non-existent. Thailand I would also give high marks to, because it does a lot for how much money it has. Most things there seem to run at more or less a US level of quality, but I assume that they spend a lot less money to get there. India and Vietnam are similar in a lot of ways, because things seem to run OK, but you still run into some substandard roads and bad trash collection. Also, while some people in these two countries are doing very well, others are left behind in substantial poverty. Cambodia's one-party democratic government is basically a failed state. No one has any confidence in the government to do anything, and almost every road and school in the country has a sign out front thanking the country or NGO that built it for them, usually Japan.
The interesting thing about all these countries, as well as the US, is that a good number of people in all of them think the government is run by a bunch of crooks. Most of the time these thoughts are backed up by evidence. The accusations very from the money just disappearing, like in Cambodia, to the usual shady government contract deals that exist pretty much everywhere there are politicians with money to spend. Pork barrel stuff also shows up pretty much everywhere, like Shinkansens (bullet trains) to nowhere in Japan. However, even if crooks run the show everywhere, their output quality varies immensely.
The aggravating thing about this is that although the competence of government matters so much, I am not sure how one controls it. Why should India and Vietnam have similar public services despite the fact that one government is elected, and the other is authoritarian? As a voter in the US it is annoying that this never even really comes up as an issue. We know politicians positions on almost every philosophical issue, but not if they can build a decent airport.
My last thought is as to how the US fits within the ranking of countries above. Overall our government is fairly competent at basic service. We have very good roads, there are a reasonable number of cops and garbage does not stack up in the streets. However, we also pay a lot of money to achieve this decent level of service. I think our biggest problem is that our expectations for the final product of the things our government builds is so low. I am sure in Japan, Japan Railways (JR) is a giant pit of patronage and wasted money. I am sure there were all sorts of shady dealing with building the new airport in Bangkok. But, at least in these places they get an incredible train system and a really nice looking new airport. The most upsetting thing is that we get ripped off, as every country does, but often do not even get a world class product.
I guess my conclusion is that Americans should raise their expectations of government and not buy that things cannot be done, or cannot be done well. If the semi-authoritarian government in Thailand can build a nice new subway line, why can't we do so in New York or Boston? We might get ripped off, but it is better to at least get something for your money then nothing at all.
By overall competence I mean the ability of the government to build roads, run schools, keep basic law and order. Basically its ability to provide a stable environment for people to live and work. As I have seen on this trip, the ability of governments to do these things is not necessarily related to how they are selected or what high level positions they believe in. At the highest level we have been in countries that range from stable, multi-party democracies like Japan and India, to Vietnam and Thailand, which are both currently run by unelected governments. All are basically capitalist countries, with somewhat of a socialist bent (Vietnam is officially communist, but that is not very true in practice).
In terms of overall competence I would have to obviously rank Japan as first. The infrastructure is top notch all over the country, the trains are amazing and crime is non-existent. Thailand I would also give high marks to, because it does a lot for how much money it has. Most things there seem to run at more or less a US level of quality, but I assume that they spend a lot less money to get there. India and Vietnam are similar in a lot of ways, because things seem to run OK, but you still run into some substandard roads and bad trash collection. Also, while some people in these two countries are doing very well, others are left behind in substantial poverty. Cambodia's one-party democratic government is basically a failed state. No one has any confidence in the government to do anything, and almost every road and school in the country has a sign out front thanking the country or NGO that built it for them, usually Japan.
The interesting thing about all these countries, as well as the US, is that a good number of people in all of them think the government is run by a bunch of crooks. Most of the time these thoughts are backed up by evidence. The accusations very from the money just disappearing, like in Cambodia, to the usual shady government contract deals that exist pretty much everywhere there are politicians with money to spend. Pork barrel stuff also shows up pretty much everywhere, like Shinkansens (bullet trains) to nowhere in Japan. However, even if crooks run the show everywhere, their output quality varies immensely.
The aggravating thing about this is that although the competence of government matters so much, I am not sure how one controls it. Why should India and Vietnam have similar public services despite the fact that one government is elected, and the other is authoritarian? As a voter in the US it is annoying that this never even really comes up as an issue. We know politicians positions on almost every philosophical issue, but not if they can build a decent airport.
My last thought is as to how the US fits within the ranking of countries above. Overall our government is fairly competent at basic service. We have very good roads, there are a reasonable number of cops and garbage does not stack up in the streets. However, we also pay a lot of money to achieve this decent level of service. I think our biggest problem is that our expectations for the final product of the things our government builds is so low. I am sure in Japan, Japan Railways (JR) is a giant pit of patronage and wasted money. I am sure there were all sorts of shady dealing with building the new airport in Bangkok. But, at least in these places they get an incredible train system and a really nice looking new airport. The most upsetting thing is that we get ripped off, as every country does, but often do not even get a world class product.
I guess my conclusion is that Americans should raise their expectations of government and not buy that things cannot be done, or cannot be done well. If the semi-authoritarian government in Thailand can build a nice new subway line, why can't we do so in New York or Boston? We might get ripped off, but it is better to at least get something for your money then nothing at all.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Royal Envy?
I know that I have written about this before, but the reverence for the King in Thailand is something that I have never seen before and had no idea existed before we arrived.
My first reaction to this omnipresence and love of the king was to have more of an understanding of how personality cults work. You are here for a little while and all of a sudden you start liking the king, and thinking that he must be a pretty great guy. This is not to say that he is not a great guy, but I really have not investigated enough to know. You just see everyone wearing their yellow shirts and putting their picture of the king in the nicest spot in their business and think, "How could all these people be wrong? If everyone loves the king so much, then I should probably like the king too".
The thing that is even more convincing is that the reverence of the king is not forced, like North Korea, et al., but rather people seem to really like him. It is not like you have to wear the yellow shirt, or put up his picture, but people genuinely seem to like to do so. Some things are certainly done by the government, like the billboards, or the parade in Ching Mae of school kids wishing him well in his current illness. But even the school kids seemed to really take the parade seriously and liked being there.
The other thing Nisha and I have talked about is a kind of jealously that we have no figure to look up to as much as Thais look up to their king. The thing about the king is that he is not a pure figurehead, like most modern monarchs. My understanding is that he does still have a role in politics, but it is more of a guiding force, then day to day politics and administration. Thus he has this role of watching over the country, without having to delve into the mud pit where the politicians must reside.
One might say that we in the US had this type of reverence of the president, but I do not think it was ever as intense as Thais have for the king. Even before the down and dirty politics of the Clinton and Bush eras diminished the reverence for the president, the president was still a politician. As such he must be in involved in the nasty business of politics and sling mud like everyone else. To some degree it must be nice to have a person who embodies the guiding force of the nation, while being able to stay above the fray.
My first reaction to this omnipresence and love of the king was to have more of an understanding of how personality cults work. You are here for a little while and all of a sudden you start liking the king, and thinking that he must be a pretty great guy. This is not to say that he is not a great guy, but I really have not investigated enough to know. You just see everyone wearing their yellow shirts and putting their picture of the king in the nicest spot in their business and think, "How could all these people be wrong? If everyone loves the king so much, then I should probably like the king too".
The thing that is even more convincing is that the reverence of the king is not forced, like North Korea, et al., but rather people seem to really like him. It is not like you have to wear the yellow shirt, or put up his picture, but people genuinely seem to like to do so. Some things are certainly done by the government, like the billboards, or the parade in Ching Mae of school kids wishing him well in his current illness. But even the school kids seemed to really take the parade seriously and liked being there.
The other thing Nisha and I have talked about is a kind of jealously that we have no figure to look up to as much as Thais look up to their king. The thing about the king is that he is not a pure figurehead, like most modern monarchs. My understanding is that he does still have a role in politics, but it is more of a guiding force, then day to day politics and administration. Thus he has this role of watching over the country, without having to delve into the mud pit where the politicians must reside.
One might say that we in the US had this type of reverence of the president, but I do not think it was ever as intense as Thais have for the king. Even before the down and dirty politics of the Clinton and Bush eras diminished the reverence for the president, the president was still a politician. As such he must be in involved in the nasty business of politics and sling mud like everyone else. To some degree it must be nice to have a person who embodies the guiding force of the nation, while being able to stay above the fray.
Bobby Jindal and Mistaken Pride
Note - I have wanted to write about this for a long time, but was held up by other things. Anyway, I know I am a little behind the current events, but I still wanted to write it.
Early on when we were in India we were astonished by the amount of news coverage given to the visit of US astronaut Sunita Williams to Gujarat. We did not think that there was anything particularly wrong with celebrating the achievements of Ms. Williams, but the level of attention seemed a little excessive for the visit of a half Indian American who had spent her entire life in the US. This was our introduction to this strange Indian need to celebrate people who achieved things in other parts of the world and have even the slightest ties to India. As I would later read, Norah Jones was also followed very closely when she was at the top of the US music world.
Fast forward to the election of Bobby Jindal as governor of Louisiana. As we had expected, the election of this 2nd generation Indian was a topic of news coverage, conversation and even a celebration in his ancestral town in Punjab. All this was despite the fact that most Indians had no idea who he is or what he stands for. In fact, people were extremely surprised when we would tell them that he is in the same political party as George Bush, who is not exactly a popular figure in India.
People had heard only a little at most of his story. For those unaware, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is the son of parents who immigrated to Baton Rouge in the 70s. His real Indian name is very rarely heard and he has never visited the place where his family is from. He converted to Catholicism when he was 14 (although I have on good authority that this conversion was unknown at least one member of the Baton Rouge Indian community at the time, leading me to question the real timing, as such a thing as a little Indian boy going to church alone would seem to be a topic of conversation). In his later achievements and political career his background has been de-emphasized. Rumor has it he even asks his Indian supporters in Louisiana not to wear traditional Indian dress to his fund raisers, as pictures of him with people in traditional dress may appear in the media. When we were watching his acceptance speech on TV we could barley contain our laughter at his now strong southern accent, which is not a common trait among Ivy League educated 2nd generation Indian kids. In short his Indian heritage seems to be something for him to run away from, not a source of any pride.
None the less, I am not actually here to rip Bobby Jindal for doing what he had to do to advance his career. It is certainly everyone right to assimilate to the US culture as much as they want, after all I do not know any Eastern European languages or dances, I have an English name and am not Eastern Orthodox. I do find the ferocity that he has rejected Indian culture a little drastic however, if I was running for office and someone wanted to bring Perogies to a fund raiser I would not stop them.
The thing I actually find more disturbing is that Indians will waste time trying to love and admire someone who rejects his connection to them. On the day we left several writers from the Times of India were finally getting around to addressing this. I share their opinion, that India needs to reserve its energy for supporting its own heroes, not lionising people for whom blood is their only lasting connection.
Early on when we were in India we were astonished by the amount of news coverage given to the visit of US astronaut Sunita Williams to Gujarat. We did not think that there was anything particularly wrong with celebrating the achievements of Ms. Williams, but the level of attention seemed a little excessive for the visit of a half Indian American who had spent her entire life in the US. This was our introduction to this strange Indian need to celebrate people who achieved things in other parts of the world and have even the slightest ties to India. As I would later read, Norah Jones was also followed very closely when she was at the top of the US music world.
Fast forward to the election of Bobby Jindal as governor of Louisiana. As we had expected, the election of this 2nd generation Indian was a topic of news coverage, conversation and even a celebration in his ancestral town in Punjab. All this was despite the fact that most Indians had no idea who he is or what he stands for. In fact, people were extremely surprised when we would tell them that he is in the same political party as George Bush, who is not exactly a popular figure in India.
People had heard only a little at most of his story. For those unaware, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is the son of parents who immigrated to Baton Rouge in the 70s. His real Indian name is very rarely heard and he has never visited the place where his family is from. He converted to Catholicism when he was 14 (although I have on good authority that this conversion was unknown at least one member of the Baton Rouge Indian community at the time, leading me to question the real timing, as such a thing as a little Indian boy going to church alone would seem to be a topic of conversation). In his later achievements and political career his background has been de-emphasized. Rumor has it he even asks his Indian supporters in Louisiana not to wear traditional Indian dress to his fund raisers, as pictures of him with people in traditional dress may appear in the media. When we were watching his acceptance speech on TV we could barley contain our laughter at his now strong southern accent, which is not a common trait among Ivy League educated 2nd generation Indian kids. In short his Indian heritage seems to be something for him to run away from, not a source of any pride.
None the less, I am not actually here to rip Bobby Jindal for doing what he had to do to advance his career. It is certainly everyone right to assimilate to the US culture as much as they want, after all I do not know any Eastern European languages or dances, I have an English name and am not Eastern Orthodox. I do find the ferocity that he has rejected Indian culture a little drastic however, if I was running for office and someone wanted to bring Perogies to a fund raiser I would not stop them.
The thing I actually find more disturbing is that Indians will waste time trying to love and admire someone who rejects his connection to them. On the day we left several writers from the Times of India were finally getting around to addressing this. I share their opinion, that India needs to reserve its energy for supporting its own heroes, not lionising people for whom blood is their only lasting connection.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Long Live the King - Updated
When you arrive at the Bangkok airport, the one of the first things you notice is the large signs on the side of the jetways that say "Long Live the King". Since these are in the place usually associated with advertisements, I assumed that they were referring to the "King of Beers" or something like that. In fact, when you look at the sign and see only the King's picture on it, you realize that it is actually put up by the government and does refer to the King of Thailand.
I had always understood Thailand to be a constitutional monarchy, which is true, more or less. However, the reverence and visibility of the King is something that I have never seen before. The King's picture is everywhere, almost all businesses have portraits of him behind the cash register and his picture is on all sorts of billboards and signs around the city. Evidently this is the year of his 80th birthday, so in commemoration the Thais wear these yellow polo shirts with the royal emblem on the pocket. These shirts are for sale everywhere and for some reason yesterday at least half of all the Thais on the street in Bangkok were wearing them.
There is nothing wrong with this, pre se, but it does strike a westerner as odd to have one person's picture so prominent everywhere. Also, after being in Japan and India, where flags and patriotic symbols are less pronounced then in the US, it is strange to see the number of Thai and Royal (yellow with royal emblem) flags flying everywhere.
The interesting thing is how the King himself seems to be so revered despite the fact that he is a constitutional monarch. Perhaps this is why the bloodless coup here in 2006 caused so little disruption. It does not seem that any political figure is even 1/10th as respected or popular as the King himself.
Update (6/11/07) - As for the yellow shirts, there was some reason that more people then usual were wearing them on that Monday. However, they are very popular at all times, with at least 20% of Thais wearing them on any given day.
I had always understood Thailand to be a constitutional monarchy, which is true, more or less. However, the reverence and visibility of the King is something that I have never seen before. The King's picture is everywhere, almost all businesses have portraits of him behind the cash register and his picture is on all sorts of billboards and signs around the city. Evidently this is the year of his 80th birthday, so in commemoration the Thais wear these yellow polo shirts with the royal emblem on the pocket. These shirts are for sale everywhere and for some reason yesterday at least half of all the Thais on the street in Bangkok were wearing them.
There is nothing wrong with this, pre se, but it does strike a westerner as odd to have one person's picture so prominent everywhere. Also, after being in Japan and India, where flags and patriotic symbols are less pronounced then in the US, it is strange to see the number of Thai and Royal (yellow with royal emblem) flags flying everywhere.
The interesting thing is how the King himself seems to be so revered despite the fact that he is a constitutional monarch. Perhaps this is why the bloodless coup here in 2006 caused so little disruption. It does not seem that any political figure is even 1/10th as respected or popular as the King himself.
Update (6/11/07) - As for the yellow shirts, there was some reason that more people then usual were wearing them on that Monday. However, they are very popular at all times, with at least 20% of Thais wearing them on any given day.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Indian Junk News
One thing about being out of the country for so long is that you realize how so much of the news that you obsess about on a daily basis is actually quite irrelevant on a grand scale. I assume there is still a war going on, but besides that I do not know much else. However, my interest in US irrelevant news has been supplanted for my interest in Indian junk news, which is actually a lot more dramatic, in my opinion. The fact that an angry mob is usually on call at any moment is probably the biggest reason for the drama. Noting spices up a news story like an angry mob.
Here are 2 of the best that are currently going on:
Note - I am not a journalist and am giving my crude synopsis of the following stories. If I get anything wrong leave a comment and I will correct.
Indian Idol
So here they just finished up the 3rd season of Indian Idol. It is as popular here as it is in the US, if not more. Nisha and I watched the final, but we did not make it to the end since there were just too many performances of people who are probably grand old men of Indian singing, however unknown to us.
The winner as expected was Prashant Tamang. His story is heartwarming because he is an Nepalese-Indian Kolkata police officer who was not the judges favorite, but captured the hearts of the people. His father was also a cop killed in an accident, forcing him to join the force to support his family. Nisha and I also had interest in him because he is originally from Darjeeling, a charming mountain town we visited 3 years ago.
He was such a big deal in the hills that they banned alcohol sales for a week surrounding the final in Darjeeling. When he won people took to the street in joy all night. Also, people in Nepal donated 50,000 rupees to cops in India so that they could make numerous SMS votes on his behalf without bankrupting themselves.
So for a few days all was well, but this being India, all stories must end with a riot. A few days after Prashant's win some Delhi DJ made disparaging comments about him and the Nepalese-Indian community. In Siliguri, also in the West Bengal hills, a mob of Presant supporters was marching in protest of this, and was accused by some other local residents of assaulting a woman. Another mob of angry residents was formed and as Michael Buffer would say "Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!". Several hours and burned cars and bikes later police restored order in what was described as a war zone. So far since then the Indian Idol peace has held.
Ram Setu
Hindus believe in the story of Rama, a god/king who lived in ancient times (I believe around 2500-1500 BC), as the story goes. One of the things that he was supposed to have done is build a bridge called Ram Setu from the southern part of India to Sri Lanka. There is in fact a strip of very shallow water between the two, but scientists say that it is a naturally occurring geologic formation.
I gather for some time, the Indian government, spurred primarily by the DMK party that rules Tamil Nadu (big state in south India) has wanted to dredge the channel between Sri Lanka and India. This project would be a boon to Tamil Nadu, but would also destroy the Ram Setu. Thus Hindu fundamentalists and their party the BJP are very against the idea.
This flared up recently because of a new court filing that spurred the DMK leader to call Ram a myth and challenge anyone who thinks the bridge exists to show him Ram's engineering degree. Verbal potshots have gone back and forth and a DMK mob sacked the BJP office in Tamil Nadu. The DMK leader refuses to backtrack on his comments, so the story trucks on.
At first I thought most in the US would think, as I did, that it would be pretty crazy in a secular country to halt a key public works project in order to not destroy a legendary bridge which science has declared natural. However, since then I realized that we are just lucky that our dominant religion does not have any myths that would get in the way of such a project. I do not think that it is any more of a unprovable myth that Ram built his bridge as opposed to a guy building a ship that saved all the animals on earth from a world-wide flood.
In fact, I think in the US we would actually be less likely to do the project, if it destroyed some biblical myth, then they are in India (where the project is moving forward). Also, if a major politician in the US made similar belligerent comments towards Jesus, I would speculate that he/she would be forced to leave office immediately, and probably have to do into hiding. Actually, this might be just what it would take for us to get an angry mob together, and have some more spicy news for ourselves.
Here are 2 of the best that are currently going on:
Note - I am not a journalist and am giving my crude synopsis of the following stories. If I get anything wrong leave a comment and I will correct.
Indian Idol
So here they just finished up the 3rd season of Indian Idol. It is as popular here as it is in the US, if not more. Nisha and I watched the final, but we did not make it to the end since there were just too many performances of people who are probably grand old men of Indian singing, however unknown to us.
The winner as expected was Prashant Tamang. His story is heartwarming because he is an Nepalese-Indian Kolkata police officer who was not the judges favorite, but captured the hearts of the people. His father was also a cop killed in an accident, forcing him to join the force to support his family. Nisha and I also had interest in him because he is originally from Darjeeling, a charming mountain town we visited 3 years ago.
He was such a big deal in the hills that they banned alcohol sales for a week surrounding the final in Darjeeling. When he won people took to the street in joy all night. Also, people in Nepal donated 50,000 rupees to cops in India so that they could make numerous SMS votes on his behalf without bankrupting themselves.
So for a few days all was well, but this being India, all stories must end with a riot. A few days after Prashant's win some Delhi DJ made disparaging comments about him and the Nepalese-Indian community. In Siliguri, also in the West Bengal hills, a mob of Presant supporters was marching in protest of this, and was accused by some other local residents of assaulting a woman. Another mob of angry residents was formed and as Michael Buffer would say "Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!". Several hours and burned cars and bikes later police restored order in what was described as a war zone. So far since then the Indian Idol peace has held.
Ram Setu
Hindus believe in the story of Rama, a god/king who lived in ancient times (I believe around 2500-1500 BC), as the story goes. One of the things that he was supposed to have done is build a bridge called Ram Setu from the southern part of India to Sri Lanka. There is in fact a strip of very shallow water between the two, but scientists say that it is a naturally occurring geologic formation.
I gather for some time, the Indian government, spurred primarily by the DMK party that rules Tamil Nadu (big state in south India) has wanted to dredge the channel between Sri Lanka and India. This project would be a boon to Tamil Nadu, but would also destroy the Ram Setu. Thus Hindu fundamentalists and their party the BJP are very against the idea.
This flared up recently because of a new court filing that spurred the DMK leader to call Ram a myth and challenge anyone who thinks the bridge exists to show him Ram's engineering degree. Verbal potshots have gone back and forth and a DMK mob sacked the BJP office in Tamil Nadu. The DMK leader refuses to backtrack on his comments, so the story trucks on.
At first I thought most in the US would think, as I did, that it would be pretty crazy in a secular country to halt a key public works project in order to not destroy a legendary bridge which science has declared natural. However, since then I realized that we are just lucky that our dominant religion does not have any myths that would get in the way of such a project. I do not think that it is any more of a unprovable myth that Ram built his bridge as opposed to a guy building a ship that saved all the animals on earth from a world-wide flood.
In fact, I think in the US we would actually be less likely to do the project, if it destroyed some biblical myth, then they are in India (where the project is moving forward). Also, if a major politician in the US made similar belligerent comments towards Jesus, I would speculate that he/she would be forced to leave office immediately, and probably have to do into hiding. Actually, this might be just what it would take for us to get an angry mob together, and have some more spicy news for ourselves.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Indian Newspapers
One really nice thing about India is that English language TV and
newspapers are quite common for a country where English is not the
main language.
newspapers are quite common for a country where English is not the
main language.
The highlight of this is the Indian English language newspapers that
are very common, at least in Delhi. Several observations:
- A lot of the news in them is very sad, and makes you realize how
many people there are here, and how many bad things happen. For
instance, in Delhi at least 2 or 3 people get run over by bus a day.
When you see the state of the roads this makes a lot of sense, but you
know that in a western country it would be considered totally
unacceptable, here it is a fact of life.
- They also have a lot of really bizarre news stories that are
absolutely hilarious. Yesterday we were reading about a female circus
elephant who fell in love with a wild male elephant, and has become an
attraction for villagers as her and her mate frolic in the ponds
around the village. The story became quite dramatic when they talk
about how she no longer responds to her mahout (elephant driver), who
nurtured her like a father since birth.
- Reading a lot of the opinion pieces, etc., India seems to feel that
it is on the cusp of finally becoming a first class world power.
There seems to be a lot of nationalism and pride about the military
and India's increasing role in the world. In a lot of ways it is more
like the US then a lot of other places, because so much attention is
focused on the role of the country internationally, as a player and
not an observer.
- The trash celebrity culture has really taken off here similar to in
the US. There are many pages every day in the paper of just celebrity
gossip and pictures. They even have their own version of the Paris
Hilton jail story which involves the brother of a famous actor named
Sanjay Dutt, who is evidently in the slammer for illegal hunting of
all things.
- Despite the fact that India is a stable democracy, a lot of stuff is
settled by angry mobs. When they cover a incident of someone getting
hit by a bus, it seems that usually the driver heads for the hills, as
his bus if often taken over by an angry mob. Also there has been a
running story about a teacher who was accused in a TV expose for
pushing a student into prostitution. This resulted quickly in the
local police station being sacked by an angry mob. However, it has
come out in later days that although he was involved in prostitution,
it is not likely that his students were involved. No apology from the
angry mob has been forthcoming.
Women in the papers
We took the train to Agra today to see the Taj Mahal for the day. I have been here before 12 years ago, but this is a place that you can visit 1,000 times and never tire of its stunning beauty. For those unfamiliar with the story, it was built by Shah Jahan in the 1600's as a tomb for his wife who died in childbirth (her 14th!).
It is lamentable that in a country that can produce such a moving memorial to a women, men commit hideous atrocities against women everyday On the 15th page of the paper yesterday, I read of a story that curdled my blood. In a village in UP (east of Delhi), a man caught his teenage daughter and a village boy in a "compromising position" in the fields. While the rest of the village tried to decide what punishment should befall these two teenagers, the father, tied the two kids to a bed by their wrists then beheaded first the boy then the girl. The article went so far as to mention that the boy's body was claimed and cremated by his family. There was no one to claim the girl's. There also was no mention of criminal charges against the "father."
There are also many articles, mainly by women, about how Delhi generally unsafe for women. When a woman defended herself with karate against two would-be-assailants on a crowded street (while hundreds stood around and watched while she called for help), it made the paper. Thankfully, I have only been the victim of vulgar looks from men, mainly in Delhi. These filthy, vile creatures lurk around the tourist areas and won't hesitate to crane their necks, point, and gawk at westerners, even modestly dressed ones. I never experienced such things when I lived in Calcutta for a month or anywhere else in India for that matter. I can't wait to be out of Delhi for good.
There are a few positives that I have noticed as a change from my previous visits to India. There is more mention of domestic violence as a crime in the papers. There are large billboards with help numbers for women. Also, there are a few articles in the paper about military men being disciplined for abuses against females in the military. These are steps ahead in a constant battle for women's equality.
It is lamentable that in a country that can produce such a moving memorial to a women, men commit hideous atrocities against women everyday On the 15th page of the paper yesterday, I read of a story that curdled my blood. In a village in UP (east of Delhi), a man caught his teenage daughter and a village boy in a "compromising position" in the fields. While the rest of the village tried to decide what punishment should befall these two teenagers, the father, tied the two kids to a bed by their wrists then beheaded first the boy then the girl. The article went so far as to mention that the boy's body was claimed and cremated by his family. There was no one to claim the girl's. There also was no mention of criminal charges against the "father."
There are also many articles, mainly by women, about how Delhi generally unsafe for women. When a woman defended herself with karate against two would-be-assailants on a crowded street (while hundreds stood around and watched while she called for help), it made the paper. Thankfully, I have only been the victim of vulgar looks from men, mainly in Delhi. These filthy, vile creatures lurk around the tourist areas and won't hesitate to crane their necks, point, and gawk at westerners, even modestly dressed ones. I never experienced such things when I lived in Calcutta for a month or anywhere else in India for that matter. I can't wait to be out of Delhi for good.
There are a few positives that I have noticed as a change from my previous visits to India. There is more mention of domestic violence as a crime in the papers. There are large billboards with help numbers for women. Also, there are a few articles in the paper about military men being disciplined for abuses against females in the military. These are steps ahead in a constant battle for women's equality.
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