The 2008-09 season of shock, destruction and devastation appears to be absolutely unending. There has been few good things this past year, and while I'm thankful for the silver lining, there seems to be a grim and morose tinge in the air all round. The world continues to sink deeper and deeper into recession, and anger and frustration in people find more dangerous outlets each day. No doubt terrorism appears to be so damn recession-proof.
And for every fallacy, every blunder, there is a quick and easy tendency to find someone to blame for, someone to target all anger and frustration at, even if that is an elusive someone like the CDSs of insurance or the secret intelligence wing of the enemy country. Even when disputes in IIT boiled over around trivial things like trophies and competition to the point where things reached the lowest point ever, every single person involved continues to hurl the blame at the other side. Not my fault honey, "the all-powerful foreign hand" did it!
The finance industry shook and tumbled and took economies of several nations apart, and while banking and insurance industry as a whole will never escape the blame for it, people who got hefty performance bonuses during the mad boom will never be held accountable or imposed fines on. Afterall, who can say that the individuals did it? The blame will keep rotating until somehow some industries find a way out and a newer world order takes over in a few years. But that was just the beginning right? Inflation coupled with gloomy global forecasts gave everyone in India the license to impose high prices based on heavy margins, and when that scared away consumers, to take away jobs in bulk. And it's neither their fault, nor their prerogative to take proactive action to contain damage and work for greatest good of everyone. That just doesn't happen on Earth 2009. Greed is one of those things necessary in small amounts to enable self-preservation, but it goes out of hand too easy, and leads to scenarios where the real estate sector wants more and more rate cuts and sops, but will not cut down margins any lower from 40-50%, or when airlines will cartel to play with the masses, the govt will play with sops and policies to maximize election impact, and the rest of the politicians will be busy playing the blame game and earning brownie points as opposed to contributing anything constructive. The thing is, it's not anybody's fault, it's entirely US-imported (foreign hand) and it's convenient to all be victims.
Terrorism on the other hand seems to have grown by leaps and bounds of late, and the World War wisdom of War stimulates economy has found more and more takers, apparently, with the way the world, esp the subcontinent is burning. I wonder how much cash is stashed with these groups to continue funding terror in these times. Anyhow, Pakistan is the victim of its own friendliness with Taliban and encouragement to terror and the future looks really really grim. Yesterday's attack on cricketers was ghastly, devastating, horrific and absobloodylutely shocking. It's almost as painful as Mumbai 26/11 was, and is bound to kill cricket in Pak for a while. But just like India immediately blamed the foreign hand or Mumbai before investigating enough in her home, Pak has given the knee-jerk it's India, it's RAW reaction already. I don't know whodunnit, and whoever did has to be cruel, heartless jerks, but the only unbelievable thing about the RAW blame is that since when did RAW start doing anything, anything at all, including its job? I hope the perpetrators are caught and killed, I hope Taliban and LeT and LTTE etc etc is destroyed and peace returns everywhere, but I know this is wishful thinking, at least in the near future. The Lahore attack cannot happen without local support at the very least, and in a country half overtaken by Taliban and where nobody still got justice for publicly killing Benazir Bhutto, it's not even an iota unbelievable just like the Mumbai attack too, definitely had some degree of local support. But despite that, there will be more war-cries, Pak will make similar statements against India as India did with or without any evidence to nullify the diplomatic offensive on Mumbai and hope that there is an Indo-Pak war that will make the Taliban unite with them, stop killing them and start hurting India instead. Don't believe it?
It's all sad, and sickening, this world we have made for ourselves. What's really shameful though, is how people overlook the need for introspection entirely, and in their aim for self-preservation and greed for enemy-destruction, together become the victims as well as the perpetrators of wrong at the same time.
And for every fallacy, every blunder, there is a quick and easy tendency to find someone to blame for, someone to target all anger and frustration at, even if that is an elusive someone like the CDSs of insurance or the secret intelligence wing of the enemy country. Even when disputes in IIT boiled over around trivial things like trophies and competition to the point where things reached the lowest point ever, every single person involved continues to hurl the blame at the other side. Not my fault honey, "the all-powerful foreign hand" did it!
The finance industry shook and tumbled and took economies of several nations apart, and while banking and insurance industry as a whole will never escape the blame for it, people who got hefty performance bonuses during the mad boom will never be held accountable or imposed fines on. Afterall, who can say that the individuals did it? The blame will keep rotating until somehow some industries find a way out and a newer world order takes over in a few years. But that was just the beginning right? Inflation coupled with gloomy global forecasts gave everyone in India the license to impose high prices based on heavy margins, and when that scared away consumers, to take away jobs in bulk. And it's neither their fault, nor their prerogative to take proactive action to contain damage and work for greatest good of everyone. That just doesn't happen on Earth 2009. Greed is one of those things necessary in small amounts to enable self-preservation, but it goes out of hand too easy, and leads to scenarios where the real estate sector wants more and more rate cuts and sops, but will not cut down margins any lower from 40-50%, or when airlines will cartel to play with the masses, the govt will play with sops and policies to maximize election impact, and the rest of the politicians will be busy playing the blame game and earning brownie points as opposed to contributing anything constructive. The thing is, it's not anybody's fault, it's entirely US-imported (foreign hand) and it's convenient to all be victims.
Terrorism on the other hand seems to have grown by leaps and bounds of late, and the World War wisdom of War stimulates economy has found more and more takers, apparently, with the way the world, esp the subcontinent is burning. I wonder how much cash is stashed with these groups to continue funding terror in these times. Anyhow, Pakistan is the victim of its own friendliness with Taliban and encouragement to terror and the future looks really really grim. Yesterday's attack on cricketers was ghastly, devastating, horrific and absobloodylutely shocking. It's almost as painful as Mumbai 26/11 was, and is bound to kill cricket in Pak for a while. But just like India immediately blamed the foreign hand or Mumbai before investigating enough in her home, Pak has given the knee-jerk it's India, it's RAW reaction already. I don't know whodunnit, and whoever did has to be cruel, heartless jerks, but the only unbelievable thing about the RAW blame is that since when did RAW start doing anything, anything at all, including its job? I hope the perpetrators are caught and killed, I hope Taliban and LeT and LTTE etc etc is destroyed and peace returns everywhere, but I know this is wishful thinking, at least in the near future. The Lahore attack cannot happen without local support at the very least, and in a country half overtaken by Taliban and where nobody still got justice for publicly killing Benazir Bhutto, it's not even an iota unbelievable just like the Mumbai attack too, definitely had some degree of local support. But despite that, there will be more war-cries, Pak will make similar statements against India as India did with or without any evidence to nullify the diplomatic offensive on Mumbai and hope that there is an Indo-Pak war that will make the Taliban unite with them, stop killing them and start hurting India instead. Don't believe it?
It's all sad, and sickening, this world we have made for ourselves. What's really shameful though, is how people overlook the need for introspection entirely, and in their aim for self-preservation and greed for enemy-destruction, together become the victims as well as the perpetrators of wrong at the same time.
6 comments:
"But just like India immediately blamed the foreign hand or Mumbai before investigating enough in her home"
This is just being politically correct, or worse still naivete.
When Pakistan points at a foreign hand, it is so farcial so as to be to comical. The sad thing is these guys don;t even seem to realize how farcical it looks and more importantly, how dangerous it is for their own nation to keep living in denial.
You are comparing a failed(ing) Talibanised(ing) state with one, which despite all its faults and problems, is a growing and developing power.
And btw your call for introspection is all fine at an individual level, but lets not be too naive about this and assume this is going to solve problems when we are talking about international relations etc. A look at history will help you understand that nations do not develop on such romantic ideals, but on cold,rational decisions taken in national interest- which may not neccessarily be mutually compatible between different nations.
Introspection is all good, but so is practicality. Being politically correct again is mostly good, but sometimes its ok to call a spade a spade.
Just my two cents- I hope it didn't sound too jingoistic etc- not my intention.
Your alter egos are not getting the airtime they deserve. Please to be accommodating of them.
:)
''Pakistan is the victim of its own friendliness with Taliban and encouragement to terror and the future looks really really grim.''
yup!thats the point to a T.
''but the only unbelievable thing about the RAW blame is that since when did RAW start doing anything, anything at all, including its job?''
:D good one!
introspection..the best of us lack this quality..
Interesting and nicely put !
have been reading Atlas Shrugged lately.. its a real wonder how most of the people behave similarly for their own destruction in the times of crisis.
Who is/are the real mover/s of this world? The good forces or the bad ones??!
[anonymous]
you may have a point there, and a right to believe in that perspective, like the collective conscious of Indians does anyway, but all I was offering was a possibility of a rethought. Sure, Pak is in a major turmoil, left, right and centre. But the tendency to blame the foreign hand has been a part of Indian and Pakistani legacy. Go back a few yrs, before mumbai, and try to find a thread between the initial response between every terror strike in India, no matter what came up later. Pak is no different. Yes, today they are in the middle of a much bigger mess than us, and terrorism inside their country is killing them alongwith the rest of the world, but that still doesnt give us the license to give them all (as against most) of the blame and stop looking within.
It is a hard rational decision, to learn from the mistakes of the past administration and policy and do what's best for the country. Introspection just means taking a quiet backward step to understand the past present and future and then deciding whats best. That's all I offered, in my naivete and romanticism. I am not asking anyone to be kind or forgetful of the past and fall prey to Pakistan's victim plea, instead it is the same past that needs to teach us lessons so we do not get sucked in the loop. The entire neighbourhod of India is burning, we cannot be totally immune. We can only be a little wiser. That, for me, is practical.
[vik]
sure, what's your pick?
[indyeah]
Yeah, true. But it's so crucial..the ability to think things through.
[mostlybhu]
Curious question, and you know what, I have a strong feeling there are no movers in this world. The system just moves on its own, one way or other and nobody's really in control. Things happen, things even out. In a full circle, we destroy ourselves. :)
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