A Tale of Two Anthems
By RAJAT DAS GUPTA **
(rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in)
In early 2003 "Vande Matram" was declared as the second popular most national anthem, the topmost being the Irish one. The news was first broadcast by BBC- World Service Radio, which really bewildered those who are habituated to listening it in the morning. While "Vande Matram" slogan used to pass a shiver down the spine of the British in the Raj days, are they themselves broadcasting this news! Were they really tuned to BBC? Yes, they had to rub their ears to ensure that.
To look back, the song was composed around 1875 by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the pioneer of modern Bengali literature. It was later inserted in his novel ‘Anandamath’ in 1882 where it became a war cry for the crusading Vaishnavite monks in the famine afflicted land Bengal in the backdrop of the demising Nawab dynasty and the rising British power there in the 18th century. Later it became the war cry of the revolutionaries, both violent and non-violent, rising against the British Raj for independence of India. Thousands went to the gallows voicing this slogan/song which was a major motivating force at that time for the freedom struggle of India. It goes with the compliment – “The greatest and most enduring gift of the Swadeshi movement was Vande Matram, the uncrowned national anthem*.” (The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV P. 608 – courtesy, website TUHL Indian/Hinduism Home Page. *The status eventually given to it is ‘national song’ as has been elaborated below.). However, nothing can depict the spirit of ‘Vande Matram’ better than the following song of Tagore in as few words, which, in my inept translation also possibly does not lose all its inspiration:
1) “ Ek sutre bandhiachi sahasrati monEk karye sampiachchi sahasra jiban…..
Vande Matram…..”
In one string we stitchMany a thousand mind to pitch;In one mission we devoteOn the divine hymn to float -"Vande Matram"- (=Hail Mother/Motherland)Amidst disastrous storm, Facing many a hurdleOur daring heart will not fail;"Vande Matram" -Undaunted by fright's myriad formHurricane violent, sea in billowWill not put us low,Many a million waveWe'll brave;This life ephemeralWe'll not care to bail;Yet will remain unsnapped The solemnity that us trapped -"Vande Matram" To dispel our hibernation.***************************8 ‘Vande Matram’ drew attention of the Indian National Congress since the beginning. In its annual conference held in Calcutta in 1896, this song was sung and was tuned by Tagore and later on by several others. In its annual conference again in1905 it was accepted as our national anthem which was attended by Sister Nivedita, the Irish lady who had turned Vivekananda’s disciple about a decade back.
As it should be obvious from the reference in the song itself to a population of 7 Crore (as determined by the census of 1881 to be the strength of the Bengalis, including the Muslims, in the Eastern part of the country), ‘Vande Matram’ speaks more of ‘Mother Bengal’ rather than the whole of India. Yet, its appeal transcended this narrow geographical concept surfacing in its original wordings obviously because ‘Mother Bengal’ has been identified here with the Goddess Durga who is an inspiration to all Hindus where no regionalism stands. Besides, the 7 Crore was edited to 30 Crore around 1905 (the then Indian population) by those concerned with the song to extrapolate it in the new national scenario. Now, as the original 7 Crore included the Muslims (so does the 30 Crore) also in the then Bengal, the song itself may be absolved of the charge of communal bias, particularly when it peaked our nationalistic spirit sweeping away all our narrowness. It is a different matter that the song was voiced by the said crusading monks whose uprising happened to be against the misrule of the then Muslim Nawabs of Bengal. Eventually, they also had preferred British rule to the Nawabs’, not to swap Islam for Christianity, but to hail good governance to replace the dilapidated one. Again, the narrow geographical concept of Bengal, as found in Annandamath, should not disqualify the song as a national anthem of India. It may be appreciated, it would be ridiculous if this song sung by Bhabananda, the monk character in the novel during the Nawab dynasty, would have indulged in nationalistic megalomania, by inflating 7 Crore to 30 Crore or so. It appears, Bankim figured his song quite discreetly to fit it well in the plot of his novel. This aside, the fact is, India was never a ‘nation’ in the Western sense before the advent of the British rule which, along with its gradual expansion to the rest of India, starting from Bengal, with atrocity and Western enlightenment also as its integral part, solidified our nationalistic concept/sentiment. To criticize the original format of ‘Vande Matram’ for regionalism is to miss this historical relevance in which context, its said extrapolation to our modern national psyche has been only judicious, without diluting its original core inspiration in the enlarged horizon.
Nevertheless, religious fundamentalism raised its head instead, and some Muslim clerics and politicians (irrespective of religion) argued that this anthem indulges in deity worship against the spirit of Islam and was so unacceptable to its followers. A compromise was arrived at by accepting only the first two stanzas (vide website of TUHL Indian/Hinduism Home page) of the song as our national anthem editing therein the said 7 Crore to 30 Crore, as aforesaid, where Goddess Durga also does not occur. Notwithstanding this, the ghost of ‘deity worship’, if not regionalism also, ambushes even to-day to mar the true spirit of the song, to the extent it has been accepted as our anthem. While I fail to be overwhelmed by the wisdom of such zealots, I also fail to appreciate the highhandedness of the Govt. trying to impose this song in our various institutions in 2006, on the occasion of it being the centenary year for its acceptance as our national anthem. After all, a song is an aesthetic creation and should be left to one’s finer faculties.
Later, Tagore composed ‘Jana Gana Mano…’ sometime in 1911 which was officially accepted as the national anthem of independent India. Since then, in an attempt to distinguish it from ‘Vande Matram..’, the latter is often referred as ‘national song’ while the former as ‘national anthem’. However, this hardly affected the appeal and inspiration of any of these songs. It may be noted, in case of ‘Jana Gano Mano..’ also only the first two stanzas have been accepted as our national anthem (vide the said website), while it comprises three more.
Now, while ‘religion’ was the bone of contention in the anti-‘Vande Matram..’ tirade, the aim of invectives against ‘Jano Gano Mono…’ was Tagore’s assumed sycophancy for King George V who had visited India in 1911, which happens to be the year of composition of the song too that gave scope for such scandal. However, Tagore himself denied such allegation and I never could find any details as to who felicitated George V with this song, if at all he was, and who were the organizers and if at all Tagore himself was involved in it. Yet, it may be speculated if Tagore tried to entice the King to draw his support for some international accolade for him, say, the Nobel. There also, facts no way involve the King which were, Rothenstein, a British scholar, was a great admirer of Tagore’s nephew Abanindranath Tagore, a renowned artist and came to visit him at the ‘Thakurbari’, the ancestral house of the Thakur (Tagore) family. In the gathering Rabindranath was present whose beaming personality attracted Rothenstein who gathered from Abanindranath that Rabindranath was a poet. This was around 1911. However, Rothenstein was gradually attracted to Rabindranath and talked highly about him to other British poets/scholars of that time. Now, in Tagore’s own words, to quote from Maitrayee Devi’s ‘Mangpute Rabindranath’, (=‘Rabindranath at Mangpu’ -near Darjeeling- where Tagore had been intermittently Maitrayee Devi’s guest during the last 3 years of his life) the poet’s dialogue with her was as follows-
“When I first started translating them (poems of Gitanjali, on which basis he was awarded the Nobel) into English, I never thought they would be readable. Many have insinuated that Andrews was doing it for me. Poor Andrews felt sorry and ashamed. When Yeats arranged a meeting of distinguished people at Rothenstein’s house, I cannot tell you how embarrassed I felt. Yeats would not listen to me. He was undaunted. A galaxy of big people came. Gitanjali was read. They never said a word. They listened in silence and in silence they left – no criticism, no approbation, no favourable remark, no encouraging comment. Blushing in shame and disgrace, I wished the Earth would have opened and swallowed me. Why did I ever listen to Yeats? How could I write English, had I ever learnt it? I was filled with remorse, I could not raise my head. Next day letters started coming, they flooded in, overflowing with enthusiasm. Everyone wrote. Then I realized they were so moved that evening that they dared not talk. English people are reserved, it is their nature. It was not possible for them to express their feelings at once. What a surprise it was, unexpected and unimaginable. Friend Yeats was pleased.”
The event was in 1912 on 30 June or early July. It is this group of scholars/poets who had recommended Tagore’s name to the Nobel Committee in Sweden to culminate into the poet as a Nobel Laureate. However, I badly miss King George V in the entire episode!
Other relevant facts are, Tagore gave underhand support to the then ‘terrorists’ who had fought for India’s freedom and was a suspect of the British Govt. His novel ‘Char Adhaay’ (Four Chapters) on this theme of terrorism vouches this.
Secondly, Tagore’s dialogue with Maitrayee Devi may again be quoted in respect of his renouncing his Knighthood in protest against the Jalianwallabag (Punjab) carnage by the British police in 1919, as follows –
“They (British people) took it as a great insult. In England people are very loyal. So, this disavowal of the King did hurt them very much…”
Again, on partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon in 1905, Tagore himself led some of the processions on the Calcutta roads in protest against this partition voicing in chorus with thousands of his followers –
“Amar Sonar Bangla, Ami Tomay Bhalobasi
Chirokal Tomar Akash, Tomar Batash Amar Prane Bajay Bansi”
(Oh my golden Bengal, I love Thee
Thy azure, Thy breeze play flute forever in me…”
The song he had composed on this occasion became a national anthem of Bengal at least. Eventually, the British Govt. was forced to redress the partition on that occasion.
Now, how are these compatible with the story of Tagore’s sycophancy of George V as had been spun?
However, all these razzmatazz had indulgence due to our fiddling with the truncated first two stanzas of the song adopted as our national anthem, as aforesaid, overlooking the rest of it as if that did not matter in determining the real intent of the poet latent in the song. But, some people are not cursory like learned Mr. B. Bhattacharya, who highlighted the penultimate stanza of the song in his letter to the Editor (The Statesman) published on 15 September 2006 which may be quoted as follows-
“Dushapane atanke raksha korile anke snehamoyee tumi Mata….”
which, according to the faithful translation of the correspondent, comes to–
“O affectionate Mother! You have protected me so long in your lap from all nightmarish terror”.
Now, the correspondent leaves the question to us if George V would like to be addressed as an “affectionate Mother”! My conviction is, such effeminacy would be a contempt of the top royal personality (a male at that time!) and Tagore would instantly find himself behind the bar for this offence, which he never did! Hopefully, this hits the last nail in the coffin of the ‘sycophancy thesis’. However, it may be wiser not to escalate this point further as nothing stops one to argue that the ‘Mata’ in this song smacks of ‘deity worship’ for which its forerunner ‘Vande Matram..’ was put on the dock.
Yet, some highly relevant points need stress. Even a dunce with a bit of sincere probing of the song cannot miss that the “Eternal Charioteer” in the 3rd stanza of the song leading “the travellers through ages along the ups and downs of the rugged path resonant with His chariot wheels” could not be a flesh and blood entity, but a spiritual one illuminating India’s people over millenniums aiming proliferation of peace, benignity, welfare and harmony among humanity at large, across the world not fragmented by ‘parochial walls’. This internationalism from humanist angle that Tagore displayed since late 19th Century, as opposed to the politico-commercial noises we hear now-a-days in the name of ‘globalization’, manifests again in the second stanza of the song – “East and West come / By the side of Thy throne..”. Of course, “throne” smacks of a ‘King’ and the sleuths in their relentless effort to detect George V here may jump up to ‘Eureka!’. We should be content only with our envy for them for the extra grey matter they are endowed with. Now, leaving the sleuths aside, we may further observe that no other national anthem thus looks beyond its concerned national boundary and ego, not even our ‘Vande Matram’ and ‘Sare jahanse Acchha’ (by Iqbal), all of which are myopic in their eulogy for a certain population within a geographical confinement. Such international overtone flashes in a large number of poems/songs of Tagore, including patriotic ones, a widely quoted one being- “Where mind is without fear…..”.
All these by no means acquit ‘Jana Gana Mano…’. In early 21st century a legal petition was moved to drop the word ‘Sindhu’ from the text of the song as Sind is no more a part of India after its partition. At length, Mr. Ram Jethmalani fought the issue successfully in the Supreme Court which gave its verdict against the petition for deletion of ‘Sind’.
These two anthems, much pilloried for decades, however eruditely, have still retained their dignity due to their great intrinsic values. All invectives against these have undergone thorough scrutiny of highly eminent and knowledgeable persons many times and nullified also, after which these should have morphed to non-issues long before.
One may ponder, quite distressingly, why they have not! We have observed above that it is the British who had forged ‘nationalism’ in India, not as unmixed blessing though, but it heightened our best human qualities like patriotism, courage, determination, self-sacrifice, foresight etc., whereas, after Independence, with the earlier trials and tribulations gone, our worst qualities are surfacing with the wane of the said best ones. Our long persisting tangle on this non-issue is only a symptom of the forces fast disintegrating our nation, if not pushing us to the pre-British days. In fact, history never records an anthem which had united as well as divided a nation at different points of time more than this duo.
***********************************
** The author, professionally a Chartered Accountant, also authored a few books including ‘The Eclipsed Sun’, a translation of Tagore’s poems & songs. He lives in Calcutta.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Toward a New Bangladesh
A gentler kinder face of Islam
News from Bangladesh
ND Batra
Given a chance everyone could get out of poverty. Human beings are essentially entrepreneurial in spirit. Entrepreneurship, which means innovating and building new tools for opening new frontiers—not merely a struggle for survival—has been the ultimate fount of human evolution and growth. Charity is the antithesis of entrepreneurship, though it makes the charitable feel good. Charity does have a place in society, as Islam rightfully insists, and as all great religions of the world have been preaching for millennia. But Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Laureate of Bangladesh who trained as an economist at Vanderbilt University, says that it is “not an answer to poverty. It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away individual’s initiative to break through the wall of poverty.” Social tyranny whether of petty money lenders, religious fanatics, or a well-organized poltical party such as the communist party perpetuates poverty. In 1983 with only a few hundred takas ($27) in hand, as the legend says, Dr. Yunsus told a handful of rapacious moneylenders, one might say in the spirit of Moses, “Let my people go.” Chains of slavery were broken but freedom comes from ability to work. Work means dignity. Nothing comes closer to the American yes-I-can-do spirit than Dr. Yunus’ secular faith that “Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty.” Fighting poverty should be the primary fucntion of the government. When the government gets out of the way of the people, as it has been happening in China and India, entrepreneurs rise and create wealth. It is that simple. Awarding the Peace Prize to someone from a country that most regard not only as an international basket case but also a breeding ground for Islamic jihadism, the Nobel Committee rightfully admonished that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty… Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.” The most unique aspect of micro-credit financing in Bangladesh is that it has been empowering women. A liberated woman can be a powerful regenerative force in a society, especially an overwhelmingly Muslim society mined with petrodollar financed madrassas. Whether Muslim clerics would accept liberated and empowered women is another momentous challenge. In a manner of speaking, the secular liberation theology—liberating the bottom people from poverty— Dr. Yunus may be the answer to Al Qaeda and religious extremism. But micro-credit cannot lift all boats. Bangladesh needs to think big in order to compete internationally in trade and commerce and for which it needs some friendly help from countries like the United States whose markets, homes and hearths, have become a captive of China. Wal-Mart, JC Penny, Target and other global buyers should be encouraged to play the role of corporate diplomats and be urged to import on a priority basis from countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the quality of whose garments is as good as that from China. That is my personal experience when I shop around for my personal clothing needs.Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, said about Bangladesh in his book, The End of Poverty: "Not only is the garment sector fueling Bangladesh economic growth of more than 5 percent per year in recent years, but it is also raising consciousness and power of women in a society that was long brazenly biased against women's chances of life." The international consequences of a dollar flowing to Bangladesh are far more important in terms of fighting poverty and terrorism, human rights and democracy, than willy-nilly letting China add to its trillion-dollar reserve. Dr. Sachs wrote, "The job for women in the cities and rural off-farm microenterprises; a new spirit of women's rights and independence and empowerment; dramatically reduced rates of child mortality; rising literacy of girls and young women; and, crucially, the availability of family planning and contraception have made all the difference for these women." If there is hope for womankind, you see its bright face emerging in Bangladesh—a crucible for struggle between the old and the new face of Islam. Bangladesh is an open society and a democracy, however, imperfect and fragile, and given a chance it could lift itself out of poverty and become an exemplar for other countries especially in Africa. As Dr. Yunus told a newspaper that some day our grandchildren might to go to a museum and wonder what it was like to be poor, for which of course rural micro-credit schemes would not be enough.Bangladesh must get out of its small-minded siege mentality and irrational fear of its neighbors, emulate countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, think and plan big, and compete internationally in trade and commerce for which it needs an expanding base of information technology, manufacturing and services, and massive investment to build infrastructure. Its youth is hungry for challenges, for constructive work, or else… Bangladesh must re-imagine itself. One Dr. Yunus is not enough for Bangladesh. ****************************************************************************************(ND Batra, Professor of Communications and Diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont, USA, has completed a new book, “Digital Civilization: How Much Freedom Does a Man Need?” due for publication in 2007. *****************************************************************************************
News from Bangladesh
ND Batra
Given a chance everyone could get out of poverty. Human beings are essentially entrepreneurial in spirit. Entrepreneurship, which means innovating and building new tools for opening new frontiers—not merely a struggle for survival—has been the ultimate fount of human evolution and growth. Charity is the antithesis of entrepreneurship, though it makes the charitable feel good. Charity does have a place in society, as Islam rightfully insists, and as all great religions of the world have been preaching for millennia. But Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Laureate of Bangladesh who trained as an economist at Vanderbilt University, says that it is “not an answer to poverty. It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away individual’s initiative to break through the wall of poverty.” Social tyranny whether of petty money lenders, religious fanatics, or a well-organized poltical party such as the communist party perpetuates poverty. In 1983 with only a few hundred takas ($27) in hand, as the legend says, Dr. Yunsus told a handful of rapacious moneylenders, one might say in the spirit of Moses, “Let my people go.” Chains of slavery were broken but freedom comes from ability to work. Work means dignity. Nothing comes closer to the American yes-I-can-do spirit than Dr. Yunus’ secular faith that “Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty.” Fighting poverty should be the primary fucntion of the government. When the government gets out of the way of the people, as it has been happening in China and India, entrepreneurs rise and create wealth. It is that simple. Awarding the Peace Prize to someone from a country that most regard not only as an international basket case but also a breeding ground for Islamic jihadism, the Nobel Committee rightfully admonished that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty… Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.” The most unique aspect of micro-credit financing in Bangladesh is that it has been empowering women. A liberated woman can be a powerful regenerative force in a society, especially an overwhelmingly Muslim society mined with petrodollar financed madrassas. Whether Muslim clerics would accept liberated and empowered women is another momentous challenge. In a manner of speaking, the secular liberation theology—liberating the bottom people from poverty— Dr. Yunus may be the answer to Al Qaeda and religious extremism. But micro-credit cannot lift all boats. Bangladesh needs to think big in order to compete internationally in trade and commerce and for which it needs some friendly help from countries like the United States whose markets, homes and hearths, have become a captive of China. Wal-Mart, JC Penny, Target and other global buyers should be encouraged to play the role of corporate diplomats and be urged to import on a priority basis from countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the quality of whose garments is as good as that from China. That is my personal experience when I shop around for my personal clothing needs.Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, said about Bangladesh in his book, The End of Poverty: "Not only is the garment sector fueling Bangladesh economic growth of more than 5 percent per year in recent years, but it is also raising consciousness and power of women in a society that was long brazenly biased against women's chances of life." The international consequences of a dollar flowing to Bangladesh are far more important in terms of fighting poverty and terrorism, human rights and democracy, than willy-nilly letting China add to its trillion-dollar reserve. Dr. Sachs wrote, "The job for women in the cities and rural off-farm microenterprises; a new spirit of women's rights and independence and empowerment; dramatically reduced rates of child mortality; rising literacy of girls and young women; and, crucially, the availability of family planning and contraception have made all the difference for these women." If there is hope for womankind, you see its bright face emerging in Bangladesh—a crucible for struggle between the old and the new face of Islam. Bangladesh is an open society and a democracy, however, imperfect and fragile, and given a chance it could lift itself out of poverty and become an exemplar for other countries especially in Africa. As Dr. Yunus told a newspaper that some day our grandchildren might to go to a museum and wonder what it was like to be poor, for which of course rural micro-credit schemes would not be enough.Bangladesh must get out of its small-minded siege mentality and irrational fear of its neighbors, emulate countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, think and plan big, and compete internationally in trade and commerce for which it needs an expanding base of information technology, manufacturing and services, and massive investment to build infrastructure. Its youth is hungry for challenges, for constructive work, or else… Bangladesh must re-imagine itself. One Dr. Yunus is not enough for Bangladesh. ****************************************************************************************(ND Batra, Professor of Communications and Diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont, USA, has completed a new book, “Digital Civilization: How Much Freedom Does a Man Need?” due for publication in 2007. *****************************************************************************************
Friday, October 13, 2006
Give Bangladesh a Chance
Muhammad Yunus of Bangaldesh
A gentler and kinder face of Islam
“Grameen believes that charity is not an answer to poverty.It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away individual’s initiative to break through the wall of poverty. Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty…. One day our grandchildren will go to museums to see what poverty was like.”
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
This is the American Report
A sex scandal dogs
From The Statesman
By ND Batra
A Congressman’s sex scandal is dogging the November mid-term elections in the USA. The smooth talking and affable Mark Foley (Republican from Florida) resigned from his House seat after being confronted by ABC News and his admission that he had been sending lusty messages to teenage congressional pageboys. Here’s an instant messenger (IM) exchange with a minor:
MaF54: What are ya wearing?
Teen: T-shirt and shorts
MaF54: Love to slip them off ya.
Congressional pages and interns run errands for lawmakers and get exposure to the political processes and sometime become victims of their venality (Remember Monica Lewinsky, the gal who sizzled a President, made him cry in anguish, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and almost got him impeached?).
After he was unmasked, Mr Foley readily outed himself and admitted that he is gay and accepted full responsibility for his sexually explicit Internet behaviour, though his attorney tried to put a spin and said that the ex-Congressman was an alcoholic and was sexually molested as a child by a clergyman.
There is a psychological folklore in the USA that those who have been sexually abused as children might themselves grow up as child abusers and molesters; therefore, they need understanding and sympathy and treatment rather than jail time.
If Mr Foley were sexually molested as a child, why did he not come forward and name names as hundreds of others have done, causing the Catholic Church shame, embarrassment and millions of dollars in settlements? Mr Foley had a flourishing political career and had become a darling of the media as well as Hollywood. Before the public exposure, there was a discreet scent of the exotic about him that added to his irresistible charm as a Congressman.
What is the best time to disclose childhood abuse? David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, was quoted in The New York Times, saying, “Most survivors disclose it after their eighth drunk driving arrest or their wife saying she wants a divorce, or their fifth bar fight.”
When someone is put under a gun and there seems to be no exit, the person might say anything to escape for life.
“Childhood trauma doesn’t excuse criminal behaviour. I hope he will find the strength to do what thousands of other victims have done, which is publicly expose the predator ~ whether he’s alive or dead,” Mr Clohessy admonished. Had Mr Foley’s predilection for teenage boys been not publicly exposed, he would have continued his extraordinarily charming life as a supporter of gay rights and protector of children’s rights.
Simulation and dissimulation come naturally to politicians.
As the House’s co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, Mr Foley had sponsored legislation in July to protect children from cyber-exploitation by adults. As a loyal Republican Congressman, Mr Foley’s private life could not have been totally unknown to the party bosses, including the House Speaker, Mr Dennis Hastert (Republican from Illinois), who acknowledged his responsibility for failing to keep a watch in the matter but refused to accept any accountability. He wouldn’t resign.
Not only is Speaker Hastert’s reputation at stake but also the future of the Republicans in the November elections.The Republican Party has always touted itself as a party of American family values, but kept quiet when it knew that one of its own was IM-ing sexual fantasies with schoolboy pagers as young as 16, who were on a learning curve at the Capitol Hill.
As revelations keep unfolding daily as to who knew what and when, it is becoming clear that at least since 2004, several powerful people in the Beltway political hierarchy were aware of Mr Foley’s “inappropriate behaviour,” about which some congressional pages had lodged formal complaints. Speaker Hastert has been asserting that he did not know about Mr Foley’s e-mail sexual shenanigans with teenage pages, but whether such an appalling pretence of ignorance would be enough to let him maintain his credibility as the House leader beyond the November elections, if at all the party maintains its majority, is doubtful.
The question is about the Speaker’s competence and moral courage to confront one of his colleagues whose conduct he should have known. Ignorance in politics is no excuse. President George W Bush dutifully supported the beleaguered Speaker: “I know Denny Hastert... He is a father, teacher, coach who cares about the children of this country. I know that he wants all the facts to come out.”
But the Iraq war and the latest revelations by a journalistic gadfly Bob Woodward of The Washington Post in his book The State of Denial that President Bush has not been telling the truth to the American people about what is actually going on in Iraq, has not added to the President’s declining political capital.Republicans seeking to keep their seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections, a few weeks away, would rather not be seen with the President.
Mr Bush’s endorsement of the Speaker has little meaning at this crucial political juncture. The bi-partisan House ethics committee has enthusiastically swung into action and issued dozens of subpoenas to investigate the matter as to whether there was a cover-up, though it is doubtful whether any clear-cut, finger-pointing findings would emerge.After the elections, Mr Foley’s follies would be forgotten. The American people would keep wondering what to do about Iraq, which is worming deeply into the nation’s psyche.
(Dr Batra has completed a new book, Digital Civilization: How Much Freedom Does a Man Need? He teaches communications and corporate diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont, USA)
From The Statesman
By ND Batra
A Congressman’s sex scandal is dogging the November mid-term elections in the USA. The smooth talking and affable Mark Foley (Republican from Florida) resigned from his House seat after being confronted by ABC News and his admission that he had been sending lusty messages to teenage congressional pageboys. Here’s an instant messenger (IM) exchange with a minor:
MaF54: What are ya wearing?
Teen: T-shirt and shorts
MaF54: Love to slip them off ya.
Congressional pages and interns run errands for lawmakers and get exposure to the political processes and sometime become victims of their venality (Remember Monica Lewinsky, the gal who sizzled a President, made him cry in anguish, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and almost got him impeached?).
After he was unmasked, Mr Foley readily outed himself and admitted that he is gay and accepted full responsibility for his sexually explicit Internet behaviour, though his attorney tried to put a spin and said that the ex-Congressman was an alcoholic and was sexually molested as a child by a clergyman.
There is a psychological folklore in the USA that those who have been sexually abused as children might themselves grow up as child abusers and molesters; therefore, they need understanding and sympathy and treatment rather than jail time.
If Mr Foley were sexually molested as a child, why did he not come forward and name names as hundreds of others have done, causing the Catholic Church shame, embarrassment and millions of dollars in settlements? Mr Foley had a flourishing political career and had become a darling of the media as well as Hollywood. Before the public exposure, there was a discreet scent of the exotic about him that added to his irresistible charm as a Congressman.
What is the best time to disclose childhood abuse? David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, was quoted in The New York Times, saying, “Most survivors disclose it after their eighth drunk driving arrest or their wife saying she wants a divorce, or their fifth bar fight.”
When someone is put under a gun and there seems to be no exit, the person might say anything to escape for life.
“Childhood trauma doesn’t excuse criminal behaviour. I hope he will find the strength to do what thousands of other victims have done, which is publicly expose the predator ~ whether he’s alive or dead,” Mr Clohessy admonished. Had Mr Foley’s predilection for teenage boys been not publicly exposed, he would have continued his extraordinarily charming life as a supporter of gay rights and protector of children’s rights.
Simulation and dissimulation come naturally to politicians.
As the House’s co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, Mr Foley had sponsored legislation in July to protect children from cyber-exploitation by adults. As a loyal Republican Congressman, Mr Foley’s private life could not have been totally unknown to the party bosses, including the House Speaker, Mr Dennis Hastert (Republican from Illinois), who acknowledged his responsibility for failing to keep a watch in the matter but refused to accept any accountability. He wouldn’t resign.
Not only is Speaker Hastert’s reputation at stake but also the future of the Republicans in the November elections.The Republican Party has always touted itself as a party of American family values, but kept quiet when it knew that one of its own was IM-ing sexual fantasies with schoolboy pagers as young as 16, who were on a learning curve at the Capitol Hill.
As revelations keep unfolding daily as to who knew what and when, it is becoming clear that at least since 2004, several powerful people in the Beltway political hierarchy were aware of Mr Foley’s “inappropriate behaviour,” about which some congressional pages had lodged formal complaints. Speaker Hastert has been asserting that he did not know about Mr Foley’s e-mail sexual shenanigans with teenage pages, but whether such an appalling pretence of ignorance would be enough to let him maintain his credibility as the House leader beyond the November elections, if at all the party maintains its majority, is doubtful.
The question is about the Speaker’s competence and moral courage to confront one of his colleagues whose conduct he should have known. Ignorance in politics is no excuse. President George W Bush dutifully supported the beleaguered Speaker: “I know Denny Hastert... He is a father, teacher, coach who cares about the children of this country. I know that he wants all the facts to come out.”
But the Iraq war and the latest revelations by a journalistic gadfly Bob Woodward of The Washington Post in his book The State of Denial that President Bush has not been telling the truth to the American people about what is actually going on in Iraq, has not added to the President’s declining political capital.Republicans seeking to keep their seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections, a few weeks away, would rather not be seen with the President.
Mr Bush’s endorsement of the Speaker has little meaning at this crucial political juncture. The bi-partisan House ethics committee has enthusiastically swung into action and issued dozens of subpoenas to investigate the matter as to whether there was a cover-up, though it is doubtful whether any clear-cut, finger-pointing findings would emerge.After the elections, Mr Foley’s follies would be forgotten. The American people would keep wondering what to do about Iraq, which is worming deeply into the nation’s psyche.
(Dr Batra has completed a new book, Digital Civilization: How Much Freedom Does a Man Need? He teaches communications and corporate diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont, USA)
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
This is the American Report
Honest brands create good fortune
CYBER AGE by ND Batra
From The Statesman
Last month, the world’s biggest retailer Wal-Mart sent a wave of joy by announcing that it would sell about 300 generic prescription drugs ranging from allergy medication to antibiotics at $4 for a month’s supply.
Not to fall behind its rival, another major retailer, Target, announced that it, too, would match Wal-Mart’s prices.
In a culture of open marketplace capitalism, a company has to come up with innovative solutions to stay competitive. A company is nothing but its reputation and maintaining it is a big challenge.
Coca Cola and Pepsi have not come up with a creative solution to stay alive in India. Desperate calls from Washington to New Delhi won’t help the cola companies. Nor would the court battles. Reputation is the foundation of trust and loyalty, which gives stakeholders confidence in dealing with the company.
A company’s identity and image (along with its philanthropy) are the building blocks of its reputation. Wal-Mart like Bangalore has a distinct identity, a character. Identity is a company’s assertion of its individuality and embodies the company’s vision, its reason for being there. It sums up its business case.
The image of a company is the distinct memorable impression in the minds of the people as they interact with the company.Together, identity and image raise the profile of a company, its reputation, its significance beyond commercialism and profit making. Americans know what Bangalore is, but not Kolkata, not as yet.
“A company’s identity”, says Paul Argenti of Dartmouth’s Tuck School in one of his books, “is the visual manifestation of the company’s reality as conveyed through the organization’s name, logo, motto, products, services, buildings, stationery, uniform, and all other tangible pieces of evidence created by the organization and communicated to a variety of constituencies”.
A company’s name, symbols, products, services, employees, buildings, its tangibles and intangibles, are not a cluster of facts but a dynamic system that creates specific value and meaning for the stakeholders.
Stakeholders’ perception of the company, however, emerges from the totality of the impression. While a company might do its utmost to build and control its identity, it cannot totally control the image, the impression, the perception, the public has about it. A company’s identity and the image are never the same, but the closer they are, the better is the reality, which is the basis of the company’s reputation. While it is desirable to achieve consistency in identity, McDonald’s golden arches, for example, the perception of the company should no be expected to be the same in every country.
McDonald’s is one of the fast food chains in the USA but in China it has the image of a desirable American food, desired by the young and the old, in spite of the fact that the identity of the company, its sounds and images, are globally quite consistent.
In France, the company has a low public image, in spite of the fact that one of its popular products is called French Fries. Of course, there’s nothing French about them. A corporate identity must embody the company’s core values, the sum and substance of what is called its business case.
Identity is the visualisation of its mission, and answers the unasked question: Who are we? What are we doing here? These are the questions Coke and Pepsi should be asking in India.
Last week, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Infosys Technologies’ visionary corporate statesman NR Narayana Murthy said, “Clear conscience ~ clear profit…. When in doubt, disclose.” Coke and Pepsi should listen to him.
While a consistent and well-defined identity a company projects before the public helps it to build a perception of the company about what it stands for, the reputation is built over time and depends upon how the company conducts itself.
A strong reputation matters because it enhances a company’s attractiveness, softens criticism, and creates public support for a company’s activities. Customers don’t mind paying a little extra for a product when it comes from a company with a strong reputation for quality and fairness. A company with a strong reputation attracts talented employees, who like to stay with the company for personal and professional growth.
The likeability of the company by the employees and their day-to-day interaction with the various stakeholders adds to the reputation of the company.Employees become the corporeal identity of the company embodying its values and mission. But when a CEO is found with his pants down or his hand in the cookie jar, as it has happened with the global accounting firm Arthur Andersen, for example, the reputation comes crashing down.
No amount of identity metamorphosis could bring the reputation back. Arthur Anderson self-destructed, as did Enron, the infamous energy giant.
Apart from the integrity of corporate leadership that inspires respect and loyalty from employees and the general public, companies like Microsoft have enhanced their reputation by carrying out global philanthropic activities.Corporate philanthropic giving at local, national and global levels should become part of a company’s business case.
Philanthropic activities of a company must be thoughtfully and tastefully publicised through corporate advertising to project the humane side of the company as Microsoft is doing through its global foundation to fight AIDS and tuberculosis. Some companies make use of institutional advertising to let the public know how involved they are in adding to the public good, just as Beyond Petroleum (BP), formerly British Petroleum, has been doing with its corporate ads, informing the public about its commitment to the development of alternative sources of energy.BP looked green until its recent pipeline troubles in Alaska.
No company can ever rest in peace, thinking that its reputation is secure. Reputation is not a constant but a corporate variable.
(Dr Batra teaches communications and corporate diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont, USA)
CYBER AGE by ND Batra
From The Statesman
Last month, the world’s biggest retailer Wal-Mart sent a wave of joy by announcing that it would sell about 300 generic prescription drugs ranging from allergy medication to antibiotics at $4 for a month’s supply.
Not to fall behind its rival, another major retailer, Target, announced that it, too, would match Wal-Mart’s prices.
In a culture of open marketplace capitalism, a company has to come up with innovative solutions to stay competitive. A company is nothing but its reputation and maintaining it is a big challenge.
Coca Cola and Pepsi have not come up with a creative solution to stay alive in India. Desperate calls from Washington to New Delhi won’t help the cola companies. Nor would the court battles. Reputation is the foundation of trust and loyalty, which gives stakeholders confidence in dealing with the company.
A company’s identity and image (along with its philanthropy) are the building blocks of its reputation. Wal-Mart like Bangalore has a distinct identity, a character. Identity is a company’s assertion of its individuality and embodies the company’s vision, its reason for being there. It sums up its business case.
The image of a company is the distinct memorable impression in the minds of the people as they interact with the company.Together, identity and image raise the profile of a company, its reputation, its significance beyond commercialism and profit making. Americans know what Bangalore is, but not Kolkata, not as yet.
“A company’s identity”, says Paul Argenti of Dartmouth’s Tuck School in one of his books, “is the visual manifestation of the company’s reality as conveyed through the organization’s name, logo, motto, products, services, buildings, stationery, uniform, and all other tangible pieces of evidence created by the organization and communicated to a variety of constituencies”.
A company’s name, symbols, products, services, employees, buildings, its tangibles and intangibles, are not a cluster of facts but a dynamic system that creates specific value and meaning for the stakeholders.
Stakeholders’ perception of the company, however, emerges from the totality of the impression. While a company might do its utmost to build and control its identity, it cannot totally control the image, the impression, the perception, the public has about it. A company’s identity and the image are never the same, but the closer they are, the better is the reality, which is the basis of the company’s reputation. While it is desirable to achieve consistency in identity, McDonald’s golden arches, for example, the perception of the company should no be expected to be the same in every country.
McDonald’s is one of the fast food chains in the USA but in China it has the image of a desirable American food, desired by the young and the old, in spite of the fact that the identity of the company, its sounds and images, are globally quite consistent.
In France, the company has a low public image, in spite of the fact that one of its popular products is called French Fries. Of course, there’s nothing French about them. A corporate identity must embody the company’s core values, the sum and substance of what is called its business case.
Identity is the visualisation of its mission, and answers the unasked question: Who are we? What are we doing here? These are the questions Coke and Pepsi should be asking in India.
Last week, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Infosys Technologies’ visionary corporate statesman NR Narayana Murthy said, “Clear conscience ~ clear profit…. When in doubt, disclose.” Coke and Pepsi should listen to him.
While a consistent and well-defined identity a company projects before the public helps it to build a perception of the company about what it stands for, the reputation is built over time and depends upon how the company conducts itself.
A strong reputation matters because it enhances a company’s attractiveness, softens criticism, and creates public support for a company’s activities. Customers don’t mind paying a little extra for a product when it comes from a company with a strong reputation for quality and fairness. A company with a strong reputation attracts talented employees, who like to stay with the company for personal and professional growth.
The likeability of the company by the employees and their day-to-day interaction with the various stakeholders adds to the reputation of the company.Employees become the corporeal identity of the company embodying its values and mission. But when a CEO is found with his pants down or his hand in the cookie jar, as it has happened with the global accounting firm Arthur Andersen, for example, the reputation comes crashing down.
No amount of identity metamorphosis could bring the reputation back. Arthur Anderson self-destructed, as did Enron, the infamous energy giant.
Apart from the integrity of corporate leadership that inspires respect and loyalty from employees and the general public, companies like Microsoft have enhanced their reputation by carrying out global philanthropic activities.Corporate philanthropic giving at local, national and global levels should become part of a company’s business case.
Philanthropic activities of a company must be thoughtfully and tastefully publicised through corporate advertising to project the humane side of the company as Microsoft is doing through its global foundation to fight AIDS and tuberculosis. Some companies make use of institutional advertising to let the public know how involved they are in adding to the public good, just as Beyond Petroleum (BP), formerly British Petroleum, has been doing with its corporate ads, informing the public about its commitment to the development of alternative sources of energy.BP looked green until its recent pipeline troubles in Alaska.
No company can ever rest in peace, thinking that its reputation is secure. Reputation is not a constant but a corporate variable.
(Dr Batra teaches communications and corporate diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont, USA)
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
It is verbal Jihad now
Devil taken control of logos
From The Statesman
ND Batra
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on CBS “60 Minutes” news magazine that a US diplomat had threatened to turn “the Land of the Pure” into the “stone age” if his government did not fully and unconditionally cooperate with the USA in hunting down the Taliban and Al-Qaida after the September 11 attacks.
In a joint Press conference recently with President George W Bush on the lawns of the White House when reporters asked the Pakistani strongman to elaborate on his brazen remark, General Musharraf tried to wriggle out of public embarrassment by saying that he was under contract with his publisher to keep his mouth shut until the book was released. While reporters guffawed at Gen Musharraf’s crude attempt at self-promotion of his book, Mr Bush could not control himself and retorted derisively that what the Pakistani is saying is, “buy the book”.
Normally, politicians indulge in the luxury of ghost-written kiss-and-tell books for money ~ and revenge against their detractors ~ after they retire or are kicked out of office. Gen Musharraf, as they say, wants to make hay while the sun shines. But Gen Musharraf was not the only one who put Mr Bush in a spot with his tongue wagging out of control. Mr Bush’s worst nemesis has been Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who took the podium at the UN General Assembly and let it out, “Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the President of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world.“Truly. As the owner of the world…... As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.”
Like Iran, Venezuela sits on a huge oil reservoir and wants to use his country’s natural resources in forging a global alliance against the USA. Oil hungry-China is willing to oblige and help Venezuela in diverting its oil resources across the Pacific, as are some other countries hunting desperately for natural resources.
Iran’s media savvy President, Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined a select group of people in this world who have been denying that the Holocaust ever occurred.Last December, Mr Ahmadinejad said that the West “has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets.” Whenever reporters try to pin him down about his views on the historical reality of the genocide, he ducks the question and changes the topic. His constant refrain, which probably embodies the Arab-Muslim attitude toward Israel, has been: “If you have burned the Jews, why don’t you give a piece of Europe, the USA, Canada or Alaska to Israel… .Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?” He forgets that Israel like ancient Persia is where it should be. Islam and Christianity rose out of Judaism.
When the head of a nation such as Iran with nuclear ambitions, and a supporter of extra-territorial militant groups such as Hezbollah, says that Israel should be “wiped off the map”, the global community cannot ignore the statement as a loony tune.
Abusive and self-righteous rhetoric has been ravaging global diplomacy for quite sometime. Addressing the University of Regensburg in Bavaria, Germany, as a “call for a dialogue of the Christian faith with the modern world, and for a dialogue between all cultures and religions”, Pope Benedict XVI uttered some inflammatory words quoting “Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, in exchange with a Persian scholar,” which the Pontiff has been desperately trying to unsay since then: “Show me just what Mohammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” The Vatican could not have failed to imagine the reaction such an insulting statement coming from the Pope would have caused.
The pope tried to apologise, “I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.”Papal spin masters and apologists on both sides of the Atlantic have not succeeded in assuaging outraged Muslims who have burned and pillaged churches to prove once again that extremists have taken full control over Muslim sensibilities.But what was the Pope thinking when he chose a text that did not represent the Catholic Church's present thinking?
When on 19 April, 2005 Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger assumed the papal throne, he ceased to be an individual. He became the singular voice of the Catholic Church. He could not have been unaware of what he was saying. I believe that the Pope was trying to admonish the global Catholic community about the gulf that divides it from Islam, which has continued to be from medieval Persia to modern Iran “evil and inhuman”. In the Internet age, his words could not have been limited to the faithful only.
One might speculate as to what prompted Pope Benedict to dig out an obscure statement of a medieval ruler but his views are not very far from those of President Bush, who said before the National Endowment for Democracy last year, “Islamic terrorist attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism.”
The West does not look at Islam as a gentler and kinder religion. Nor does it know how to deal with it.
From The Statesman
ND Batra
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said on CBS “60 Minutes” news magazine that a US diplomat had threatened to turn “the Land of the Pure” into the “stone age” if his government did not fully and unconditionally cooperate with the USA in hunting down the Taliban and Al-Qaida after the September 11 attacks.
In a joint Press conference recently with President George W Bush on the lawns of the White House when reporters asked the Pakistani strongman to elaborate on his brazen remark, General Musharraf tried to wriggle out of public embarrassment by saying that he was under contract with his publisher to keep his mouth shut until the book was released. While reporters guffawed at Gen Musharraf’s crude attempt at self-promotion of his book, Mr Bush could not control himself and retorted derisively that what the Pakistani is saying is, “buy the book”.
Normally, politicians indulge in the luxury of ghost-written kiss-and-tell books for money ~ and revenge against their detractors ~ after they retire or are kicked out of office. Gen Musharraf, as they say, wants to make hay while the sun shines. But Gen Musharraf was not the only one who put Mr Bush in a spot with his tongue wagging out of control. Mr Bush’s worst nemesis has been Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who took the podium at the UN General Assembly and let it out, “Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the President of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world.“Truly. As the owner of the world…... As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.”
Like Iran, Venezuela sits on a huge oil reservoir and wants to use his country’s natural resources in forging a global alliance against the USA. Oil hungry-China is willing to oblige and help Venezuela in diverting its oil resources across the Pacific, as are some other countries hunting desperately for natural resources.
Iran’s media savvy President, Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined a select group of people in this world who have been denying that the Holocaust ever occurred.Last December, Mr Ahmadinejad said that the West “has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets.” Whenever reporters try to pin him down about his views on the historical reality of the genocide, he ducks the question and changes the topic. His constant refrain, which probably embodies the Arab-Muslim attitude toward Israel, has been: “If you have burned the Jews, why don’t you give a piece of Europe, the USA, Canada or Alaska to Israel… .Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?” He forgets that Israel like ancient Persia is where it should be. Islam and Christianity rose out of Judaism.
When the head of a nation such as Iran with nuclear ambitions, and a supporter of extra-territorial militant groups such as Hezbollah, says that Israel should be “wiped off the map”, the global community cannot ignore the statement as a loony tune.
Abusive and self-righteous rhetoric has been ravaging global diplomacy for quite sometime. Addressing the University of Regensburg in Bavaria, Germany, as a “call for a dialogue of the Christian faith with the modern world, and for a dialogue between all cultures and religions”, Pope Benedict XVI uttered some inflammatory words quoting “Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, in exchange with a Persian scholar,” which the Pontiff has been desperately trying to unsay since then: “Show me just what Mohammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” The Vatican could not have failed to imagine the reaction such an insulting statement coming from the Pope would have caused.
The pope tried to apologise, “I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.”Papal spin masters and apologists on both sides of the Atlantic have not succeeded in assuaging outraged Muslims who have burned and pillaged churches to prove once again that extremists have taken full control over Muslim sensibilities.But what was the Pope thinking when he chose a text that did not represent the Catholic Church's present thinking?
When on 19 April, 2005 Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger assumed the papal throne, he ceased to be an individual. He became the singular voice of the Catholic Church. He could not have been unaware of what he was saying. I believe that the Pope was trying to admonish the global Catholic community about the gulf that divides it from Islam, which has continued to be from medieval Persia to modern Iran “evil and inhuman”. In the Internet age, his words could not have been limited to the faithful only.
One might speculate as to what prompted Pope Benedict to dig out an obscure statement of a medieval ruler but his views are not very far from those of President Bush, who said before the National Endowment for Democracy last year, “Islamic terrorist attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism.”
The West does not look at Islam as a gentler and kinder religion. Nor does it know how to deal with it.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Bush keeps going, going
Checks and balances for Bush
From The Statesman
ND Batra
In spite of the fact that now a majority of Americans believe that the Iraqi invasion was a mistake, George W Bush continues to believe that toppling Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do to prevent Iraq from becoming a hub for terrorists. It’s a struggle for civilisation, Mr Bush said, not a war between civilisations.
Foreign policy, of course, cannot be run on public opinion polls, which go up and down so often that it would be politically crazy to be solely guided by them. National leaders sometimes take measures that are unpopular but necessary according to their perception of the problem the country faces and their political vision. What hurts their cause, however, is the language in which they frame their thoughts, as Pope Benedict’s recent remark equating Islam with violence and evil have shown. That the result of Iraqi invasion turned out to be much different, much bloodier than expected has not lessened the Bush administration’s resolve to bring about changes in West Asia.
Gone is the tongue-lashing optimism of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld who said after the Iraq elections: “Just having elections in Iraq is an enormous success and a victory. Following the elections in Afghanistan and the election recently in the Palestinian Authority, the Iraqi vote will mark still another success for democracy and a defeat for pro-dictatorship and extremist elements in the region.” The future did not happen they wanted it to happen. Spreading democracy still remains the policy, but only if US forces could move beyond fighting terrorism. Mr Bush now admits that his ill-famed utterances like “Bring em on,” challenging insurgents to attack US forces in Iraq was a mistake, though he still does not realise how much damage the expression “Axis of Evil” has done to US diplomacy.Evil is, of course, everywhere and the world has become a dangerous place.
No nation is safe from evil-doers, jihadis and non-jihadis, but by characterising that evil is limited to a small axis of three countries, Mr Bush absolved others by default. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis said some time ago, “The terrorists of September 11 exposed vulnerabilities in the defences of all states,” which compelled Mr Bush to preside over “the most sweeping redesign of US grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D Roosevelt. The basis for Mr Bush’s grand strategy, like Roosevelt’s, comes from the shock of surprise attack and will not change. None of FDR’s successors, Democrat or Republican, could escape the lesson he drew from the events of December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor): that distance alone no longer protected Americans from assaults at the hands of hostile states.
Neither Mr Bush nor his successors, whatever their party, can ignore what the events of September 11, 2001, made clear: the deterrence against states affords insufficient protection from attacks by gangs, which can now inflict the kind of damage only states fighting wars used to be able to achieve.” The USA was not the first country to bear the brunt of terrorists. Countries like India have long been suffering terrorists’ attacks sponsored by their neighbours. But earlier the USA looked at the situation differently. Now it sees terrorism as a global threat to civilisation and it must be eliminated.
The horrific events of September 11, 2001 led to the establishment of US presence in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and destroy Al- Qaida terrorists.But US presence has been having some unintended consequence in the region, in the sense that India and Pakistan have been opening up to each other at several levels and the ceasefire is holding up on the Line of Actual Control.The settlement of disputes, including Kashmir, and long-term peace is still a possibility in spite of recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Terrorism breeds in failing states. The Bush administration needs to reframe and rephrase its policy of pre-emption in terms of international cooperation to eliminate terrorism.
Pakistani military rulers know that breeding and financing terrorists can bite back. England and other European countries too have begun to realise that Islamic terrorism is growing in their midst and must be purged whatever the cost. Prof Gaddis said: “It is a failure of both language and vision that the United States has yet to make its case for pre-emption” in terms of the self-interest and survival of each nation; and a collective security system, which could best be under the US leadership.The US leadership must have a strong moral foundation to persuade others to join in its efforts to eliminate the global scourge of jihadist terrorism.Many senior political leaders both Democrats and Republicans believe that moral leadership begins with how the USA treats the captured terrorists.
The Abu Ghraib prison abuse has been a shameful embarrassment at home and abroad. The US Supreme Court recently ruled that the President must not ignore the Common Article 3 of Geneva Conventions which prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity” or “humiliating and degrading treatment”of terrorists, who must have their day in the court with all the rights of fair trial under the criminal justice system of a civilised society.President Bush said the war against terrorism is a struggle for civilisation. True; but in the process the USA should not lose its own soul and descend into the heart of darkness.
From The Statesman
ND Batra
In spite of the fact that now a majority of Americans believe that the Iraqi invasion was a mistake, George W Bush continues to believe that toppling Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do to prevent Iraq from becoming a hub for terrorists. It’s a struggle for civilisation, Mr Bush said, not a war between civilisations.
Foreign policy, of course, cannot be run on public opinion polls, which go up and down so often that it would be politically crazy to be solely guided by them. National leaders sometimes take measures that are unpopular but necessary according to their perception of the problem the country faces and their political vision. What hurts their cause, however, is the language in which they frame their thoughts, as Pope Benedict’s recent remark equating Islam with violence and evil have shown. That the result of Iraqi invasion turned out to be much different, much bloodier than expected has not lessened the Bush administration’s resolve to bring about changes in West Asia.
Gone is the tongue-lashing optimism of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld who said after the Iraq elections: “Just having elections in Iraq is an enormous success and a victory. Following the elections in Afghanistan and the election recently in the Palestinian Authority, the Iraqi vote will mark still another success for democracy and a defeat for pro-dictatorship and extremist elements in the region.” The future did not happen they wanted it to happen. Spreading democracy still remains the policy, but only if US forces could move beyond fighting terrorism. Mr Bush now admits that his ill-famed utterances like “Bring em on,” challenging insurgents to attack US forces in Iraq was a mistake, though he still does not realise how much damage the expression “Axis of Evil” has done to US diplomacy.Evil is, of course, everywhere and the world has become a dangerous place.
No nation is safe from evil-doers, jihadis and non-jihadis, but by characterising that evil is limited to a small axis of three countries, Mr Bush absolved others by default. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis said some time ago, “The terrorists of September 11 exposed vulnerabilities in the defences of all states,” which compelled Mr Bush to preside over “the most sweeping redesign of US grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D Roosevelt. The basis for Mr Bush’s grand strategy, like Roosevelt’s, comes from the shock of surprise attack and will not change. None of FDR’s successors, Democrat or Republican, could escape the lesson he drew from the events of December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor): that distance alone no longer protected Americans from assaults at the hands of hostile states.
Neither Mr Bush nor his successors, whatever their party, can ignore what the events of September 11, 2001, made clear: the deterrence against states affords insufficient protection from attacks by gangs, which can now inflict the kind of damage only states fighting wars used to be able to achieve.” The USA was not the first country to bear the brunt of terrorists. Countries like India have long been suffering terrorists’ attacks sponsored by their neighbours. But earlier the USA looked at the situation differently. Now it sees terrorism as a global threat to civilisation and it must be eliminated.
The horrific events of September 11, 2001 led to the establishment of US presence in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and destroy Al- Qaida terrorists.But US presence has been having some unintended consequence in the region, in the sense that India and Pakistan have been opening up to each other at several levels and the ceasefire is holding up on the Line of Actual Control.The settlement of disputes, including Kashmir, and long-term peace is still a possibility in spite of recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Terrorism breeds in failing states. The Bush administration needs to reframe and rephrase its policy of pre-emption in terms of international cooperation to eliminate terrorism.
Pakistani military rulers know that breeding and financing terrorists can bite back. England and other European countries too have begun to realise that Islamic terrorism is growing in their midst and must be purged whatever the cost. Prof Gaddis said: “It is a failure of both language and vision that the United States has yet to make its case for pre-emption” in terms of the self-interest and survival of each nation; and a collective security system, which could best be under the US leadership.The US leadership must have a strong moral foundation to persuade others to join in its efforts to eliminate the global scourge of jihadist terrorism.Many senior political leaders both Democrats and Republicans believe that moral leadership begins with how the USA treats the captured terrorists.
The Abu Ghraib prison abuse has been a shameful embarrassment at home and abroad. The US Supreme Court recently ruled that the President must not ignore the Common Article 3 of Geneva Conventions which prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity” or “humiliating and degrading treatment”of terrorists, who must have their day in the court with all the rights of fair trial under the criminal justice system of a civilised society.President Bush said the war against terrorism is a struggle for civilisation. True; but in the process the USA should not lose its own soul and descend into the heart of darkness.
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