Bombs, politics and pseudo concerns

Last week’s bomb blast in Delhi has so far accounted for 13 lives and few millions worth of collateral. Although India has still not been able to identify the real culprits of this wonton act, a pall of suspicion has been casts upon the LTTE and Babar Khalsa, the Sikh terror outfit.

It is certainly disconcerting when a bomb goes out in your midst. The impact of a ‘bomb blast’ could be two fold and first it is the visible devastation and then it is the psychological devastation that is more lingering. It unsettles the whole ambiance and inculcate a sense of hopelessness among people. ‘Am I and my family safe or is my industry safe when bombs go off and take everything with it so abruptly?’ It dampens the morale in life and saps the enthusiasm.

Rival religious factions

Yet one could count India among the fortunate when compared to what is going on in places like Iraq. On the day of Ramadhan two bombs, arranged by rival religious factions, went off killing innocent people. Under Saddam Hussein they said that people did not have their ‘rights’ but yet two million Iraqis did not flee the country as refugees during Saddam’s time.

Robert O’ Blake

Hillary Clinton

Jayalalitha Jayaram

Now people have all the ‘rights’ and that include even the right to kill each other. The situation in Iraq is sheer anarchy and a grand recipe for self-annihilation. Thus America and its allies instead of showing the way for democracy and prosperity have spawned anarchy and total ruination in Iraq.

Yet the situation suits America and it allies because they have got rid of a ‘stubborn mole’ from the region. In the current scenario, whatever happens to the people in Iraq one thing could be assured and that is that Iraq will never go against the will of US for the next ten years! Hence the best strategy for destabilizing countries, or regions for that matter, is to preach democracy, human rights and then use those as a ruse to invade or encourage rebellion within.

SAARC region

After having done that, set one community against the other to ensure the continuation of strife and instability. Nations rise, become prosperous and powerful when there is stability and hence if the world powers do not wish the others to rise and become a threat to them the best way is to inculcate instability in those rising countries and regions.

It is in that context that ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘five star democracy’ is portrayed as sacrosanct over stability and unity in a country. Now the Libyans could keep their fingers crossed to see what will become of their country!

Since of late there are increasing signs that American interest has been focused on the ‘rights’ of people in the South Asian continent. When Hillary Clinton, the American Secretary of State visited South Asia in July this year she advocated a more dominant role for India in the SAARC region. Without stopping at that she made it a point to meet Jayalalitha Jayaram, the Leader of the Opposition in Tamil Nadu but yet an emotive and a politically expedient champion of alleged ‘Tamil grievances’ in the region.

As a columnist in a Sinhala newspaper quite rightly commented if at all if Hillary should meet a regional leader in India it should have been Mamta Benerji who ended a 25 year communist rule in West Bengal. But Americans are not interested in containing communism any more because anti communism is no longer appealing as a source of rebel rousing.

They have identified the South Asian continent for its potential to explode in communalism and hence they could use tribal instinct and language differences in the region to ignite tension and mayhem. Thus it is time to switch their concern from ‘lack of democratic rights’ to ‘lack of language rights’. Different courses for different horses!

Controversial statement

The American Under Secretary for South Asia Robert O’ Blake is due to visit Sri Lanka now and he has visit to Jaffna in his agenda.

We remember how this Under Secretary visited Tamil Nadu at the height of the humanitarian operation in Sri Lanka in his capacity as the then US ambassador to Sri Lanka and made a controversial statement to the effect that ‘the Sri Lankan government should understand Tamil grievances’. A statement of that nature by the Ambassador of the most powerful state nearly ignited the tribal instincts of Tamils in Tamil Nadu against Sri Lanka’s on going operation.

India and China are a huge headache for the West. What if they rise up to be world powers in the near future with their 2.5 billion populations? If that happens the West will have no alternative but to accommodate them in world power parlance which have been the exclusive domains of the West up to now.

What if the middle classes of China and India, which outnumber the West well over ten times, enjoy the same level of consumerist living as the middle classes in the West and what effect would that have on the dwindling resources of this planet?

What would that mean to the already jeopardized global climatic health? These are the questions that the current world powers should find answers to in the near future.

Hence what better answer could they find other than derailing the rise of these powers by means good or bad?

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