Time to reflect

OUR eyes hurt, our hearts break, our minds go numb as each day passes and we continue to be inundated with news and views about the terrorist attacks on America. Satellite television and the overwhelming dominance of Western news channels has ensured that in city and hamlet around the world this is the single talking point.

With the blanket coverage has also come the universal fear that we are headed towards even darker days. There is constant talk of revenge, retaliation, retribution. But what about reflection, about reparation, about repentance or even reconciliation? Is there no place for these sentiments at a time when everyone seems enraged at the effrontery of a group of terrorists taking on the world's only super-power?

When steam-roller nationalism replaces rationality, there can be no space for reflection, or for honest questioning. It flattens healthy divergence, so essential in a democracy, and it demands an unhealthy uniformity of worldview, lifestyle and conduct. We have seen this in India at the time of Kargil. Even so-called independent news channels joined the nationalism band-wagon. There were no grey areas. Everything was black and white. We were white, on the side of good, and "they", the Pakistanis were black, on the side of evil. You were either on the side of good, or with the evil. And if you were a "true" Indian, you had no choice but to side with the "good". If, of course, you belonged to the same religion as the "enemy", then you had to prove your loyalty a hundred times to be considered a worthy member of the "good" team.

More recently, Home Minister Mr. L.K. Advani suggested that people in the Northeast States needed to become more "Indian". He did not define precisely what he meant by "Indian" but we have enough experience of the politics of the Government at the Centre to know precisely what is meant by that. The people in the Northeast certainly know it, and do not like it. And if they demonstrate their objection in any way, their actions are instantly held up as proof of their un-Indianness.

We can see the same game being played out in the United States. American flags are the largest selling commodity today. Ethnic minorities, particularly Asian and Middle-Eastern, are having to prove their loyalty to the "land of the free and the home of the brave". Even flag-waving, however, has not saved some of them from the inevitable attacks by enraged White Americans out to seek "revenge".

When the President of the United States reduces the issue to a battle between "good and evil", there is no space for any complexity. Once again the world is being asked to choose - you are either for "our way of life" or against us. No fence-sitters will be tolerated. Although television images and reporting would have you believe that most Americans go along with the simplistic and aggressive rhetoric emanating from the White House, in fact there are many voices within the U.S. that are cautioning and questioning their Government. These include ordinary people who are shocked and saddened by what took place on September 11 but also ask why this has happened. These are voices that need more space in mainstream media, because they represent a genuine, democratic spirit that will not abide by the notion of "my government, right or wrong" or even "my nation, right or wrong".

These are people like my friend in California who wrote, "Like you, listening to Bush and company spew overblown rhetoric is more than worrisome. The idea that we are going to bomb Afghanistan to oblivion in retribution for harbouring bin Laden just makes me ill and feel very sorry for a country that is suffering much already and has little left to bomb. I am hoping calmer heads will prevail ... but I will probably be proved wrong."

And the well-known documentary film-maker, Mr. Michael Moore, who wrote an open letter titled "Death, Downtown" which has been circulated by e-mail. The letter documents horrendous security lapses at American airports that the film-maker personally experienced in the recent past. These include being left behind in the aircraft when he took a shuttle service. When he emerged, he found no one around. So we walked around unhindered on the tarmac. No one questioned him. Finally, he managed to hitch a ride with a maintenance truck to the terminal building!

But Mr. Moore also makes many thoughtful points that have a great deal of relevance for us. He writes, "We abhor terrorism - unless we are the ones doing the terrorising. We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the hell even remembers!"

The film-maker's letter asks many incisive questions, with humour and humanity. Such as: "Will we ever get to the point that we realise we will be more secure when the rest of the world is not living in poverty so that we can have nice running shoes?"

And he also anticipates what followed September 11 when he writes, "A key ingredient in getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a new enemy is the all-important race card. It is much easier to get us to hate when the object of our hatred does not look like us." A universal truth, as we know from our own experience with minorities in this country.

The American film-maker concludes, "Let us mourn, let us grieve and when it is appropriate, let us examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in. It does not have to be like this." No, it certainly does not have to be like this.

KALPANA SHARMA

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