Different themes

Is the War on Terror the encompassing label for a global era? Will it be deemed the defining title for our times, like the Cold War was in a...

Is the War on Terror the encompassing label for a global era? Will it be deemed the defining title for our times, like the Cold War was in an earlier age? Are we all Americans, still, as the Le Monde headline had famously proclaimed in the shocked stillness after the terrible strikes on America three years ago?

In The New York Times, columnist Roger Cohen took stock and argued that the US has a 8216;8216;strategic problem8217;8217; on its hands: unlike its fight against Communism, its war on terror is not seen as 8216;8216;the pivotal global struggle of the age8217;8217;.

Cohen pointed to a widening rift in perceptions: while the US marches to a monotonous drumbeat, as the results of its presidential elections have confirmed, the rest of the world is immersed in various agendas and diverse issues. The world outside the US is unconvinced that terrorism and fear are the themes of the hour; it is 8216;8216;still taken with the notion that the Cold War8217;s end and technology8217;s advance have opened unprecedented possibilities for dialogue and peace8217;8217;.

It is possible to count out the different regions, the different concerns. In Brazil, they8217;re talking about the IMF; in South Africa, of the 40 per cent unemployment and crime and disease; a unique experiment in democracy unfolds in the European imagination; in Asia, the focus is on China8217;s rise and India8217;s. Unlike the Cold War, the War on Terror neither divides nor engages all continents.

Cohen8217;s argument was essentially a plea for the Bush administration to pare down its overriding campaign to a more modest claim in its second term. To acknowledge that the war on terror 8216;8216;8230;describes the focus of America, a new principle and project guiding national policy, but it describes no more than that, because other countries have other agendas8217;8217;.

8216;Mechanic Sir8217;

The Washington Post framed a heartening snapshot from Choti Madhaiyan in India. Here, the paper met Savitri Kabirdas, 50, whom it described as a short, lower-caste woman in a torn sari, and found that she was addressed as 8216;8216;Mechanic Sir8217;8217; by the caller at her thatch-roofed hut.

The paper discovered that Savitri is one among 45 illiterate lower-caste women in the district who were trained 10 years ago by male government mechanics in pump repair, generally an all-male job. She is a pioneer for two reasons: for breaching stereotypes about women8217;s work, and for doing a job traditionally barred to members of lower castes.

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8216;8216;These were the homes we could never enter. Our pots could not touch theirs when they filled water8230;8217;8217;, she told the Post. Today, Savitri and her skilled team are routinely summoned, even by the upper caste people, to touch the water source.

Conflict8217;s children

Nepal8217;s nine-year old insurgency is stepping into a bloodier phase and the world is taking notice. The New York Times reported from Pokhari Chauri on what the war between the ruling regime and the Maoists is doing to Nepal8217;s young. It said that human rights groups calculate that tens of thousands of children below the age of 18 have been abducted and forced to attend indoctrination camps or have been sent away to safer places by their terrified parents. Increasing numbers are fleeing conflict, food shortages, forced Maoist recruitment and the army, to Indian monastries.

The Economist pointed to the irony in Nepal, where, in the political void, 8216;8216;it is the Maoists who have staked out the democratic high ground8217;8217;. They demand an elected assembly to draft a new constitution, as the king continues to snub all 8216;8216;republican ambitions8217;8217;. Political parties are in disarray and Parliament remains dissolved.

According to the magazine, the new government in New Delhi accords greater priority to the situation in Nepal because of perceived links between Nepal8217;s Maoists and India8217;s homegrown Maoist rebellions and other secessionist groups. Therefore, it said, India, like America, helps train and arm the Nepalese army, which helps subdue the Maoists but which also encourages the king8217;s camp to think that it can keep the processes of democracy and accommodation away from Nepal a while longer.

Right to lampoon

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And in Britain, the proposed legislation to bar incitement to religious hatred has provoked the comedian. Rowan Atkinson, a leading comedian, declared his objection to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill in The Guardian. The right to offend, he insisted, is far more important than the right not to be offended.

The bill extends the offence of incitement to racial hatred to religious hatred. It has provoked a complex debate in Britain on the merits of such legal protection to religious communities and particularly to Muslims after 9/11. Will it decrease intolerance or merely force it under the carpet? Will it rob communities of free speech? A sense of humour? That argument goes on.