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Journalism of Courage
For both TIME and NEWSWEEK, the acceptance of corruption was the bigger story. Are the incessant scandals making the Indian people more cynical? Or does public cynicism stem from the reaction of India8217;s political class to the scandals?
The country8217;s main political parties seem 8216;8216;unabashed8217;8217; by the reports of corruption, noted NEWSWEEK. Be it the Judeo expose, the ever-growing Telgi revelations, or Mayawati8217;s implication in the Taj heritage corridor case, 8216;8216;Far from admitting that graft has become a national problem or that its prevalence may handicap economic development, accused parties immediately charge their rivals of either fabricating the scandal or of being even more corrupt8217;8217;. It pointed out that immediately after Union Minister Dilip Singh Judeo was shown raising a bunch of currency notes to his forehead on tape, Judeo received a vote of confidence, not censure, from his party seniors.
Life goes on, after the expose. TIME noted that few politicians, bureaucrats, or policemen exposed by the media or courts have been punished. Corruption trials can drag on for 10-20 years. The conviction rate, the magazine said, is only 6 per cent.
Bricks through windows
Hari Kunzru turned down the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in Britain and asked the MAIL, sponsor of the prize, to donate his prize money to the Refugee Council. This week in the GUARDIAN, the writer explained why he thought questions of literary value are sometimes inseparable from politics. 8216;8216;8230;I would have been giving legitimacy to a publication that has, over many years, shown itself to be extremely xenophobic 8212; an absurdity for a novelist of mixed race who is supposedly being honoured for a book about the stupidity of racial classifications and the seedy underside of empire8217;8217;.
Kunzru pointed to the rise of the new bogeyman in middle England: the asylum seeker. He pointed to the 8216;8216;extraordinary media hostility8217;8217; towards refugees, asylum seekers and those migrating for a better quality of life. He wrote about the rise of prejudice, its swamping of tolerance. And its consequences: 8216;8216;Bricks through windows. Knives in guts.8217;8217;
Kunzru admitted that standing up for the refugee can be a lonely act. Because 8216;8216;8230; the Blair government is keen to show how tough it can be8230; and a home secretary who always appears to be wondering aloud why They can8217;t be more like Us8217;8217;.
As if on cue, also in the GUARDIAN, British Home Secretary David Blunkett defended his controversial plans to force failed asylum seekers to leave the country by threatening to take their children into care. 8216;8216;I have no desire to take children from their parents and put them in unless it is an absolute last resort8230;8217;8217; He described his plans as 8216;8216;necessary medicine8217;8217;. And as a strategy to keep the right-wingers at bay.
But the GUARDIAN pointed out that even Michael Howard, said to be the most hardline Tory home secretary of modern times, said that Blunkett8217;s latest idea is shameful.
Between the lines
The 8216;8216;Agreement on Political Process8217;8217; was signed earlier this month by the US authority in Iraq and the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. In Lebanon8217;s THE DAILY STAR, executive editor Rami G. Khourie decoded the document.
The envisaged transition 8212; in 66 lines of text available on the Coalitional Provisional Authority website: http://www.cpa-iraq.org 8212; from American-occupied Iraq to a fully sovereign, free and democratic Iraq is resonant with principles of 8216;8216;democratic pluralism, equality before law, representatational federalism and the consent of the governed8217;8217;. But.
The document embodies the best and worst of America, said Khourie: 8216;8216;If this were a commercial webste, I would want to put all these democratic values in my shopping cart.8217;8217; But the implementation will be bumpy: One, it ignores the points of tension likely to crop up in the encounter of American and Iraqi-Arab-tribal-Islamic-Kurdish-etc cultural values. Two, the agreement is imposed by the Americans, and includes American veto powers. Three, the Governing Council itself was appointed by the occupation authority, and enjoys mixed credibility. Four, It reflects American policymaking 8216;8216;by panic8217;8217;.
Khourie8217;s verdict: 8216;8216;America offers us ennobling lessons, along with ugly imposed colonial treaties. We should beware of, renegotiate and improve bad treaties, but embrace and achieve the promise of good governance8217;8217;.
P.S.: The WEEKLY STANDARD spotted the War on Terror8217;s 8216;8216;Newest Bad Cliche8217;8217; doing the rounds in the US. It used to be, wrote Matt Labash, that the Left had the monopoly on war cliches: for instance, 8216;8216;another Vietnam8217;8217;. But now the Right is competing with the Left.
Immediately after September 11, it was 8216;8216;8230; or the terrorists will have won8217;8217;. Now, the most fashionable 8216;8216;pre-fab rationalisation8217;8217; to use when the news isn8217;t going according to plan, is this: Step One, select a place in Iraq, then a place in America, and if the two start with the same letter, all the better. Step two: state emphatically that no matter how badly things are going, you8217;d rather fight the terrorists/Baathists/ whosoever in the first location, rather than the second. Step three: 8216;8216;sit back with a self-satisfied smile, as if that settles the matter8217;8217;.
Labash gave an illustration. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on a 8216;8216;fighting hat trick8217;8217;: He said he8217;d prefer the fight to go down in Baghdad rather than 8216;8216;in Boston or in Baltimore or in Boise8217;8217;.
