The Shoe Attack !

He shouldn't really get 7 years. That is just so much!

The Times of India, December 17

Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi (29), who ‘‘shoed’’ US president George Bush, faces up to seven years in jail for ‘‘aggression’’ but one thing is certain: he won’t slip into oblivion in a hurry. Zaidi’s soaring popularity across the Arab world would more than make up for the prison term he faces. Zaidi’s brother Dargham told BBC that he deliberately bought dark brown Iraq-made shoes for the purpose from a shop in Baghdad’s Al-Khyam Street. A colleague described Zaidi as a ‘‘proud Arab and an open-minded man’’, adding that Zaidi had no ties to the former government and that his family was arrested under Saddam’s regime.

A communications’ graduate from Baghdad University, Zaidi was abducted by insurgents in 2007, beaten up and released without any demand for ransom. He was also twice held for questioning by US forces. Another colleague said Zaidi had planned some sort of protest against Bush for nearly a year. ‘‘In 2007, he told me ‘you’ll see how I’ll take revenge on Bush for his crimes against Iraqis’,’’ he said.

The symbolism attached to the ‘‘shoeing’’ has made Zaidi the face of rage against America. From Cairo to Riyadh, his act has united the normally divided Arabs. Moments after Zaidi was pinned down, handcuffed, beaten up and whisked away by security men, his employer, Al-Baghdadiya TV, suspended normal programming to play messages of support. Zaidi has worked for Al-Baghdadia for three years. In Syria, the state TV repeatedly played the ‘‘shoeing’’ footage and asked Syrians to share their admiration for his ‘‘bravery’’. A banner in downtown Damascus read: ‘‘Oh, heroic journalist, thank you so much!’’

Reports from Saudi Arabia said a man offered to buy one of what has now certainly become the world’s most famous pair of shoes for $10 million. In Libya, Muammar el-Gaddafi’s daughter bestowed ‘‘a medal of courage’’ on Zaidi. ‘‘Throwing shoes at Bush was the best goodbye kiss ever and expresses how Iraqis and Arabs hate Bush,’’ wrote Musa Barhoumeh, editor of Jordan’s Al-Gahd newspaper. Egyptian daily Al-Badeel carried the US flag’s caricature with the shoe sole replacing the stars. Across Iraq, thousands of people rallied round the journalist by removing their shoes and placing them at the ends of long poles. People hurled shoes at an American convoy at Najaf. Apart from street-corner conversations, the ‘‘daredevilry’’ spilled over to cyberspace with many using the internet to hail the ‘‘hero’’.

Right Size

A very big deal

excerpts from an article in DAWN
full article at - http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm

Years ago, a western diplomat wrote that Pakistan was the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head. Our argument, long familiar to aid donors, goes something like this: If you don’t give us what we need, the government will collapse and this might result in anarchy, and a takeover by Islamic militants. Left unstated here is the global risk these elements would pose as they would have access to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Many Pakistanis have become so accustomed to terrorist attacks on their soil that they have forgotten that this is not the norm elsewhere. Instead of asking “What’s the big deal?” they should be putting themselves in the place of the victims. If, as seems very likely, the group that attacked Mumbai was trained and armed by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-i-Taiba, it is a very big deal indeed.

all i say is indeed!

Limits of Democracy

Santosh Desai in City City Bang Bang - The Times of India, Nov 17

It was almost as if democracy itself heaved a sigh of relief when Obama, armed with a perversely strange name and an eclectic gene pool, won the US elections. The world outside was clear about who the Americans needed to vote for but in spite of commanding leads in the opinion polls, wasn’t confident enough about the ability of the American public to do what the rest of the world believed was the staggeringly obvious thing to do. As it turns out, we needn’t have been anxious. Obama has won convincingly and democracy seems to have been redeemed. Against the run of play, Obama has emerged, a sprig out of season, representing purity and hope in a time of escalating recrimination. And already, we have commentators paying tribute to the American system and bemoaning its Indian counterpart for not producing its own Obama.

Perhaps, a deeper scrutiny is called for here. While there is no doubt that the election of a black man to the highest office in the most powerful country in the world is a momentous event, it would help to ask why exactly is it so? Isn’t this the most basic promise that the idea of democracy holds out for us? That every individual in the system, no matter where he or she comes from, has the same chance of being elected as any other? After two hundred and thirty-odd years of democracy in the US, why is it that an event as ordinary as this, is in truth such a historic one?

And lest we forget, the minority label of black might have won this time, but it did so at the cost of another minority label — Muslim. Obama could win because he convinced America that he was not Muslim and not because it didn’t matter what religion he was. For the world’s most powerful democracy to accept in a matter-offact way that being a Muslim carries with it the automatic presumption of being a terrorist, is a stinging repudiation of all that democracy holds dear.

The problem lies perhaps with the idea of democracy itself. It took such a long time to elect a black man to the highest office because the people empowered with the right to make this choice did so with all their biases intact. We still don’t have a woman US President, for the same reason. Democracy is a noble idea in the hands of people who feel no compulsion to be so. Which is why we had eight years of George W Bush, a man who makes dribbling idiots look like prodigies. And very nearly had a woman who knows foreign policy by looking out of her window become the Vice-President of USA. Which is why, the US will never adopt gun control, in spite of the utter insanity of allowing lethal weaponry in the hands of all its citizens. And why it is possible that more and more American kids will grow up believing that evolution is just a theory on a par with something called Intelligent Design.

In a democracy, who can argue against the limitations that we as a people have in our own ideas of what is good for us? In India, we are seeing how political opportunism wins over democratic principle every time. The Congress does not oppose a Raj Thackeray for political gain, DMK supports the very LTTE that assassinated an Indian PM from the same party that it is now an ally of, the Indian Left pontificates about the freedom of speech but packs off Taslima Nasreen from Kolkata, the BJP tacitly supports acts of violence against Christian clergy — the list is endless. Given the fragmented nature of the Indian polity, it makes little electoral sense to stand on principle. Votes are garnered by a series of compromises knitted together to make a patchwork quilt of power.

Ruling any large collective requires the ability to trade off one group’s interests for another’s and deferring short-term gains for long-term ones. Increasingly, it appears that the process of getting elected substantially reduces one’s ability to make these choices. Democracy without its nobility of purpose is the rule by a crowd which not infrequently, turns into a mob. Obama’s success lies in winning in spite of the electoral process that has come to represent democracy.

He has won in spite of democracy, at least the version of democracy that is being practised today, and not because of it. The individual has won, not the system. It is time to cheer, but it is also time to reflect. In any case, Sarah Palin might well be back in 2012.

The K Word

If Obama were white ...

If Obama were white, this would not even be a close contest. If he loses despite having run the most impressive presidential campaign in recent Democratic memory, it will only mean that the candidate of change has been defeated by the one thing he cannot change — the colour of his skin. ... Shashi Tharoor in the Times of India

Kid Stuff

The article below from The Times of India talks about the right thing albeit uses a rather inappropriate example ...

Australians are not playing the game with the right sprint. I just saw this video on you tube of the incident and very clearly Watson and the rest of the team is mouthing too much. This much verbal aggression is not permitted or tolerated even in contact sports like soccer. Indians may react aggressively, but one needs to note - it’s a “reaction”. Indians never start it. Australians are just way too much into this. Sledging more and playing less. Their recent defeats are just the beginning of their end. At some point in time this had to happen.... I completely disagree with the example cited but otherwise very valid point raised...

Our public behaviour doesn’t always befit India’s world stature.
Gautam Gambhir may not get to play in the next Test match against Australia despite his sterling double century at Ferozeshah Kotla. He faces a one-Test ban, pending an appeal, for elbowing Australian cricketer Shane Watson during his innings at Kotla. Sure, Watson provoked Gambhir verbally, but that’s no justification for anyone to respond physically. Even sledging, however unsporting that may be, has a way about it. Aussies, who invented the thing, do it artfully: muttering expletives under their breath and out of earshot from the umpire. Our players, however, play into their hands and invite censure. Not surprisingly, Indians top the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) list of players who have faced disciplinary action. So, when they are called the bad boys of cricket, as an Australian newspaper recently wrote, the mud sticks.

Rather than search for a racist motive in ICC’s actions, it is time for us to introspect. Some of our young cricketers are impish and respond in kind when dared. Often, this becomes unnecessary bravado that goes against all norms of public behaviour. Repartee is almost an art form and it is important to cultivate it. It is more effective than any public display of anger. Remember how effective Anil Kumble was when he said only one team played cricket in its true spirit after the ruckus during the Sydney Test? Kumble’s dignified response put the Test match in a context and shifted the spotlight to the Australian team. Sure enough, a resurgent India defeated Australia convincingly in the next match. The younger players should, perhaps, take lessons in on-field conduct from Kumble and seniors like Sachin Tendulkar and V V S Laxman.

Unfortunately, Kumbles are not so common in India’s public sphere. Many of our public personalities prefer to be loquacious and take pride in being abrasive. They seem incapable of restrained and nuanced response. Their behaviour seems to rub on to the public as well. Or, do these leaders merely reflect dominant social attitudes? One politician in Mumbai whips up ethnic hatred and his cadre beats up innocent people. The response is equally menacing; crowds set trains on fire in Bihar. In Guwahati, crowds angry about the heinous act of terrorists attack public property and stone fire engines. We as a people seem unable to control ourselves in the face of a crisis.

For a country that aspires to be a global power, our public conduct leaves a lot to be desired. Our collective sense of victimhood has a lot to do with our colonial past, but we ought to have outgrown it. As an emerging power, India must look ahead and act with quiet confidence. We ought to be proud of our success — not gloat over it — and introspect on failures. Leaders keep their cool in times of adversity.

Risks of crony capitalism

SWAMINOMICS
Swaminathan S Anklesaria

Should the government assist Indian banks and companies that have borrowed billions abroad, and suddenly find it difficult to repay maturing loans because the global financial crisis has frozen money markets? Russia and Mexico have thrown lifelines to their debt-laden companies. Korea has guaranteed $100 billion of foreign bank loans.

Should India do something similar? Only on a very limited scale, if at all. Indian companies have borrowed $150 billion abroad. This is spread over hundreds of companies, and the big borrowers are financially sound. That cannot be said of all Russian tycoons. If global markets remain frozen, Indian companies will surely ask for government assistance.

Other emerging market governments have justified corporate rescues as win-win strategies. The RBI keeps forex reserves mainly in US government bonds, yielding around 5%. But Indian companies today pay 10% or more for dollar loans, and often cannot get loans on any terms at all. If India, like Russia, creates a war chest of $50 billion for rescues, this sum can be switched from 5% US bonds to 8% dollar bonds issued by Indian companies. That will increase the government’s income, while easing the credit crunch on companies too.

A win-win situation? No, it would be crony capitalism. Indian companies must learn that foreign borrowing carries unanticipated risks of the sort evident today. In good times, companies have gaily ignored these risks. It is fair and just that they should suffer the downside of foreign debt, just as they benefited from the upside earlier. We must not privatise profits and socialise losses.

Besides, our forex reserves of $270 billion no longer look so large. Foreign institutional investors could pull out another $50-80 billion from our stockmarkets, creating a run on the rupee. That will slow or paralyse remittances from overseas Indians, which provided an invaluable $42 billion last year. Unlike Russia, we must use our reserves carefully and discourage crony capitalism.

Having laid down this principle, we can accept the case for exceptional action in exceptional circumstances. When markets freeze in a panic, there is a case for government intervention until the markets unfreeze. But it should be limited in duration and volume, and involve penal interest.

Indian banks now have hundreds of branches in many countries. In India, they get money mainly from deposits. But abroad, they borrow from wholesale money markets, and re-lend this to their clients. In normal times, they roll over their borrowings — that is, they borrow afresh to repay old loans. However, the financial crisis has frozen markets and rollovers, stranding Indian banks.

A government committee has reportedly recommended helping bank branches abroad till the panic subsides. It suggests that $5 billion from our forex reserves could be invested in dollar bonds of Indian banks, keeping them liquid in the current storm. The interest rate would be higher than the 5% the government earns on its forex reserves.

If Indian banks fail to repay their dollar loans, the government’s own credit worthiness will be affected. The $5 billion proposed is modest, covering only a small part of banks’ obligations. So, despite misgivings, i would support this proposal. The rate of interest should be penal, inducing banks to return to global markets quickly and not become addicted to government help.

However, i oppose dollar loans to corporate giants. Tata Motors and Hindalco recently came out with rights issues to raise domestic money to repay huge dollar loans they had taken to acquire Jaguar-Land Rover and Novellis respectively. The rights issues failed dismally. Other businessmen ask, how can we raise money when even Tata and Birla cannot?

Russian tycoons have pledged big stakes in top Russian companies to take dollar loans. The Russian government argues that these stakes in key Russian companies will become the property of foreign banks if the tycoons are not enabled to repay their loans. Indian companies might make a similar argument.

The argument must be resisted. Russian tycoons have been reckless. Indian tycoons must not be encouraged to follow suit, with the assurance of rescues if things go wrong. Indian companies must be forced to confront the risks of huge foreign loans. Nor should India’s limited forex reserves be frittered away in repaying irresponsible corporate debts.

Okay, some companies will say, don’t give us any dollars from your forex reserves, but at least give a government guarantee to cover our dollar loans till the panic subsides. Without a guarantee, many of us cannot raise money at any price today. So, even sound companies find it difficult to repay old loans.

Normally, i am dead opposed to government guarantees. But in a global panic, there is a case for guarantees if they thaw an otherwise frozen market. The government must charge a substantial penal fee for giving such guarantees. The guarantees should be valid for a maximum of two years, so that companies return to unguaranteed borrowing quickly. Finally, such guarantees should be limited to large, demonstrably solvent companies. This still carries the risk of crony capitalism. But in a global panic, the risk may be worthwhile.

Man in a Hurry

Very Sweet ....

by JUG SURAIYA

Looking back, you’d wonder what the hurry was at that time. Trouble was, ‘at that time’ wasn’t ‘at that time’ at that time. It was right then. And right then he was in a hurry. And all the bloody relatives didn’t help. The flat was full of them. A droll assortment of uncles; anthologies of aunts, each with stories about things he’d said or done when he was ever so little, and look at him now, all grown up, on this big day; a slyness of cousins in murmured conspiracies. What was it that they were whispering about anyway, silly grins on their faces? He didn’t have to ask. He knew. It was him. Now and then one would call out to him, amidst much laughter, to come and join them. But he couldn’t. He was too tightly wound up, a watch-spring coiled too often, all that morning, the past week, the past month, ever since the date had been fixed. Time had become fitful, a fickle fever that came and went. Sometimes minutes, hours, days sped by, skittering out of sight. Other times, seconds crawled like ants on sweaty skin.

He went to see if he could hurry up lunch. He wasn’t hungry himself, hadn’t been for days, appetite too slow to catch up with the haste he was in. But all the guests had to be fed before they could set off. And a suspicion told him that getting them fed wasn’t going to be easy. It wasn’t. Lunch wasn’t ready. It wouldn’t be ready for an hour. What was his hurry, anyway? Loud chuckles. Uncles, aunts, cousins, even the maharaj, hired for the occasion, loin-clothed, sacred-threaded, so thin after a lifetime of cooking for others that you could count every finger of your hands on his ribs. Finally they sat for lunch, men in one room, women in the other, seated on wooden patlas on the floor, thalis in front of them, the old maharaj stooping and bobbing to serve each one, a stork in quicksand. Everything seemed in slow motion. Finally he pushed aside his half-finished thali and announced he was going to change; he didn’t want to be late; 3 o’clock was the appointed time. Don’t worry, she won’t run away; she’ll wait for you, a cousin rallied. Uncles guffawed and aunts smirked.

He got changed and returned; they were still eating, prolonging it. All right; i’ll go on my own, he said, and went down to the car. Holy shit. The car. Ribbons, balloons, flowers. It looked like a Diwali hamper on wheels. Take them off, he told the driver. Can’t; your uncles put them there, sniggered the driver. Let’s go, said the man in a hurry, cursing his inability to drive. Can’t, repeated the driver. You have to wait for the others; you can’t go on your own. If you don’t start the car, you’re sacked, said the hurry man. The sound of the engine brought everyone down in a gratifying rush.

The cavalcade started. Traffic was light, the distance short. They reached at five to three. Relief flooded him. He’d made it. He was on time. He wasn’t. He was at least an hour too early. Traditionally, the man always arrives late, to make the other side wait. So the other side is never ready by the official time. From behind the closed door, muted shrieks. Ohmigod, he’s here already! How could he be? He’s not supposed to be here till at least 4! Surrounded by querulous uncles and told-you-so cousins, he stood there on the landing, stiff and stranded in his brand new silk achkan, feeling like the biggest idiot on earth and happy to be so, till, at last, the door opened. It was 3.30.

Last month, it was 40 years to that day. Why were you in such a hurry? asks Bunny. Seems silly now, she adds. Not at all; it’s given me a 30-minute bonus added to those 40 years, i reply.

Rebranding America

S U B V E R S E
The Times of India, October 27 2008

Nicholas D Kristof

New York: I had a conversation with a Beijing friend the other day and mentioned that Barack Obama was leading in the presidential race.

She: But surely a black man couldn’t become president of the United States?

Me: It looks as if he’ll be elected.

She: But president? That’s such an important job! In America, i thought blacks were janitors and labourers.

Me: No, blacks have all kinds of jobs.

She: What do white people think about that, about getting a black president? Are they upset? Me: No, of course not! If Obama is elected, it’ll be because white people voted for him.

She: Really? Unbelievable! What an amazing country!

We’re beginning to get a sense of how Obama’s political success could change global perceptions of the United States, redefining the American “brand” to be less about Guantanamo and more about equality. This change in perceptions would help rebuild American political capital in the way that the Marshall Plan did in the 1950s or that John Kennedy’s presidency did in the early 1960s.

In his endorsement of Obama, Colin Powell noted that “the new president is going to have to fix the reputation that we’ve left with the rest of the world”. That’s not because we crave admiration, but because cooperation is essential to address 21st-century challenges; you can’t fire cruise missiles at the global financial crisis. In his endorsement, Powell added that an Obama election “will also not only electrify our country, i think it’ll electrify the world”. You can already see that. A 22-nation survey by the BBC found that voters abroad preferred Obama to McCain in every single country — by four to one over all. Europe is particularly intoxicated by the possibility of restoring amity with America in an Obama presidency.

Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, which conducted the BBC poll, said that at a recent international conference he attended in Malaysia, many Muslims voiced astonishment at Obama’s rise because it was so much at odds with their assumptions about the United States.

Europeans like to mock the vapidity of American politics, but they also acknowledge that it would be difficult to imagine a brown or black person leading France or Germany. As for Africa, Obama’s Kenyan father was of the Luo tribe, a minority that has long suffered brutal discrimination in both Kenya and in Uganda (where it is known as the Acholi). The bitter joke in East Africa is that a Luo has more of a chance of becoming president in the United States than in Kenya.

Yet before we get too far with the selfcongratulations, it’s worth remembering something else. In the western industrialised world, full of university graduates and marinated in principles of egalitarianism, the idea of electing a member of a racial minority to the highest office seems an astonishing breakthrough. But Jamaica’s 95 per cent black population elected a white man as its prime minister in 1980, and kept him in office throughout that decade. Likewise, the African nation of Mauritius has elected a white prime minister of French origin. And don’t forget that India is overwhelmingly Hindu but now has a Sikh prime minister and a white Christian as president of its ruling party, and until last year it had a Muslim in the largely ceremonial position of president. Look, Obama’s skin colour is a bad reason to vote for him or against him. Substance should always trump symbolism. Yet if this election goes as the polls suggest, we may find a path to restore America’s global influence, in part because the world is concluding that Americans can, after all, see beyond a person’s epidermis. My hunch is that that is right, and that we’re every bit as openminded about racial minorities as Jamaicans already were a quartercentury ago. — NYTNS

Self-regulatory market a false concept

CITY CITY BANG BANG
The Times of India, October 27, 2008

Self-regulatory market a false concept from SANTOSH DESAI

Could the global economic crisis be an inflection point of some? Is it possible that what global warming could not do, the global meltdown will manage —make us rethink not just our regulations and our institutions but the path that we are choosing to walk down? For India, in particular, standing as it does at the threshold of economic resurgence, is this an opportunity to ask what its destination should be, instead of being thankful that it is relatively protected on account of its regulated past? It appears that one of the biggest lessons learnt in the current crisis is that the financial system cannot regulate itself and that left to its own devices it will push outwards without regard for risks. And given the interdependent nature of the world economy, it will suffice if even a couple of large players go for broke and succeed. The idea that self-interest will create energy that will propel us forward while our institutions act as checks and balances to ensure that this self-interest does not become self-destruction, is a theoretically sound one but one that has been deeply compromised in practice.

At a more fundamental level, the growth-centric nature of the economic system creates accomplices out of the institutions meant to control it. The regulatory bodies, the experts, the business press all become shrill cheerleaders for growth and implicitly push the case for more growth while muffling other voices. We have seen this in India in the last few years, with a conspiracy of cheer that brooked no bad news. The India story had a momentum of its own, taking on a reality of its own making. We cheered when four out of the top 10 richest people were Indian, not asking if there was something deeply wrong with this. In an article written in this column in March of this year, it had been pointed out that it is interesting that we have begun to embrace the riches of a few as our own while shunning the penury of many as belonging to them. The poor today are an electoral fabrication, vestiges of an India we are eager to leave behind.

The idea of the economy has been exceptionally well marketed; so much so that we conflate our notion of the business sector with that of the Indian economy which in turn in an act of implicit compression becomes shorthand for India. What we call the economy is an abstract construction, a virtual presence with boundaries marked by the self-interest of those in charge of running it. The interests of the millions that lie outside this definition of the economy are a struggle to accommodate and often when steps are taken in this direction, they are labelled populist. So it was wrong to waive loans for impoverished farmers but it is all right to look sympathetically at the airline industry’s demand for a bailout. Somehow, the threatened impoverishment of Messrs Goyal & Mallya makes us readier to act than the suicide of a few thousand farmers. The idea that the market can be selfregulating has been exposed as being false. The nature of the joint stock corporation makes it uniquely suited to drive a growth-at-any-cost agenda. Structurally, it atomises ownership, accountability and conscience. The widely held joint stock company in its purest form has no single owner, no one human source that we can attach consequences to. Theoretically, everyone has a share and no one is eventually responsible. The goals of a corporation, the driving ambitions that it nurtures are those of a self-sustaining organism. The corporation is its own justification. The idea of nameless and fragmented shareholders whose interests seemingly drive it, allows the corporation licence to drive an agenda divorced from any larger social context.

The reductive nature of the corporation allows it to multiply endlessly — without any sense of the consequences of its actions. The corporation cannot say no, unless the law explicitly requires it to say so. The owned-by-no-one nature of corporations allows a culture to develop where actions do not need to conform to any rules but those developed internally. People can be fired overnight, fantastic exaggerations can be told about the products that it sells and its financial performance can be window-dressed without any great self-doubt. The corporation gives a licence to people to behave in ways they never would in their personal lives. The corporation cannot be trusted to balance larger needs for it has not been designed with that goal in mind. It is like a software programme, with its own inbuilt heuristic, which gives it great facility in some areas and very little in others. To depend on it to regulate itself is to expect too much from it.

The opportunity today is to take a hard look not just at how to make the system work better, but to ask as to whether we should be working to build a new system altogether. For the current system is not only unstable but unsustainable. But that would need the courage to detach ourselves from the wisdom of others and to try and find our own truth. It will mean making our own mistakes rather than paying the price for the mistakes of others. I am not sure we are ready to do that just yet

Pull of the collective

David Brooks

Chengdu (China): The world can be divided in many ways — rich and poor, democratic and authoritarian — but one of the most striking is the divide between the societies with an individualist mentality and the ones with a collectivist mentality.
This is a divide that goes deeper than economics into the way people perceive the world. If you show an American an image of a fish tank, the American will usually describe the biggest fish in the tank and what it is doing. If you ask a Chinese person to describe a fish tank, the Chinese will usually describe the context in which the fish swim. These sorts of experiments have been done over and over again, and the results reveal the same underlying pattern. Americans usually see individuals; Chinese and other Asians see contexts. When the psychologist Richard Nisbett showed Americans individual pictures of a chicken, a cow and hay and asked the subjects to pick out the two that go together, the Americans would usually pick out the chicken and the cow. They’re both animals. Most Asian people, on the other hand, would pick out the cow and the hay, since cows depend on hay. Americans are more likely to see categories. Asians are more likely to see relationships.
You can create a global continuum with the most individualistic societies — like the United States or Britain — on one end, and the most collectivist societies — like China or Japan — on the other. The individualistic countries tend to put rights and privacy first. People in these societies tend to overvalue their own skills and overestimate their own importance to any group effort. People in collective societies tend to value harmony and duty. They tend to underestimate their own skills and are more self-effacing when describing their contributions to group efforts. Researchers argue about why certain cultures have become more individualistic than others. Some say that western cultures draw their values from ancient Greece, with its emphasis on individual heroism, while other cultures draw more on tribal philosophies. Either way, individualistic societies have tended to do better economically. We in the West have a narrative that involves the development of individual reason and conscience during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and then the subsequent flourishing of capitalism. According to this narrative, societies get more individualistic as they develop.
But what happens if collectivist societies snap out of their economic stagnation? What happens if collectivist societies, especially those in Asia, rise economically and come to rival the West? A new sort of global conversation develops. The opening ceremony in Beijing was a statement in that conversation. It was part of China’s assertion that development doesn’t come only through western, liberal means, but also through eastern and collective ones.
The ceremony drew from China’s long history, but surely the most striking features were the images of thousands of Chinese moving as one — drumming as one, dancing as one, sprinting on precise formations without ever stumbling or colliding. We’ve seen displays of mass conformity before, but this was collectivism of the present — a high-tech vision of the harmonious society performed in the context of China’s miraculous growth.
If Asia’s success reopens the debate between individualism and collectivism, which seemed closed after the Cold War, then it’s unlikely that the forces of individualism will sweep the field or even gain an edge. For one thing, there are relatively few individualistic societies on earth. For another, the essence of a lot of the latest scientific research is that the western idea of individual choice is an illusion and the Chinese are right to put first emphasis on social contexts.
The rise of China isn’t only an economic event. It’s a cultural one. The ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream. It’s certainly a useful ideology for aspiring autocrats. — NYTNS

It Is Difficult To Stay In The Middle

even though i am nowhere near being a fan of osho!, but then i do agree to the article below and its nicely written too ...

It Is Difficult To Stay In The Middle

Discourse: Osho

The most difficult thing, the almost impossible thing for the mind, is to remain in the middle, to remain balanced. And to move from one thing to its opposite is the easiest. To move from one polarity to another is the nature of the mind.
If you are balanced, mind disappears. Mind is like a disease: when you are imbalanced it is there, when you are balanced, it is not there. That is why it is easy for a person who overeats to go on a fast. It looks illogical, because we think that a person who is obsessed with food cannot go on a fast.
But you are wrong. Only a person who is obsessed with food can fast, because fasting is the same obsession in the opposite direction. You are not really changing yourself. You are still obsessed with food. Before you were overeating; now you are hungry — but the mind remains focused on food from the opposite extreme.
A man who has been overindulging in sex can become a celibate very easily. There is no problem. But it is difficult for the mind to come to the right diet, difficult for the mind to stay in the middle. It is just like a clock’s pendulum. The pendulum goes to the right, then it moves to the left, then again to the right, and again to the left; the clock’s working depends on this movement.
If the pendulum stays in the middle, the clock stops. And when the pendulum moves to the right, you think it is only going to the right, but at the same time it is gathering momentum to go to the left. The more it moves to the right, the more energy it gathers to move to the left, and vice versa.
Thinking means momentum. The mind starts arranging for the opposite. When you love a person you are gathering momentum to hate him. That’s why only friends can become enemies. You cannot suddenly become an enemy unless you have first become a friend. Only lovers can quarrel and fight, because unless you love, how can you hate? Unless you have moved far to the extreme left, how can you move to the right?
Modern research says that so-called love is a relationship of intimate enmity. Your wife is your intimate enemy, your husband is your intimate enemy — both intimate and inimical. They appear opposites, illogical, because we wonder how one who is intimate can be the enemy; one who is a friend, how can he also be the foe?
Logic is superficial, life goes deeper, and in life all opposites are joined together, they exist together. Remember this, because then meditation becomes balancing. Buddha taught eight disciplines, and with each discipline he used the word right. He said: Right effort, because it is very easy to move from action to inaction, from waking to sleep, but to remain in the middle is difficult.
When Buddha used the word right he was saying: Don’t move to the opposite, just stay in the middle. Right food — he never said to fast. Don’t indulge in too much eating and don’t indulge in fasting. He said: Right food. Right food means standing in the middle.
When you are standing in the middle you are not gathering any momentum. And this is the beauty of it — a man who is not gathering any momentum to move anywhere, can be at ease with himself, can be at home.
Excerpted from The Empty Boat. Courtesy: Osho International Foundation.

The Way We Think Now

after a really long time, i have found a really nice read! eloquently and intelligently written.
Have we all surrendered to the internet?

Andrew Sullivan

I didn’t know this: Friedrich Nietzsche used a typewriter. Many of those terse aphorisms and impenetrable reveries were banged out on an 1882 Malling-Hansen Writing Ball. And a friend of his at the time noticed a change in the German philosopher’s style as soon as he moved from longhand to type. “Perhaps you will through this instrument even take to a new idiom,” the friend wrote. Nietzsche replied: “You are right. Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” Gulp.
The technology writer Nicholas Carr, who pointed out this item of Nietzsche trivia in the new issue of The Atlantic, proceeded to make a more disturbing point. If a typewriter could do this to a mind as profound and powerful as Nietzsche’s, what on earth is Google now doing to us? Are we fast losing the capacity to think deeply, calmly and seriously? Have we all succumbed to internet attentiondeficit disorder?
The astonishing benefits of Google are barely worth repeating. I spend most of my day blogging — at a current rate of about 300 posts a week. I’m certainly not more stupid than before. I’m much, much better and more instantly informed. However, the way in which one now thinks and writes has subtly — or not so subtly — altered. I process information far more rapidly and seem able to absorb multiple sources of information simultaneously in ways that would have shocked my teenage self.
In researching a topic, or just browsing through the blogosphere, the mind leaps and jumps and vaults from one source to another. The mental multitasking — a factoid here, a video there, a link over there, an e-mail, an instant message — is both mind-boggling when you look at it from a distance and yet perfectly natural when you’re in mid-blog.
When it comes to sitting down and actually reading a multiple-page printout, or even, God help us, a book, however, my mind seizes for a moment. I’m ready for a new link after a paragraph. But the prose in front of my nose stretches on. I get antsy. I skim the footnotes for the quick info high that one’s used to. No good. I scan the acknowledgements, hoping for a name one can recognise. I start again. I reach for the laptop a few paragraphs later. It’s not that one cannot find the time for real reading, for a leisurely absorption of argument or narrative. It’s more that my mind has been conditioned to resist it.
Is this a new way of thinking? And will it affect the way we read and write? If blogging is corrosive, the same could be said for texting and social network messaging, on which a younger generation is currently being reared. But the answer is surely yes — and in ways we do not yet fully understand. What we may be losing is quietness and depth in our literary and intellectual and spiritual lives.
The experience of reading only one good book for a while, and allowing its themes to resonate in the mind, is what we risk losing. I would carry a single book around with me for days when younger, letting its ideas splash around in my head, not forming an instant judgment (for or against) but allowing the book to sit for a while, as the rest of the world had its say — the countryside or pavement, the crowd or train carriage, the armchair or lunch counter. Sometimes, human beings need time to think things through, to allow themselves to entertain a thought before committing to it.
The white noise of the ever-faster information highway may, one fears, be preventing this. The still, small voice of calm that refreshes a civilisation may be in the process of being snuffed out by myriad distractions. I don’t want to be fatalistic here. As Carr points out, previous innovations — writing itself, printing, radio, television — have all shifted the tone of our civilisation without destroying it. And the capacity of the web to retrieve the old and ancient and make them new and accessible again is a small miracle.
Right now, we may be maximally overwhelmed by all this accessible information, but the time may come when our mastery of the new world allows us to gain more perspective on it. Here’s hoping. Shallowness, after all, does not necessarily preclude depth. We just have to find a new equilibrium between the two. We need to be both pond-skaters and scuba divers. We need to master the ability to access facts while reserving time and space to do something meaningful with them. It is inevitable this will take our always-evolving species and evermalleable brains a little time and the Google era in a mass form is not even a decade old. Some have suggested a web sabbath — a day or two in the week when we force ourselves not to read e-mails or post blogs or text messages; a break in order to think in the old way again: to look at human faces in the flesh rather than on a Facebook profile, to read a book rather than a blog, to pray rather than browse. I’ll start with Nietzsche at some point. But right now there’s a blog to fill.

Tiger Woods' white wife and mixed life

Well, its interesting and funny to read all the comments on this article in the link below!

Some of the funny ones ...
Let's see...Tiger is mixed with black and Asian...but pretty much "denies" his blackness...probably for the all mighty dollar...he married a white girl...so now the kid is mixed with...black...white...Asian...and who knows what else...*sigh*...why couldn't this brotha just marry a good black woman?...oh...never mind...he's a black man who hit it big...got a lot of money...so...u know...I guess it's an unwritten rule that when that happens...u gotta marry a white woman...cause well...ain't no sistas out there good enough for u when u become rich...they are only good enough for u when u r struggling in the hood!!!Oh well...everyone knows Tiger is whiteboy at heart...anyways!!!-Anyways...eventhough he will not admit it...he is still a brotha...so what kinda brotha would i be if i didn't congratulate him on his new baby girl...Congratulations Brotha Tiger
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so blacks should only marry blacks? TW is part asian. shouldn't he have married an asian woman instead?yes!!!! because i'm a racist asian, who believes asians should only marry asians.oh wait!!!! he's half asian, half black. so maybe he should have married someone who's also half asian and half black.and don't get me started on that bitch condi. she seems to have this "hard-on" for dubya.
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That's the first time I have ever heard of someone who is part Asian and part Black be accused of being too white.
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and the funniest one .... who says i live in a caste/creed/religion divided country!
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Cranky_Old_Batt...W-H-A-T-E-V-E-R!!!...listen...if ur mixed with black...ur black...cause black is the "dominant" race...even the whiteman admitted that by proclaiming that if u r 10% black...ur black...PERIOD!!!...that's how "strong" black is...all it takes is 10%!!!As for Tiger Woods (that's his black name)...but in Asian countries he is known as...Tiger Woo...Tiger Woo...as for Tiger Woods/Tiger Woo(don't wanna leave out Cranky_Old_Batt in this discussion) marrying white...that's a Uncle Tom move...straight Uncle Tom...that goes for a lot of other famous/rich black men who do this...it's "disgusting" and "disrespectful"...to sistas everywhere. Black women have been through soooo much and continue to struggle mightily...but the black race has survived...not on the backs of black men...but on the backs of black women...so...when a black man finally makes it big...I feel he has a duty...an obligation...to take a sista along for the ride...cause that's who was with him when he was stuggling...a sista...not a white girl...a sista...the white girl is the one who clinched her purse and crossed the street when she saw him coming...there is no real difference between a white woman and a black woman...sure...a lot of white women have more pleasant "attitudes" than a lot of black women...but that's because they have not had to struggle and go through the sh!t a lot of black women have had to go through...just like a lot of white men have a more pleasant "demeanor" (which in a lot of cases...is "very" deceptive)...than a lot of black men...for the same reasons...but...a good black woman...is better than any woman of any race!!!...and it's sad that whenever a black man reaches the top...he would rather have a white woman there with him...than one of his sistas...who "deserve" to be there...it's "disgusting" and "disrespectful"...and everytime these brothas take a picture with some white girl on their arm or marries a white girl...it's a slap in the face to every black woman in the struggle...cause believe me...if u white women think u got sh!t hard...imagine how much harder it is for a black woman!!!...anyways...saying this stuff on a article about Tiger Woods is probably not the best place, since...he won't even acknowledge he is black..."that" is a slap in the face of every black person...but hey...if that's how he feels...that's on him!!!...he represents a growing trend among a lot of successful blacks...in order to maintain their success...they have to give up their roots...they have to walk around and act like they are not black...after 100's of years of being told that u r nothing because u r black...now when u become successful...u can't "acknowledge" u r black...for fear that the white folks won't like u anymore (as in Tiger's case)...Tiger Woods has pretty much turned his back on his race...anyways...as much as I do not respect it...on some levels I understand it...cause if he "ever" acknowledges he has an identity as a black man...his fame will crash and burn overnight!!!...he will go from being the greatest golfer in the world...to being the subject of "Whatever happened to Tiger Woods?"!!!...anyways...I don't wanna sound like I hate the guy...cause I don't...he's just doing what he's gotta do I guess (except for marrying a white woman...he didn't have to do that...but I guess u gotta go with ur heart...and it's "obvious"...Tiger Woods has a white heart!!!).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=7&entry_id=17772

Crazy people!

Govt retains 25 as drinking age for Delhi
New Delhi: Faced with an election year, the Delhi government stopped short of lowering the drinking age to 21 on Monday even as it approved the Delhi Excise Bill, 2007. Retaining 25 as the age for drinking in public, the government, however, allowed women bartenders to serve liquor commercially, also at 25. The decision came despite a Supreme Court order last December that said the minimum age for bartending would be 21. “The cabinet felt youngsters should not be encouraged to drink,’’ state finance minister Dr A K Walia said after the Cabinet

What a stupid law. no one practices it. complete nonsense!

The great filipino walk

Do the Filipinos walk slow or is it that the rest of the world just walks pretty fast?! I guess I am talking nonsense. But yes, the Filipinos walk slowly. Weather it’s on the business streets of Makati or weather it’s the malls, the slow Filipino pace can be easily observed. It is another of those so stereotypical observations of Filipinos that one day I saw a girl in an office attire walking briskly on a street of Makati. Her back was towards me and she was fast enough to make me curious. I decided to play a little game with me and had a bet with myself that she cannot be a Filipino and I was damn right. When I overtook her, she indeed was a white girl. It is so very stereotypically. Who says you can’t stereotype any country or culture. Some traits I guess can be.

Note – I am not criticizing the slow walk! It also speaks of the easy going and relaxed nature of the Filipinos in an otherwise stressed out world.

China vs Philippines

I have observed in whatever little china I have seen as compared to the extensive exposure to Philippines, Chinese are pretty good with Math. At least in comparison to the Filipinos. The reason I do not compare this skill to India (the only other country I have been exposed to extensively) is cuz I don't see anything stereotypical on this in India.

Filipinos seem to be either really bad with Math or just plain dumbly process oriented. OK to cut my verbosity short with a straight forward example...

If you go to a shop/mall in Philippines and buy something that is lets say for PHP 50 and you give a PHP 100 bill to the cashier, the person on the cash counter will do a 100 - 50 on a calculator and return you PHP 50. Every single cash transaction anywhere in Philippines will produce such an observation with a 6 sigma like precision. This is almost the opposite in countries like Hong Kong and Macau (I have not been anywhere else in China!). Even if the transactions are kind of complicated (eg you give a HKD 100 bill for a purchase of HKD 36.5) as compared to the above one, you'll get your change back without a calculator coming into the picture.