Dead Horse
Sun, 2006-09-10 20:06 — heartcrossings
Growing up in India at the time of the Khalistan separatist movement, ULFA extremism in the North East, Operation Bluestar, the massacre of Sikhs, the Union Carbide tragedy in Bhopal, the assassination of prime ministers, the bloodbath in Kashmir, the Rath Yatra and its aftermath were random spikes in our normal lives. We were jolted for a bit and then went back to the business of living - in the case of people my age that meant keeping your nose to the grindstone until you made it through a decent college and were able to earn a living.
Maybe the frequency at which tragedy hit our people had numbed our ability to react to individual events. As I write this today, I find it hard to recall all of the many disasters natural and man-made that took place between the 80s and 90s in India. I am sure I don’t mention at least fifty percent in my list. My left leaning relatives in Calcutta would say that human life is too cheap in India and we deserve our fate for our political apathy and self-centeredness. That unless there was a grassroots level uprising - a common man’s call to arms, the status quo would never change, that the country was going to hell in a handbasket. That is typical Bengali borderline leftist speak. Needless to say, such radical statements were made while sipping very expensive Darjeeling tea out of fine porcelain tea cups.
In India, tragedy is mourned in moderation and then we move on – life goes on and a living has to be made. We do not stage public theatricals of our loss, market it and fetishize it like it were the most tragic of all tragedies that has ever befallen mankind. Close to the infamous 9/11 date a Yahoo headline reads 9/11 babies old enough to ask for dad. Old footage is regurgitated yet another time "lest we forget".
Not to minimize the loss that individuals have suffered but to depict the loss of these children unique enough to make headline news is way over the top. Such public media spectacles of private grief not only invades personal space (everything does not lend itself to a reality show) but takes away an citizen’s fundamental right to mourn death and loss without being coaxed for sound bites.
What about the millions of children orphaned because of war and genocide around the world - children who have never known what it is to have childhood and may have never seen a balloon ? Isn’t it shameful and selfish in the context of the big picture to publish such inanity as "When he sends a balloon up to the sky and he finally sees the tiny dot of the balloon go through the clouds, he says, ‘OK, the balloon found the doorway to heaven, I think he has it now," says Gabi’s mother, Jenna Jacobs-Dick.
How many people in the world care about Gabi’s balloon ? Why is Gabi’s loss greater than that of a million other children around the world ? We are talking a dead father anyways. Maybe Gabi and his mother should count their blessings that they live in a country where a child despite suffering such a loss is still able to indulge in childish whimsy and be fancy free.
Sometimes you wish America would stop acting like a rich spoilt brat and stop flogging the dead horse of 9/11
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Comments
asuph
It is well known that men and women think differently - their various aspects of the various types of intelligences differ in core-competancies. Hence, it is natural that a woman will think differently on the same subject, and Bokonon-San has chosen to specialize in this book on only men’s thoughts, like Femina specializes on women’s thoughts.
Perhaps, there is space for a new book asking what a woman will think on the same?
pradz
Pradzie, you are not really getting what I am trying to say.
Perhaps there is a confusion uin this issue between the right to individually-felt pain with the aspect of the maturity of the nation.
Here’s an example.
Someone comes to my house and kills my wife (not for robbery, but for my actions harming other people).
Now, I take my gun and destroy the neighbouring village and mow down everyone, claiming to be looking for my wife’s killers. At the same time, I also flatten another village, claiming that they have a couple of guns similar to the arsenal that I have in my own house.
Then I focus on how much insurance I will get because my wife was killed. Meanwhile, it turns out that I always had my eyes on the land that those two flattened villages were on.
How much of grieving am I really into?
Here are the facts - this nation has not introspected its path of aggression and violence in the least bit.
It believes in 100 eyes fo one eye (and yet its President professes to be a staunch christian)
At the same time, it utilizes people’s pain to justify its aggression of oil-pathway countries to secure next 100 years of oil for its citizens.
It sheds no tears over the innocents killed in its own “pre-emptive attack” (and is conniving enough to convert the word “aggression” into the PC term “Pre-emptive attack”).
It conducts 1800+ nuclear explosions and starts protesting when another nation conducts 2 of them, pointing to global warming.
The ones whose loved ones died are busy trying to gain millions of dollars in settlement from the Saudi govt. (or whichever one they have sued).
It is said that one’s own grief teaches one to be sensitive to the grief of others. This nation displays absolutely no such sensitivity, nor awakening. Its president lucidly and clearly calls his war against muslim countries as a “crusade” (pausing just before he utters the word, indicating that he fully understands the implication of the word and its historical significance.
These are my reasons for saying that this is an immature nation, and that it has a long way to go before it gains some maturity to introspect on its current path.
Now, kindly elaborate where in this entire jing-bang show, you have proactively seen maturity in the behaviour of the US. (If you wish, first define maturity, and then show me how the nation is mature)
If you have any valid instances where the US displayed exemplary maturity and restraint, I am prepared to change my stand.
If not, my belief continues.
Of Dead Horse & Bokonon(ism)
All of you learned guyz & gals must read, The Fourteenth Book Of Bokonon entitled “What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth,given the experience of the past million years?”
It doesn’t take long to read, The 14th Book. It consists of just one word & a period.
This is it, the book says :
“Nothing.”
iw
i’d have read it, but the title is too sexist!
regards,
asuph
asuph
Aaahh asuph.. I am always impressed by your sensitivity
Believe you me.. i did pause for a couple seconds over the “thoughtful man / mankind” bit. In my defense I ought to say that i was merely quoting 
Mourning
I wonder if the problem is with the mourning or the media circus around it ! Mourning is private thing ! so let it be !
To equate what the media is making out of this to the actual mourning process is something I doubt one can do. US media or for that matter any media (btw, there is probably more 9/11 rememberances in Indian media than Indian disasters) I guess has always been a circus.
Chetax, i think and hope
Chetax,
i think and hope crossings and atra are surely talking about the media circus. But again i don’t get that too. It’s circus if they cover a significant event in the history of that country at that time of the year, but would be deemed shameful if there was not a single report about it.
Crossinggs and Atra,
my problem with the points you both’ve put across is just one - branding an an entire civilization as immature by viewing its mourning as a one that isn’t aligned like ours. resilient and what not? And No, i’m not saying we should become the US and attack everytime a needle is pricked into the nations security. The feeling of superiority in mourning or what the nation does is entirely upto its people and their society and culture? How can we judge it, without even understanding it?
Immature civilzation
I am no fan of Gandhi’s but I do agree with Atra about American civilization being immature. Grief is a private and personal affair and in a country where privacy is such a huge concern, it is surprising that the hijacking of it by media is considered acceptable.
The domain of who may be included in that private circle can differ. It could be one, a family or a village of breast beating women. However, when headline news is made and the whole world forced to share it, the operating definition of private no matter how encompassing is challenged. It is clearly in the public and in the public has a right to object.
What is more, with such overt displays of grief they alienate themselves from those who may have had sympathy and those who have suffered far greater atrocities. This effectively increase their isolation and pain.
India’s grief is probably impotent for more reasons that one but we are as a people greatly resilient and are blessed with a somewhat fatalistic world view. It can be argued that these traits don’t make us ideal material for a pioneering and entrepreneurial society but it does help us deal with tragedy with more sobriety.
What I find hard to fathom is how the nation of nations culled from civilizations of different vintages can be lesser than the sum of its constituent parts in maturity and wisdom.
The responsibility of the individual
Pradzie,
The grief of those who lost their loved ones has found ample solace in the invasion of two nations and the destruction of entire societies - something that will take hundreds of years to rectify.
Insensitive comment?
If so, then how many of those who grieved have even protested against their grief being used for political reasons in the oil-game, to kill thousands of other civilians and children?
And in contrast, how many of them are busy filing law suits to get compensation? (The famous american dream - to find someone who can be justifiably sued for something).
It was unfortunate that innocents had to die - whether in the US, or in any other country that was attacked. May it never happen to anyone.
What is the reaction of those who are alive, who lost their loved ones? Do they even care that other innocents are being killed similarly in the name of their grief?
Perhaps, a kneejerk attack is even understandable.
But frankly, I cannot understand them standing by when the same attacking policy continues in their name, in a fully cold-blooded manner. Mature behaviour? It is anything but mature.
Perhaps India is complacent and perhaps our grief is impotent that we do not go attacking other nations that harbor the terrorists who carry out bomb attacks on our nation. Certainly, such ‘strong action’ has been demanded by lots of people. Yet, I hope my land never decides coldbloodedly to that shooting other innocents is an acceptable means of avenging its own innocents.
Maybe we Indians just have a short term memory and it is not out of maturity that we do not attack nations.
Perhaps no bhai that burst the bombs is ever brought to justice.
Yet, considering the alternative behaviour displayed by more powerful nations, I think what we opted for is still a better option.
Hell, this nation produced and accepted Gandhi as the definer of its values. Don’t tell me we’re not a mature people in some very important ways.
Pradz & ano
Pradz,
Older civilizations - even europeans, chinese, Indians are a bit better at dealing with past traumas. Undoubtedly, they have a long way to go, too. Yet, these are cultures that are able to forget traumas fast enough. Proof - we do not have Indians sending terrorist squads to britain to avenge the millions of people who died in man-made famines in Bengal and other places during the british loot-raj. Instead, we come up with Gandhi, who extends love to the oppressor, as well.
I think newer civilization have to go through some typical cycles, such as a phases of hedonism, phases of materialism, phases of intolerance, etc. Perhaps it will be a long time before it can come up with a Mahatma Gandhi.
Ano,
Certainly, everyone is entitled to cry as much and as they want. In this case, its the equivalent of a person who has always been beating up other countries, but when he suffers one injury from someone else, he grieves and grieves over it.
Besides, my objection is also to continually crying over past hurts - whether done by a human or done by a country.
In some ways, its a human trait, yet all it does is to strengthen negative memories and vindictiveness. In the US, a culture of using abuse-to-oneself as a lifelong claim to sympathy is emerging quite strongly, not only as a country, with individuals as well.
Besides, I think the US has extracted more than ample revenge for its 911 trauma, by attacking two nations (apart from the other countries it has attacked in the past). Its time it stopped grieving and paid some heed to the thousands of civilians (children, women, seniors) that have died under its own retaliatory or pre-emptive aggression.
Turning point
Atra, imho, tragedies which are turning points will be continually cried over, whether in personal life or in a nation’s history. Surely, the first time you get beaten up, the first time you realize you are not as strong or impregnable as you thought you were, will hurt the most? 9/11 was one such turning point, I believe.
I do not agree with many of the US actions post 9/11, or for that matter, their rather blinkered approach to the world. However, I did not think that was the point of contention.
My impression of the post could be summarized by these lines:
Isn’t it shameful and selfish in the context of the big picture to publish such inanity…
How many people in the world care about Gabi’s balloon ? Why is Gabi’s loss greater than that of a million other children around the world ?
By the same token, it might be asked: Why is Gabi’s loss any lesser than that of a million other children? Just because it’s in the news, and is connected to a well-publicised tragedy?
(At least this is better than TOI which apparently had a feature of how celebrities missed reading TOI so much during the Mumbai floods!)
To my mind, the articles reflected grieving, and it appeared that the person(s) shared their grief voluntarily. We can always choose not to read such articles, no? Or take a leaf out of Gandhi’s teachings and offer our love to the bereaved, no strings attached?
OK, no more from me on this.
Atra, I could’ve taken
Atra,
I could’ve taken your reply if you were talking abt the Governments over doing their greiving part to garnerr support (if any left) from its allies. But we’re talking abt death toll in excess of 3000 from every race on earth who perished that day while we sat back in our homes and watched this horror unfold. Sure, now they’ve got 9/11 babies, 9/11 merchandise and all that stuff, to make sure nobody forgets it. But there are people who will silently wake up this day inthat part of the world wondering if their husbands/wives/dads/moms had only picked up a quareell with them and had left half an hour late. If only. How can one not see that? Grieving or not! i think its personal whether or not the US Govt makes a show of it. Let’s not compare India who you call to be a mature brother when it comes to grieving! We are just too fogetful of the events that touch us and then let it go. What happened to 7/11 suspects? Another 7 years and we’ll know who did what? Till then lage raho public log!!!
We can’t blame politicians entirely for this complascency, can we?
I don't see
Why should Americans not be entitled to grieve as they see fit? Village folks beat their chests, tear their hair, and wail out loud. Would we comment on that as well?
If we don’t fancy the mode of grieving, perhaps it’s better we just respectfully move on?
>>>Americans have a long
>>>Americans have a long long way to go, I think, before they mature as a civilization
Ok, i didn’t understand this one? Which civilization is then?
<<<
Whats scarier...
CN,
You speak the truth, my friend.
One of the central problems of the US (and perhaps, to a lesser degree of the rest of us, too) is definitely an over-application of skinner’s theories on humans.
My fear is not that they apply it - my fear is that it works, and as is to be expected, conditioning humans is going to be a destructive path.
Americans may by far be the most conditioned people on earth - prisoners who have been trained to believe that they have free choice.
perhaps...
“Americans have a long long way to go, I think, before they mature as a civilization.”
Atra, perhaps, they never will. Atleast not until they stop applying Skinner’s behavioural theory everywhere… What works for dogs may never work on humans…
HC,
“That is typical Bengali borderline leftist speak. Needless to say, such radical statements were made while sipping very expensive Darjeeling tea out of fine porcelain tea cups.”
Why only Bengali? It’s true of Kannadiga leftists too and all those lazy unproductive bums across India, who quote Marx and workers’ unity to justify being out of office during working hours to attend to private work or sit on strike demanding higher salaries [for NOT working]
yeah
What to do, these chaps are like that only - keep crying all the time over past issues.
Even in their shrinkage (psychoanalysis) methods, they keep going over the past over and over and over again, thereby reinforcing all the previous traumas, and converting something best-forgotten into problems.
And once someone learns subliminally that a problem can be leveraged into some kind of a benefit, then they learn to keep the problem alive, by constantly invoking it and pumping new emotions into it.
Americans have a long long way to go, I think, before they mature as a civilization.