Saturday, June 25, 2005

Why the Concept of Political Asylum Makes No Sense

I find that the concept of nationhood, although a human invention, is integral to the functioning of society as we know it. At the heart of the concept lies the fact that people who are born, live and die in a region must own up to what goes on around them. Nations aren't necessarily made up of people of the same ethnic, cultural or even religious origins. In fact, this is precisely what makes the concept of nations stronger than these more frivolous and abstract divisions.

When people run away from their countries to other countries because they face persecution at home, I find that they are doing something akin to a soldier running away from the battlefield. We all know what militaries around the world do to cowards, and I think that fate is well deserved indeed. While I am not advocating that we shoot all asylum seekers, what I am trying to get at is that the oppressed peoples are the ones who foster regime changing revolutions/struggles in their countries. If they were to run away and hide in other more congenial surroundings, we wouldn't have any of the great freedom struggles that history has witnessed. Frankly, I think that is simply outrageous, and that is why I don't condone political asylum or asylum seekers.

Simply hiding the harassed and the oppressed from their oppressors does not guarantee protection of human rights. In fact, it does quite the opposite because it decreases the critical mass of the population who hate the regime and delays the eventual uprising that much longer. I don't favour the approach that the United States has taken with Iraq either because I don't think freedom is something that can just be granted to a people. Freedom has to be hard won and frequently paid for in blood. Freedom too cheap is no freedom at all.

Lately, however, governments in exile and asylum seekers seem to have become acceptable to the world. The Tibetans sit in India dreaming about a country they have lost but will do nothing to regain. They run a government whose writ extends to a few people in a small hilly town which isn't even inside the country they're meant to govern. I think they are deluding themselves just like Chiang Kai-shek and the Americans did long after the communists had taken control of China. They need to realise that freedom struggles aren't won by setting up stupid proxy governments and sending diplomats of said governments to other countries who have no obvious reason for helping you. And why should they? What exactly would the United States, Britain or indeed India have to gain by making a foe out of China. There is an expression that goes "God helps those who help themselves". It would be appropriate to reword it to say "The world helps those who help themselves". If the Tibetans are committed to sitting with their collective thumbs up their arses, then they should realise that this will always be their fate.

I do accept the fact (although I'm not sure it works) that the Tibetans wish to use non-violence to further their goal of freedom. One might argue that India and South Africa took this route and emerged free, successful nations. But the point worth noting here is that the leaders of their struggles waged their struggle INSIDE their countries as opposed to watching from the sidelines and waiting for others to do their dirty work for them.

Even if someone were to invade Tibet (highly unlikely) and wrench it from the Chinese and hand it to the Tibetan government in exile, I suspect it would only end up like another Iraq. I think Iraq is a perfect example when the people of a country have someone force a certain kind of freedom upon them. We've seen it happen before in Vietnam, and today we see the story repeated in Iraq.

The problem of Tibet is also replicated in Zimbabwe, where people are just now beginning to stand up to a corrupt regime that has made the whole country bankrupt. But what we need to understand is that one or even a small group of people are not nearly enough to prop up a bad government. It takes the complacence of all the good people in the country to keep the few bad people in power. Zimbabweans who end up in other countries seeking asylum should ask themselves whether betraying their country is a fair price for keeping themselves and their families safe.

The whole point of this discussion is that the people of the world who live under oppressive regimes absolutely must learn to stand up for their homes, or they must choose to lower their heads in shame and live off the neighbour's hospitality. The choice is theirs, and theirs alone.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Closer

Sometimes an experience, a song, a vision or a person can just take hold of your senses and refuse to let go. Its not the same for everybody or with everything, but it does happen to all of us every once in a while. A couple of months ago when I'd just moved into my rented accomodation and was feeling a bit lonely, I decided to watch one of the DVDs I'd brought along when I came from India. The movie I was going to watch was Closer. Now I'll admit that the primary reason I stared to watch it was because I saw Natalie Portman on the cover. But as soon as I started the movie, I was captivated by the title number. Its a song called Blower's Daughter by a guy called Damien Rice. Now I haven't the faintest clue what Blower's Daughter means, but when you listen to this song and then watch the movie, you realize that it is a perfect marriage of music and imagery.

After that day, the song had been playing my head non-stop for over 2 months. I watched the movie again today and felt exactly the same things I did the first time. Can't quite explain it, but what I can say is that it would be pretty hard to find someone who isn't moved by this very human story. I defy you to watch the movie with someone you care about, I defy you to not feel the desparation that Clive Owen feels when he tries talking to Natalie Portman in a strip club and finally, I defy you to explain what you feel for Natalie Portan's character. Go watch this movie, and tell me if it moves you the way its moved me.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Online Journalism

Its been a long time since I last posted here. The main reason behind that is that I haven't had access to a computer at home. Blog posting at work has always felt somewhat like an anti-thesis of blogging to me, so I have resisted that temptation. Now that I've finally managed to wrangle a laptop out of the company (don't you just hate these stupid 88-key keyboards??) I'm back to dumping my frustrations/thoughts in digital oblivion. Oh, and whoever said laptops are portable obviously had shoulder blades made of steel.

Coming back to what prompted this post though. I just installed and logged into MSN on the new computer and happened to click on the weather link for Delhi. It is pretty hot out there, isn't it? Anyway, while looking at the forecast I noticed an "NRI edition" link on MSN and clicked it. I saw a story about "Bollywood and Smoking" and decided to read it. I thought maybe it was a write up about how Indian movies had woken up to the incredible uncoolness/unmachoness of smoking. Turns out however that its an article about product placements in Bollywood cinema. Fine I said, minor editorial fuck up. But it was when I started reading the article that I really started to get pissed off. Sample this:
"And even for the biggest and the best, it may not been enough."

What??? Been enough? I won't even go into the area of starting a sentence with an "And", but surely, Microsoft Word would make a better editor than the people who went through this tosh! There's more:
"Here comes in Bollywood. It offers a captivity which most mass media can’t."

What?? Captivity? So bollywood's some sort of S&M club now? The quality of writing in this article was made even worse by the shoddy editing. If this is the stuff we see coming out of MSN India, I wonder what is to be expected of other online publications of lesser repute. Stuff like this is also the primary reason I often can't read online publications. However, the online media isn't the only place where the editing staff seems missing in action. This malaise also affects our print media. Now I write a blog and I don't get paid for it, but I still do read through what I write after I'm done. Besides, if I were getting paid for it, I'd make sure that the quality of writing would be at a level at least slightly above the completely pedestrian. It hurts me to see online writing destroyed like this in the ameteurish, untutored hands of most online writers. I've done a fair bit of writing myself, and I can't imagine the kind of people who produce stuff like this. I don't know whether it is because they're gtting peanuts or that they just don't care, but this is not the way I want to see journalism going.