Gunghoism: Mid Day & The Iraq War

©Prax Maskaren, Bombay. 19^th March 2003.
The Mid Day tabloid of Bombay carried the following statement on its Opinion page, on Wednesday, 12th March 2003:

Mid Day says

Yankee stay home
The average American is, of course, an idiot.

He, and even she, is a boor rather large in size, ignorant of the world (if resident in a large city, such as New York or LA) and sometimes ignorant even of America (if resident in states such as Wisconsin and North Dakota).

The average American has no clue where Iraq is, what Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda is, what Musharraf stands for and where he comes from. Not one American in a thousand will have heared of Nawaz Sharif nor of Lal Krishna Advani (and what HE stands for).

Into this pond of ignorance and imbecility, then, the New York Times, that bastion of humane liberalism, cast a net to figure out what America's position on the 'War on Iraq' was.

Apparently, 58 % of Americans feel that the United Nations "was doing a poor job managing the Iraqi crisis." Indeed.

Fifty five percent of them would "support an American invasion even if it was in defiance of a vote of the Security Council."

While you are thinking these numbers over, consider this: over 50 % of Americans in an earlier poll thought that Saddam was in some way responsible for September 11. Though they did not specify the numbers, the New York Times said "many Americans remain perplexed about what Mr. Bush is doing and why he is doing it."

To those Americans, we say: Join the world. To the rest, we say: Think about why they hate you so much that they will kill themselves to harm you. Do you think perhaps it has to do with your ignorance and your arrogance?

When Catholics began to immigrate into the United States in larger numbers, some Protestants, acting on the inherent principle of bigotry and anti-Christianism inbuilt in their heresies, threw up the Know-Nothing movement wherein they encouraged themselves to sedulously and lovingly cultivate and foster ignorance, malice and viciousness among their own ranks towards the Christians. These Know-Nothingers perpetrated riots, lynchings and other atrocities against the Christians all over the country, until another group of Protestants, repelled by their antics and acting on the opposite principle of indiscriminate and universal tolerantism, gained the upper hand.

Now Know-Nothingism is not an exclusively WASP disease but is evidently a universal phenomenon. Today, for example, this is just as sedulously and lovingly cultivated by the New Religion and its Clownarch, Charlieboy Wojtyla, towards Catholicism. And here is another one, put forth by the Mid Day.

It is telling that the Mid Day has not had the moral courage to sign its statement or to attribute its authorship. Thus, for example, in the statement of 27^th Feb., 2003, and this is the standard practice, the author identifies himself - here he is Aakar Patel, Chief Editor.

From the language of the above statement, too, it is evident that the same person is the author.

In today's world, it is fashionable to be anti-American. And I too am a gringophobe, though because I am Christian and I perceive America to be historically the greatest enemy of Christianity.

However, the Mid Day statement's portrayal of America is neither true nor fair.

First of all, some Americans may be ignorant. I will even grant that a great many Americans may be so unaware of news of the world that they could conceivably fail a General Knowledge test on history, geography and contemporary politics. That however is not evidence of real ignorance. It is evidence simply of a lack of concern. And why should they be concerned?

On the other hand, if we take the above statement at face value, we must necessarily understand it to posit, in contra-distinction to America, that the rest of the world, and especially our Mid Day's own India, is full of peoples who are overflowing with knowledge and wisdom, etc., so that they are morally and intellectually superior to the Americans. This, evidently, is the central thesis of this 'statement.'

But of course, this is evidently nonsense!

Today, America is the foremost world power. And it is not only a military power, but that it is a military power because it is the foremost scientific and technological power, Society or culture of the contemporary world.

America has not come to dominance by mistake. It has built itself up, by hook and by crook, but also by original thinking and by hard earned advances in science and technology.

Today, the people of India pretend that they are the world's greatest moral and intellectual society. This is the conceit of Hinduism. However, this conceit is broadcast day in and day out by government, individuals and institutions all over India, so much so that it has become the 'intellectual' environment of India, and so much so that even Muslims like Aakar Patel or a Christian like myself become susceptible to crediting this nonsense. It takes - took me - a deliberate effort to overcome this garbage.

Today, the people of India boast that the world and his uncle depends on Indian scientists, and that Indian expatriates are, on the average, intellectually superior, as evidence by their comparative success in educational institutions in the West, as compared to the Whites and the Blacks, etc.

This, however, is a delusion. It is true that America imports brains. It is however also true that America imports brains not merely from India, but from wherever it is available. And in this is not India's superiority but it is to America's credit.

This is because America, for all its fault, has a deliberate culture of cultivating and encouraging social, cultural, intellectual, scientific and technological progress.

Nor is it that America is solely dependent upon Indian brains. From India, and especially in a culture that seizes upon the leastest chance at self-glorification, every little and, from an American viewpoint, usually insignificant news item about some success of an Indian American, is seized upon and blown out of all proportion as further evidence of India's superiority and of America's dependence upon Indian brains. But to get the correct picture, the Indian media should systematically credit all American scientists, not just of Indian origins. This will show the relative insignificance and proportionateness of Indian scientists in America.

Nor is it that America depends exclusively upon imported brains. Let us be frank and logical: No society whatsoever can establish itself, maintain itself and survive as a world power purely upon borrowed brains. Such a prodigy never was and never will be.

On the contrary, America is, as an integral whole, far superior socially, culturally and intellectually to India, and to most countries of the world. And it is America itself that possesses, cultivates and fosters a culture, not of Know-Nothingism but of Science. And foreign brains only augment this.

For all its defects, and there are many, America was founded by some of the world's greatest brains thinking some of the world's most original thoughts. And that tradition has been faithfully maintained over the last two centuries, or the United States would not have either survived nor have grown to the position of pre-eminence that it enjoys today.

To cavil at these plain and incontrovertible facts is pure and unadulterated stupidity.

But even so, it is certain that a great many Americans choose not to bother themselves with particular bits and pieces of knowledge or disciplines, even prefering to content themselves with what concerns them directly and personally at the present moment.

And, like in every other part of the world, there are people even in America who react to this attitude with a false and unnecessary alarm, because they labour under the delusion that man must strive for omniscience, an impossible goal.

But if this is true of America, is it not also true of the rest of the world?

Are Indians or Chinese or Africans or any other people not the same? Is it that the rest of the world, with the exception of America lives with a pathological and necessarily insane striving after omniscience?

How does it matter to the man in the street about who is or is not the Prime Minister of India, Pakistan or Timbuctoo? How does it matter if the man in the streets of Bombay is ignorant, as very many indeed are, whether America has only a President and no Prime Minister? How many people in mofussil India know who exactly, if at all, is Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee or Mr. Lal Krishna Advani? Or does the Mid Day only cater to Urban Middle Class Conceit? And is it that even among this class, or any other, there is an intellectual superiority to that portrayed as being America's? Has the Mid Day gone forth and conducted a survey to assure itself that the peoples of India are truly intellectually superior to those of America before it gratuitously pontificated?

Why then this gratuitous pontification on the average American's stupidity? And when it is an obvious and incontrovertible fact that the average American is much superior culturally, socially, intellectually to the average Indian?

But let us also examine the claim that Indian expatriates abroad are found to achieve higher ranking, on the average, than either whites or black Americans, or any other group. It is a fact that indeed, on the average, Indian immigrants in the US and in the West, tend to achieve better results in the school system and make better students than even the whites.

This has and is being tom-tommed as evidence of Indian cultural and intellectual superiority. And the media is principally guilty of this lie.

But as a matter of fact, there are rational causes for this, and these do not credit India.

The answer is in one word, and one that Mr. Aakar Patel is fully aware of as being India's resident dæmon, but which apparently enough, no opponent has thought to extend to the Diaspora. And that one word is: "Casteism."

Yes, Casteism. For centuries, India has been dominated by the self-styled upper castes, who took for themselves the fat of the land and degraded and dehumanised their victims, whom they style the lower castes. And even today, these 'upper' castes dominate India's polity, power, educational, etc., systems. (e.g. Kuldip Nayar, Dalit Journalism)

These people have a culture of single-mindedly pursuing, dominating and monopolising, to the exclusion of others: education, business and commerce, power and position to the exclusion of every thing else, even sacrificing for generation after generation any chance at real social and individual happiness.

And, proportionately, it is these very same Indian parasites who dominate the diaspora - obviously, very naturally, Mr. Patel!

And, whether in America, or in Australia, or anywhere else, they carry those same traditions, traits and habits, and practice them on these new host communities. These new hosts are ignorant of these parasites' histories and traditions of parasitism, and so innocently welcome them in, only to be abused and back-stabbed by these parasites who entertain the hope of recreating in these new lands the same pattern of evil as they had in India.

Check up and find out, how many emigrants are Dalits?

Therefore, if today, in the diaspora, there are people who are 'genetically' scientists, running in their family histories, or of traders, merchants and entreprenuers, running in their families, it is because of this eugenetically trained and cultivated habits and traditions, not because of some mythical innate superiority.

And, Mr. Patel, as you are aware, these colonists of Hindutvawadism, of Varnashram and of Hindu racism are acutely radical in their malice, so much so that it is they who constitute the ideological and financial mainstay of Hindu mischief back in India. And thus do they abuse the goodwill of their hosts!

Today, the Indian, or rather, Hindu Diaspora boasts of its superiority to the whites and how the whites are reduced to being mere menial workers for them while they dominate trade and industry. But they may delude themselves over this for only a short time, for the West will lose patience with this nonsense and turn upon these parasites and uprooting them utterly, destroy them.

Will you join the rest of Indian society and media in that day to decry 'Western' racism and atrocities? Or will you be honest and say that their victims deserved it?
Coming to the question that Mid Day asks those Americans who support the Bush program, Think about why they hate you so much that they will kill themselves to harm you. Do you think perhaps it has to do with your ignorance and your arrogance?

I think that I have sufficiently refuted the idiotic thesis that Jihadism is anything in response to American 'ignorance and or arrogance.' And it is not a reaction to American imperialism, either.

Islam has always inspired its followers to hate non-Muslims so much that they willingly killed themselves in harming non-Muslims. This has been so from its foundation. So, I ask: What's new?

Let us be frank and listen to what the perpetrators of 9/11, Osama bin Ladin, the 'Caliph' of Islam has to say. He says, very frankly, that he will stop his campaign if America withdraws from Arabia, and when America and the whole world accepts Islam.

Now, the first can be attributed to a reaction to America's presence in Arabia, but what do we make of the second?

This is what Muhammad, the founder of Islam, taught his disciples, sending them out to conquer and subjugate all the neighbouring Christian (Nestorian) states of Arabia, and further on, in West Asia, Egypt, etc. Islam demands that all men must submit to its rule. Islam demands of its followers that they must fight to bring all the world under the rule of Islam.

Now, it is true that many, if not most Muslims worldwide no longer are fully faithful to these principles. However, some are, and the 'Caliph' Osama and his disciples who perpetrated 9/11 are among these... It is for this reason that they are willing to die, to kill themselves.

Unlike with Christianity which threatens suicides with eternal damnation, Islam promises those of its warriors who die in suicide missions a place in the great whorehouse up in the sky...

And let us be frank: Neither Fat Cat Osama nor his terrorists of 9/11, etc., are in any way poor and dispossessed who are thereby moved to rebellion. On the contrary, they all belong to rich and well-to-do families.