Monday, December 15, 2008
WHY INDIA'S ENGLISH PRINT MEDIA COMPLETELY BLACKED OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS OF THE SHOE-BASHING OF PRESIDENT BUSH? By Ghulam Muhammed
Monday, December 15, 2008
WHY INDIA'S ENGLISH PRINT MEDIA COMPLETELY BLACKED OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS OF THE SHOE-BASHING OF PRESIDENT BUSH?
They certainly behaved more loyal than the King. Except for The Indian Express, which published on page:13, the news of US President Bush being hit by a pair of shoes by an Iraqi journalist in his press conference in Baghdad, while saying farewell to Iraqi President Nuri al Malaki. Even though TIMES NOW and other TV channels had promptly carried the live footage as breaking news, it is an enigma, why the print media got the cold feet. If they had been cautioned by the UPA government, why not the TV channel? In fact, it was the most dramatic and historic moment in the Bush presidency's saga of ignominy and infamy. And a fitting one at that! No amount of scorn and contempt could have been recorded for the posterity to watch in live footage than this simple act of Arab degradation to register how much Bush has brought down the prestige of the mighty USA. An Iraqi, one of the millions that carry the wounds of Bush family's wanton destruction of their people and their country, a journalist could not bear to hold back at the supposedly solemn ceremony of the farewell of the departing President that ravaged Iraqi people, and hit it out by throwing his shoes one after the other at the person of the US President of the world's most powerful nation. "This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!", shouted Muntader al-Zaidi, 28, when he hurled his shoes at President Bush. Bush ducked the shoe with remarkable agility. The second shoe too missed the target bodily, but hit the bull mark, with the words: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!"
It is an act of great shame that the peeved India, the moral standard bearer of the world at a time, should be compromising its very soul, its very ethos and had no word to condemn the US, for its illegal invasion of Iraq, and that too on false pretexts. India, now under the rule of the pygmies, in the shadow of giants like Nehru and Gandhi, has sold it freedom, its moral authority, its place in the comity of the nations of the world, as the voice of reason, justice and fair-play; always siding with the victims of the colonial brutalities and imperial conquests, never forgetting the trial and tribulations of its own freedom fighters, is now being trampled by every Tom, Dick and Harry from the US/UK/Israel axis, who can buy a plane ticket to New Delhi. It was not very much in the past, when the US Ambassador was to face a public outcry when he tried to lecture India, as how to run their country. Today, the ambassador of Israel has the audacity to castigate Indian leaders publicly for their negligence in not preventing the terror attack on Mumbai. The media slavishly carried his diatribe. The Prime Minister and External Affairs minister took the public reprimand and kept quite. Nobody is asking Israel, what Israeli citizens are doing in India. Who gave them permission to run a charity mission in Mumbai, which can become a center of conspiracy, at any time of Israel's choosing? India was dragged into Afghanistan imbroglio and it is that colossal mistake that is the beginning of India's misfortunes, starting with the Mumbai terror attack. Why our 'war' navy vessels should cross over toSomalia to hunt the pirates, when our own coast are so unguarded and unsecured. Who pushed India to show its naval might across the Indian Ocean, while our coast is so naked and open to invaders from the sea? What kind of conspiracy was hatched to entangleIndia into the great game?
And the patriotic media is silent. It is afraid to even report an event that it presumed to be further humiliation of India's new strategic partner that has the same role of ignominy chalked out for India.
It is still time for India, to get out of the northern trap and keep Pakistan as a buffer state, between us and the wild horde of the north. It is still time for India, to say, enough is enough.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
www.ghulammuhammed.wordpress.
