The Monster in the Mirror
The Guardian / Arundhati Roy
15-Dec-2008 (one comment)

We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching "India's 9/11." And like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we're expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it's all been said and done before. As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that, if it didn't act fast to arrest the "bad guys," he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on "terrorist camps" in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's 9/11. But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan, and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

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Asghar_Massombagi

There will be blood!

by Asghar_Massombagi on Tue Dec 16, 2008 08:58 AM PST

Arundhati Roy's voice is one the most eloquent and passionate voices in the world, and she's a hell of a novelist too.  I wish her plea for a balanced assessment of what is going in Indian subcontinent would find as many ears as it can.  Instead of inciting the people to more blind hatred and whipping up a mob, it would be nice if for once political leaders would have the wisdom of an artist.  But that's too much to ask from the racist demagogues of VJP currently in power in India. There will be blood and more blood, and more ...


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