08-30-2006, 12:37 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The media again </b>
Pioneer.com
<i>Government's handling of Mumbai's dozen arrested for breaking the law in Amsterdam was replete with policy blunders, says François Gautier</i>
In the matter of the 12 men arrested aboard the Northwest flight in Amsterdam, the Indian media has shown once again that it has no independence of thought and individuality, as it totally embraced the Government's point of view.
In these days of suicide bombers, anybody who refuses to sit down, switch off cell phone and generally behaves suspiciously on an international flight, is bound to be arrested and submitted to rigorous interrogation in jail. The funny thing is that nobody highlighted the fact that the 12 men were Muslims better than the Government and media. The smart thing would have been to keep a low profile and if at all protest, then do so on behalf of Indian citizens, regardless of their religion.
The other striking aspect of this story is that the Indian media has been totally one-sided. Many Dutch and European newspapers published stories of passengers who confirmed that the 12 passengers did get up when told to be seated, did refuse to switch off their cell phones which they exchanged between themselves and did behave in an aggressive manner. Instead, the Indian Press carried tear-jerker stories of innocent Muslim being harassed just because of their religion. Who does one believe?
At least the Press could have published both sides of the story. The Dutch are peace loving people and certainly one of the more easy going governments in Europe. Once more, in summoning the Dutch Ambassador to a farcical protest, the Government has lost some more credibility in the eyes of the international community.
Who is the Indian Government trying to please? Its Muslim community in the fond hope that it will be appeased and keep quiet? But will it really be grateful? If this were indeed true, every time a bomb went off in a crowded Delhi market, a Varanasi temple, or a packed Mumbai train in the name of Allah, the entire Indian Muslim community should have inserted advertisements in newspapers, appeared on TV and condemned collectively the horror in the name of Islam.
But they do not do so; indeed, many Muslims justify these horrors because of what is supposedly done to Muslims in Kashmir, Pales-tine or Kosovo.
Are Kashmiri Muslims martyrs? Certainly not. J&K is the most pampered State in India, where people have been living on Government subsidies without working for virtually all of the last 15 years. It is not the Indian Army which started the war in Kashmir, but jihadis funded by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who hounded out 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus who had never raised their hands or even voices against their Muslim brothers.
And what is true of Kashmir is probably true of Palestine and Chechnya as well. One remembers with a shudder what Muslim militants did to innocent children in Beslan. They want to pose as persecuted, but in fact, if you look at their history, they have been the most ruthless, the most bloody-minded, the most persistent persecutors of all persecutors, including Portuguese and Spanish.
How to explain, <b>then, the near servile attitude of the Government and its submissive press (or should we say 'purchased', as it is said generally that 90 per cent of the editorial space in one of India's leading papers can be bought)? </b>True, the Congress has always believed that it can come to power by wooing Muslims - and it has vigorously done this since 1947. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>But there is a deeper reason which nobody wants to name: Naked fear. The ferocity of the Islamic invasions, their unparalleled ruthlessness, have left a deep impact on the Hindu psyche. Hundreds of thousands of people massacred, millions taken in slavery, women raped, temples razed, idols smashed.</span>
Five hundred years later, the indiscipline of Hindus, their near panic at the least sign of trouble, their refusal to face the enemy, their insistence on being good people, the persistence of the Hindu intelligentsia to see in hidebound Muslims the best of friends, when for such a Muslim there is no worse enemy than an idol worshipping Hindu, is a direct consequence of the terror wrought by Babar, Aurangzeb or Tughlaq.
<b>Today, the descendants of Babar have chosen to blow themselves up in airplanes. They think that by doing this they are serving Allah and that they will go to heaven after furthering their dreams of converting the world to Islam</b>. Not only do the mullahs encourage them, but the Muslim community in the world, too, feels it is at least partly justified because of imaginary injustices and perceived hurts against Islam.
Everybody insists that Samuel P Huntington was wrong in his theory about the clash of civilisations. But it is happening right now under our very eyes and it will continue for many more years. But our Marxist intellectuals are still in the denial mode, which in itself is a death wish, or at best the attitude of cowards.
It will become more and more difficult to travel by air in the coming years because of general insecurity about flying. Soon, people will also become selective about which airlines are safe. According to US intelligence sources, one of India's leading private airlines is dubious. There will be more such identification and profiling. All this will take away our freedoms, and we have to thank the Islamists for this.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pioneer.com
<i>Government's handling of Mumbai's dozen arrested for breaking the law in Amsterdam was replete with policy blunders, says François Gautier</i>
In the matter of the 12 men arrested aboard the Northwest flight in Amsterdam, the Indian media has shown once again that it has no independence of thought and individuality, as it totally embraced the Government's point of view.
In these days of suicide bombers, anybody who refuses to sit down, switch off cell phone and generally behaves suspiciously on an international flight, is bound to be arrested and submitted to rigorous interrogation in jail. The funny thing is that nobody highlighted the fact that the 12 men were Muslims better than the Government and media. The smart thing would have been to keep a low profile and if at all protest, then do so on behalf of Indian citizens, regardless of their religion.
The other striking aspect of this story is that the Indian media has been totally one-sided. Many Dutch and European newspapers published stories of passengers who confirmed that the 12 passengers did get up when told to be seated, did refuse to switch off their cell phones which they exchanged between themselves and did behave in an aggressive manner. Instead, the Indian Press carried tear-jerker stories of innocent Muslim being harassed just because of their religion. Who does one believe?
At least the Press could have published both sides of the story. The Dutch are peace loving people and certainly one of the more easy going governments in Europe. Once more, in summoning the Dutch Ambassador to a farcical protest, the Government has lost some more credibility in the eyes of the international community.
Who is the Indian Government trying to please? Its Muslim community in the fond hope that it will be appeased and keep quiet? But will it really be grateful? If this were indeed true, every time a bomb went off in a crowded Delhi market, a Varanasi temple, or a packed Mumbai train in the name of Allah, the entire Indian Muslim community should have inserted advertisements in newspapers, appeared on TV and condemned collectively the horror in the name of Islam.
But they do not do so; indeed, many Muslims justify these horrors because of what is supposedly done to Muslims in Kashmir, Pales-tine or Kosovo.
Are Kashmiri Muslims martyrs? Certainly not. J&K is the most pampered State in India, where people have been living on Government subsidies without working for virtually all of the last 15 years. It is not the Indian Army which started the war in Kashmir, but jihadis funded by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia who hounded out 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus who had never raised their hands or even voices against their Muslim brothers.
And what is true of Kashmir is probably true of Palestine and Chechnya as well. One remembers with a shudder what Muslim militants did to innocent children in Beslan. They want to pose as persecuted, but in fact, if you look at their history, they have been the most ruthless, the most bloody-minded, the most persistent persecutors of all persecutors, including Portuguese and Spanish.
How to explain, <b>then, the near servile attitude of the Government and its submissive press (or should we say 'purchased', as it is said generally that 90 per cent of the editorial space in one of India's leading papers can be bought)? </b>True, the Congress has always believed that it can come to power by wooing Muslims - and it has vigorously done this since 1947. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>But there is a deeper reason which nobody wants to name: Naked fear. The ferocity of the Islamic invasions, their unparalleled ruthlessness, have left a deep impact on the Hindu psyche. Hundreds of thousands of people massacred, millions taken in slavery, women raped, temples razed, idols smashed.</span>
Five hundred years later, the indiscipline of Hindus, their near panic at the least sign of trouble, their refusal to face the enemy, their insistence on being good people, the persistence of the Hindu intelligentsia to see in hidebound Muslims the best of friends, when for such a Muslim there is no worse enemy than an idol worshipping Hindu, is a direct consequence of the terror wrought by Babar, Aurangzeb or Tughlaq.
<b>Today, the descendants of Babar have chosen to blow themselves up in airplanes. They think that by doing this they are serving Allah and that they will go to heaven after furthering their dreams of converting the world to Islam</b>. Not only do the mullahs encourage them, but the Muslim community in the world, too, feels it is at least partly justified because of imaginary injustices and perceived hurts against Islam.
Everybody insists that Samuel P Huntington was wrong in his theory about the clash of civilisations. But it is happening right now under our very eyes and it will continue for many more years. But our Marxist intellectuals are still in the denial mode, which in itself is a death wish, or at best the attitude of cowards.
It will become more and more difficult to travel by air in the coming years because of general insecurity about flying. Soon, people will also become selective about which airlines are safe. According to US intelligence sources, one of India's leading private airlines is dubious. There will be more such identification and profiling. All this will take away our freedoms, and we have to thank the Islamists for this.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->