…as bigoted racists
Your Eyewitness was struck by a Reuters’ headline in his Yahoo feed of a Newsweek article: “Seventy Years On, India is Blighted by Rabid Nationalism and Vigilantism”. Was this magazine for real? Or, for that matter, how was it picked up by Reuters and Yahoo? They were, of course, commenting on India’s celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence from Britain.
But it’s more than interesting how they saw it. Your Eyewitness immediately wondered how Newsweek covered the sickness of racism that was oozing out of the US body politic at the same time down in Charlottesville. After all, from where your Eyewitness sits, 241 years on (after its independence from Britain), what it not “rabid nationalism and vigilantism” exploding in the US? But those Newsweek headlines were the usual bland reporting, like “CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS REMOVED OVERNIGHT IN BALTIMORE, WITH MORE TO GO ACROSS U.S. AFTER CHARLOTTESVILLE”.
None of the blatant editorializing that the headline on India reeked of. Weren’t the marches for keeping racist monuments against African Americans “rabid”? Wasn’t white nationalism “rabid”?? What about the ploughing down of one counter protester; isn’t that vigilantism? Not to mention all those beatings and killings of black motorists by white policemen. But what we should know is that this is the type of journalism that all of us in the Third World has been subjected to hundreds of years before they called it “fake news”.
The coverage of us natives was always slanted towards “putting us in our place” — that “place” being down at the bottom of the totem or any other pole they chose. What makes it worse is: by their control of the media and all the means of communication – including what passes as “education” – most of us end up BELIEVING the stuff they feed us.
For quite a while, China, India and Africa (three quarters of humanity) were the poster boys for all sorts of stories about poverty and degradation. Never mind it was the exploitation by the countries — now “developed”, and able to control the media — that made them “degraded,” to begin with. But by dint of its own efforts, China pulled itself up by its own bootstraps, and the brickbats and insults have practically stopped.
India and Africa are still getting it fast and furious. But even in the Newsweek article, the writers had to concede in the body that India’s the fastest growing economy, and is poised to make quantum leaps in the next two decades.
All that will be left will be “poor” Africa…Never mind that they drained it of tens of millions and sold its natives into slavery.
…as those who ignore the signs
So, the Finance Minister assures us that “2% growth is nothing to sneeze at”. Maybe so. But why, when the PPP was boasting about their 5% growth being more than all of the other regional economies, were they derided? Shouldn’t this Minister be derided? It’s no use his saying some other economies might be doing worse. Since we’re just above Haiti in this Hemisphere, every one of the latter are waaaay more developed than we. The 2% won’t even enable us to catch up with, say, Trinidad, in the next century!!
If he’s satisfied with 2%, why doesn’t Minister Jordan recommend that the entire Cabinet return to the Treasury all the salary increase they received over 2%? After all, that’s nothing to sneeze about!! As a boy, your Eyewitness was taught that if you reach for the stars — and even if things go awry — you might get the moon. Not too bad.
But if you aim for the ground, don’t be surprised when you end up in the gutter!!
