Ever think about what would have happened if the foreigners targeted in Australia were American? Or English? Or French?
Ever think about what would have happened if the "foreigners" targeted in Australia were American? Or English? Or French?
Their governments would have come down heavily on the Ozzies. Worldwide-by-the-minute-updates of the grave law and order situation Down Under would have been prime time news. Hourly coverage on the weeping families, who had been so deeply distressed, would have done the rounds. And Oprah Winfrey would have turned scarred students into overnight celebs who were heroic in staving off the attacks of the Kiwi desperados. Book and movie deals "My Days As An Australian Beach Boy Were Cut Short" (Cut As in Knifed? Get the obvious pun that helps makes bestsellers out of toilet paper?)u00a0u00a0u00a0
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Not so safe: Outraged over the spate of racial attacks in Australia, hundreds of Indian students took out a massive rally in Melbourne demanding justice for the victims of recent assaults, last week File pic |
But when a couple of Indians are stabbed, a dozen of others are mugged, and a handful or so are beaten and left for dead, what happens? The Indian media run the story and the rest of the world simply goes on with their lives after all, does it matter to anybody that a score of third world immigrants are injured? (rhetoric question to be accompanied with a typical gallic shrug of indifference.)
Cutting across the world, to the air crash off Brazil: was it only me who noticed that all the media (and I was out of the country then) simply mentioned that the many dead included around 60 French citizens, a couple of Englishmen, and two Americans? How about the hundred or so other passengers? Oh, those were probably South Americans, Africans, Asians and other such irrelevant beings.
Even out of India, in other Asian countries, there seems to be so much more reverence for the Great West. I noticed at check-in counters for Indian flights (and four were taking off around the same time, so you can imagine how many people, were crammed into the same space) there were only two counters being manned. On the aisle, that was checking in for Europe, there must have been twenty six checkers.u00a0
What is it about us, that makes us so insignificant in everyone's sphere? We're a large country, a huge economy, and an ancient race of people. But somewhere, somehow we seemed to have lost it. Our infrastructure is pathetic when you compare it to other poorer, lesser countries. Our roads our littered and are piddly lanes in comparison to what even Thailand boasts of. Our apartments are smaller, and somehow crummier (and am not even talking about Bombay here.). Our public parks are misnomer for public toilets. And the only pretty stretch we had left on M G Road is now simply a fragile memory buried under concrete.u00a0And since our State politicos have more important priorities like the number of billions to top up their Geneva bases with, there's no hope for us.
We're gonna stay exactly where we are: the ignored Third World.
