The Modern Story Of O

The Modern Story of O



This meditation on O is not about that delectable 1954 French erotic classic on dominance and submission, The Story of O. Even if one wishes it were; because that kind of dominance and submission is pleasurable to all participants.

It also isn’t about the supremely influential Oprah Winfrey, or about her magazine O. This, even as Oprah fades, like magic ink, gradually but inevitably, both from the stage and page, as earnestness, gone formulaic, turns into parody.

It is certainly about Obama and Osama, the Holmes and Moriarty of our times. But we won’t see them, last of all, locked in mortal combat, hurtling down Switzerland’s Reichenbach Falls.--lost, both, finally, to the enveloping mist…

Let us make no mistake however. It is an end-game the two O’s are embarked upon. Notwithstanding, of course, New York Times Columnist Maureen Dowd’s snide and snarky labelling of Obama as O Bambi.

Thing is, if Obama does not kill Osama, after bull-bellowing that he would, Captain Ahab fashion, Osama and his followers are unlikely to spare Obama or his people. In the impressive hyperbole that Arabic lends itself to, Osama has recently spoken of his undying commitment to: “another seven years, seven more after that, and even seven more after”. It is Jihad, counted out in lucky sevens, one more sign of our twisted times.

And the footnote, a little damp perhaps from the hope-dashing waters of the Palk Straits and Indian Ocean, features a tired, tattered “tiger” called Vellupillai Prabhakaran and his nemesis Mahinda Rajapaksa.

There is indeed quite a lot of Moby Dick parallels about these long-winded, epic, personalised, almost gladiatorial battles to-the-death. Man and Whale but what a Whale! The blood and guts are garnish to the monumental ambitions of the protagonists. Even if one is, or is considered, inhuman.

The more things change the more they stay the same. It is probably no coincidence that Obama counts American Herman Melville’s masterpiece as one of his favourite books. And paralleling O’s end-game with O, Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, did swear, clear-eyed and determined, right from his election campaign bid to power, that he would certainly destroy the LTTE and kill their leader Prabhakaran.

End-games must necessarily involve the death of one of the protagonists, or Holmes and Moriarty fashion, that of both. But barring the truly unexpected, Barack Obama, fresh in youth, energy, with the laurel of Caesar still glistening on his head, outclasses the kidney-diseased fugitive in the cavernous labyrinth of the North West Frontier Province. The ageing Osama is also plagued, of late, as pointed out by The Economist, by the lack of a spectacular strike in the West since 2005. Repeatedly striking soft targets in India has neither sparked the hoped for communal conflagration, nor covered the jihadist cause in glory.

And internally, keeping the Al Qaeda flock together, even with the able assistance of deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, is proving difficult. Dissidence, from leading jihadist ideologue Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, a founding member of Al Qaeda, as it happens, who writes under nom de plume Dr. Fadl, meaning Doctor Please, doesn’t help. Dr. Fadl derides Al Qaeda’s pan-Islamic credentials and says it has made no contribution to the Palestinian cause. Ergo, it shouldn’t climb on to that bandwagon.

There are financial problems too, what with supporting the families of an ever growing list of “martyrs”, paying salaries to legions of rag-tag killers for hire, and keeping supplies of the all-important arms and ammunition flowing. But, these fiscal issues, of course, are not exclusive to the Al Qaeda in 2009.

And coincidentally, just last night, juxtaposed with news of Rajapaksa’s assurances that Prabhakaran will not get out of Sri Lanka alive, they ran that old dinosaur Rambo III, starring Sylvester Stallone, on satellite TV. It is like bumping into Banquo’s Ghost, last seen in the eighties. And then we’re off, being treated to an ironic retrospective on the creation of the Mujahideen, (God’s Warriors), by the self-same Americans, led today by one of the O’s in contention. In America’s numerous re-enactments of Frankenstein, here is one more, replete with Stinger missiles and the every-man-is-an-independent–republic temperament of the Afghan, used, ably enough, to displace the heavily armed occupational force of Soviets.

Rambo III also shows the spectacular natural caves, cathedral size, practically impervious, interconnected with passages high enough for man and horse, that Obama will have to conquer. For it is in these caves that connects the Peshawar region in Pakistan to the border areas in Afghanistan, where Osama and friends are.

It is a public battle with declared intent on the part of Rajapaksa and Obama. It is a surreptitious survival game for Prabhakaran and Osama, one in the jungle, the other in the mountains. But if it comes to running away, as fugitives, sequestered from their followers, it may have to suffice, besides prolonging the end-game.

Obama and Rajapaksa want to end this quickly. Obama will double the American troop strength to 60,000 and pursue the Taliban and Al Qaeda into the bad-lands of Afghanistan and Pakistan as necessary.

Rajapaksa will comb through every bush and dug-out and watch every boat on the coastline. But will Osama Bin Laden or Vellupillai Prabhakaran wait patiently till their sworn enemies come in to kill them?

Because, with battle strength moves backed by clear political directives, there is little doubt that Obama and Rajapaksa will succeed, unless, that is, Osama and Prabhakaran run away. Where to? To another Islamic haven, presumably.

It is said Prabhakaran, not yet converted to the “true faith”, is headed for Indonesia too. Obama, as it turns out, once lived in Jakarta and knows Indonesia is the most populous Islamic nation in the world, as he stated in his very first Islamic moderate targeting interview to Al Arabiya of Dubai.

The story might yet go on. The hunted may become beacons of hope for their followers
from other, safer, digs. That is how Arthur Conan Doyle responded to unexpectedly strong demands to resurrect Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty. After all, nobody saw them die after the alleged tumble down the Reichenbach Falls. There were no witnesses to the scuffle as the faithful Doctor Watson was called away on a fake call. And there really were no bodies. So no Habeas Corpus, and no Saddam Hussein emulating dictators hiding in holes.

(1,055 words)

28th January, 2009
Gautam Mukherjee

Updated version published in The Pioneer on 6th February, 2009 as "A modern story of O" and also online at www.dailypioneer.com. Archived under Columnists online at www.dailypioneer.com

Carry Can & Facing Change

Carry Can & Facing Change


So here we are: 24 hours on from “Yes we can” to carrying that very can. From revelling in the ringing rhetoric of “Change is coming to America”, to facing up to that self-same change. Maureen Dowd, the eminent left-wing commentator recently wrote in her New York Times column that it would make a refreshing change to go from “dogmatic” to someone looking for a dog for his daughters.

But, wry humour apart, it is not going to be a simple switch from the Darkness to the Light. After all, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela who likened President George W Bush to the Devil with his “Whiff of Sulphur” remarks, allows he can still “smell the stench” on the eve of the Obama Presidency. To him America will still be its overbearing self--under a Democrat as much as it was under a Republican.

From the Indian point of view with its economic and technological constraints, that imperialistic face of the United States may make for a favourable outcome as events unfold. It may, in fact, go one better, because President Bush always called Pakistan, under President Musharraf, a reliable ally, even as Obama begins to take it to task.

In the interim, for President Obama, the formative issues, the oratorical flourishes that have shaped his candidature, are, overnight, relegated to the margins. This is as it should be. Now what counts is what James Baldwin, one of President Obama’s cited intellectual influences, once wrote: “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

And, crucially, for a brand new president, the establishment of his authority is dependent on his ability to stand down the early challenges to that very authority. The Master of the Hunt must know that it is just a walk in the park till the drawing of first blood.

But too often, ideological moorings, those of the Democratic Party, traditionally liberal as champions of the “people”, begin to assert themselves. This forces a Democrat President to be soft and hard at the same time, perhaps to the detriment of the larger cause. JFK, a Democrat, had a hard time convincing his adversaries abroad, as well as a number of people in his own government, that he had the necessary steel. And Kennedy was a war hero of PT-109 fame.

Democrat President Obama’s first moves are telling; action one was to suspend the detainee trials, for 120 days, at Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre in Cuba. It seems easy enough, for President Obama, even appropriate, to make this gesture at the altar of Human Rights, while redeeming a much-touted campaign pledge. And, expectedly, it is receiving prompt and sympathetic media play.

But, the hardline Islamists, the jihadists, the terrorists, the Taliban, and their friends, must be forgiven for laughing up their sleeves. They will see, in this Christian gesture, a weakness to exploit. They will take it as an opportunity, to try the will and determination of this new and inexperienced American president.

The moderate Islamists, towards whom, presumably, this humanitarian gesture is directed, will be found missing-in-action. Iran is as hard-line as they come even if it does no more than finance and arm the Hamas and the Hizbullah. The Gulf Arabs, the Egyptians, the Jordanians and even the Saudis have long surrendered the initiative to the radicals. And so, the finer point of America the Beautiful setting rights to wrongs at Guantanamo will be lost in the turbulence.

Besides, what’s next? Will Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre be closed to provide the hard-line Islamists with an effective PR boomerang, as promised by candidate Obama?

There are many in NATO deeply worried about their radical Islamic citizens and guest workers. Some of them, such as Britain, are probably not looking forward to receiving Guatanamo Bay detainees who happen to be British citizens.

After all, it is not easy to conduct “fair trials” at home with all the attendant legal niceties when most of the “evidence” is circumstantial. Pakistan is, and has been playing India for monkeys over this hurdle of jurisprudence ever since 26/11.

War Trials need special reference points. Not one Nazi would have been convicted if it were not to be so at Nuremberg. Nor would Saddam Hussein have been hung. But all this will come later.

But on Day One of the Obama Presidency, the Pakistani Establishment, their Ambassador to the US, their Government, their Army, have made bold to react sharply. They don’t like President Obama’s announcement that further, enhanced, Civilian Aid to Pakistan will henceforth be contingent upon Pakistan’s ability to show results in the “Fight against Terror”. Pakistan has dared to assert that they may need to consider “our options” if the United States takes a tough line with them. This posturing is essential for their domestic audience.

But that is not the whole truth. It will become clear to President Obama if he continues to regard Pakistan as the “epicentre of terrorism” that though he may want Pakistan to fight the Taliban and Al Quaeda in the areas bordering Afghanistan, he may find himself hard-pressed. It will be difficult to find Pakistanis in the Establishment, the Civilian Government, the moth-eaten Pakistani Judiciary, the Army, the ISI, the many state supported jihadi operators, the Ulema, even a large section of the Media, who are not Talibanised!

The Army and ISI certainly are, and this makes it very hard for them to fight and kill their own, particularly at rank and file level, and at the behest of a foreign power at that. At senior levels, the Pakistani establishment has successfully duped the Americans for decades and sees no good reason to stop now.

The Taliban proper, in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, as much as in Afghanistan, have also “warned” President Obama on day one. And further, they have advised him to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan or “face the consequences.”

And so the stage is set for the bloodying. Having drawn the battle lines, President Obama will have to follow through. This will definitely involve going to war with the Taliban and the Al Quaeda hiding in the sovereign territory of Pakistan. India, patiently waiting for justice after 26/11 and the countless other outrages of recent years, can expect to be a collateral beneficiary.


(1,050 words)

Thursday, 22nd January, 2009
Gautam Mukherjee

Ebb-tide

Ebb-tide


When the tide’s out you discover things-- topography, slopes, secrets, extent. It’s been a long ebb-tide for governance and trust; for valued notions of succour and security; for finding skeletons and carcasses, and mostly, for being caught in the buff, unprepared.

But a lot of the exposure and consternation that has come in its wake masks the fact that high-profile company or bank managements, amongst the more straight-forward thieves and murderers, have been punching much heavier than their weight, taking shelter under the warm duvet of a concealing and soothing high-tide. But the ebb-tide inevitably comes. It’s plain gravity, but this time it’s taken the high and mighty by surprise.

Talk of tides become graphic when one holidays a full two weeks by the sea. After the 26/11 terror strikes in Mumbai and specific threats made known about Goa, it promptly sagged/fell from India’s No.1 tourist destination to No. 3. It didn’t help any when it was revealed that there were a total of three machine guns amongst Goa’s constabulary, two operational patrol boats to review its coastline, and no training whatsoever to deal with terrorist bombers and jihadi commandos. And the terrorists, it was assessed, could come streaming/rolling/bounding in from land and sea, just as they pleased, if they were not already ensconced within the balmy state.

It is no wonder that the Goa Police took fright and gathered together the contents of an entire madrassa, the only one they knew of, outside Mapusa, for “verification”.

But, as I write this, halfway through January, it must be admitted that the Digamber Kamat Government did rise to the challenge, admirably, because there has been no incident over the Christmas and New Year season and indeed into 2009.

Of course there were numerous check barriers, all over the village roads and National Highway 17, 17A and 17B, manned by additional armed reserve police from “Delhi” who hence were unable to do double duty offering directions on how to get to Baga, Anjuna or wherever, particularly if queried in Konkani.

But the out-of-town soldiers were professional. All the last mile access routes to the beaches were closed to vehicles by night and day. Every tourist heavy street and bathing beach was patrolled by soldiers in fatigues toting machine guns and wearing watchful expressions. And the night market in Arpora, a magnet for tourist and local alike, has been banned indefinitely. Goa, and the visitor to Goa, has never seen anything like it.

Also, this season, Goa’s concern with security and safety didn’t stop with making life difficult for terrorists. There was an amazing beach-safe programme in place. Basically, as every beach bum knows, when the tide is going out, it is not a good idea to go swimming. There are things called eddies that are nasty sucking currents not in the least related to any pleasant Edwards one might know, and others called rip-tides that have every potential to rip out your life and return the rest, bloated, still and discoloured. Succinctly put--you could drown quite easily, particularly if inebriated.

The beach-safe programme is Baywatch strength – red Gipsies, water scooters, lilos and rafts with multiple clutch handles, many life-guards dressed in lycra, flags- red for when it is dangerous to swim and red and yellow when it is fine, look out posts that are no longer just high chairs stuck in the sand with no occupant, but old-woman-who-lived-in-a-shoe style double-storey constructs with binocular wielding lifeguards capable of looking out clear to the international water line.

All of this tackle, professionally organised with Australian collaboration, costs about five crores of rupees a quarter, and since it has come to Goa as of October 2008, it is clamouring for its first tranche of manna from the government. The Digamber Kamat Government has been dragging its feet, unsure about the efficacy of spending five crores to save the lives of a score or so of inept or reckless swimmers/landlubbers in harm’s way.

But the private company that has seized the beaches of Goa uses a powerful PR machine working overtime in The Herald immortalised by Mario as The Heraldo in his cartoons, being read therein by the family cat; The Gomantak Times (GT); and the newly introduced edition of the ubiquitous Times of India, localised with birth, death, remembrance, wedding announcements, anniversaries, New Year’s wishes from functionaries of the Comindades and members of the Goa Legislative Assembly. And not to forget the quaint birthday greeting advertisements Goans seem to revel in.

The Kamat Government may be wondering about the cost-benefit analysis. It saves, but not as many as would die if a local bus crashed into a coconut tree before falling into a pond. But even as the government ponders, beach-safe toils on, covering twenty of Goa’s most frequented stretches of beach.

Just how many people have drowned from reckless or amateurish swimming in the sea since Goa came into being, allegedly when Parashurama, the sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu, shot an arrow into what is present day Benaulim, is a matter of some speculation.

Nevertheless, for the thinned-out but still numerous foreigners in season, this new fangled and energetic beach-safe programme must seem reasonable. But Indians, particularly from the North or West, the East or South of the country, used to being decimated and despatched periodically and in impressive quantity by our population controllers from across the way, need to get used to the altogether unfamiliar notion that their lives are actually worth saving.

The Goan beach-safe operation is a public service you understand. It hasn’t been put in just on the beach that Digamber Kamat uses. In fact, there is not a Goa or Central Minister for that matter, to be seen, and yet all this fuss!

After all, we Indians are not much used to action taken for the mere common weal. But sometimes, a little state like Goa can lead the way and help us develop a little self esteem. And this despite all that free-flowing liquor and naked ladies working on their even sun-tans. It is silly to deal in stereotypes. Because, as Alice Cooper, the Rock Star with the raccoon style make-up once said in praise of Country & Western music: “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” So congratulations Mr. Kamat. And Happy Republic Day.

(1,053 words)

15th January 2009
Gautam Mukherjee

Published in The Pioneer as Op-Ed Page Leader entitled "Caught in the ebb-tide" and online at www.dailypioneer.com on Tuesday,January 20, 2009. Also archived online at www.dailypioneer.com under Columnists.