Freedom of Expression and Presidential Election

The presidential election in United States is upon us. Well, upon US citizens. And I am increasingly getting uneasy and frustrated with it. Not only that both the candidates are creating elaborate charade of sincerity and chicanery but Media is playing such huge role in creating this façade of “I am the only guy who can lead the world” bravado that I feel like puking. That got me thinking about the reality of Freedom of Expression in United States, particularly in US media.

The most enshrined and celebrated amendment in US constitution is first amendment - Freedom of speech. The text of the amendment is “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This amendment is encoded in the genes of people born in this country. And barring few instances US government have never stopped anyone from expressing their views. I mean literally anything. People in US talk trash about every known political or religious figure. In my university, students used to publish semi-porn newspaper that would trash talk from Georgie boy to Jesus Christ. I was taken a back by some of the stuff even though I am not Georgie boy’s supporter or a Christian faith follower. But these students have right to say what they wanted to say. It’s up to the readers to ignore such stuff. Same thing goes at the debates on various forums. From university debate to YouTube, people from all walks of life express their views freely. The fact that the society even allows immigrant non citizens to express their views freely makes this country a special case. This is one of very few countries that truly accord such a freedom to its subjects. Now the important question we as a society should ask is whether people’s views are making any difference in a way the government works? The answer is not that that simple. The situation is quite murky and ambiguous. The government doesn’t impede freedom of expression but that job is done by Media quite cleverly.

American media – TV as well as most of the print media – is heavily partisan and biased. They are not only biased with respect to the foreign news coverage but they openly takes sides in the general elections. The case is more complex in TV news land. All of the news agencies are owned by five or six industry conglomerate. Broadcasting news on TV is a costly proposition for sure but for five or six organization to decide what news should be presented is worst than censorship. The economic necessity to broadcast 24 hours a day leads these news agencies to manufacture the news or make the news of molehill. It probably increases the viewership but in turn makes the news channel standing joke. (Aptly shown by Jon Stewart in his The Daily Show) So for example they can devote (I am talking about the entire news channel) all most a week worth of footage towards a girl gone missing in Florida beach but they can’t devote much time towards why there so much antipathy towards US in European nations. Or these news agencies can conveniently disregard the opposition of US citizens towards Iraq war while simultaneously helping administration in drumming beats for war. In short, the news or print media doesn’t capture the reality but it creates its own reality. And in the process it stifles the freedom of expression by effectively muting differing voices.

Coming back to the Presidential election, all the news media give importance to only Democrats or Republicans. I understand they are the biggest parties but there are enough small parties that should at least be heard. The job of news agencies is give space to various points of views and let readers decide the outcome. For example, I am sure very few people outside US know about Ralph Nader. Moreover, I bet that very few people in US know what Ralph Nader stands for. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with him or not but he is standing for election and yet Media stubbornly refuses the give him space. In fact they even blame him for Al Gore’s defeat. I have not read a single article about his intended policies in any of the print media. By not presenting him the news media is censoring substantial number of voters. If he garnered enough votes to stand for election in 37 states (in order to get on to the Ballot i.e. having your name as a candidate on the ballot, one need to garner certain number of signatories) then the least thing for news agencies to do is to hear him out. It’s quite ironic that in quintessential land of choices the Media presents only two choices in Presidential election.

Constitutional amendments are fine but the reality has changed drastically with the ascent of news media conglomerates. Their powers is only going to increase. And I don’t know what we can do to maintain sanity.

Oh No! Not again!!

Okay, so let me think when is the last time Indian politicians, diplomats or foreign policy experts behaved rationally and responsibly. Umm…..naah…..can’t remember nothing. Let’s try to understand history with real life examples. First, our beloved Mr. Nehru – he was so infatuated with Chinese friendship that he went into shock when China attacked us. I wonder why! I mean, India was under foreign rule for 900 year before 1961. But that shouldn’t be the reason behind his surprise over Chinese aggression. Then comes bungling after 1971 victory. Admittedly, before and during the war Indian diplomacy (along with Indian Armed forces) defined excellence in foreign relations but after we won for some weird reason and I don’t know why we didn’t ask Pakistan to hand back part of Kashmir these buggers are hogging. I wish we could ask what was going through Mrs. Gandhi’s mind. Then comes the moronic behavior during the Kargil war. Well, to be precise just before the Kargil war. Okey, to be really really precise our moronic behavior lead to Kargil war where we lost 1000 of our bravest soldiers. See, we were having peace dialogue with our ‘friend’ Pakistan. We thought we will live happily ever after this pact. So, our Army in fact scaled back the military forces in Kashmir. Speldid behavior indeed because taking advantage of this Pakistan captured the mountain peaks in the winter and surprise, surprise, bullets started raining over Indian forces in the spring!

Fool me once shame on you and fool me twice, well you can’t fool me twice because fool can’t be fooled again. I have used this expression (this is Georgi boy’s quote actually) few times in my prior blogs. And, for some meteor blasting reason I find this expression very apt for Indian political diplomacy. Because even after loosing 1000 young soldiers in Kargil, we again had peace dialogue with our neighbors. That resulted into attack on our parliament. Then bomb blasts in Mumbai, Delhi, Varanasi, Hydrabad, Ahamadabad, Mumbai again, Jaipur and Banglore. Yet we continued to believe in the fallacy of having peaceful and cordial relation with Pakistan. I think I am taking too long of run-up, so, let me come to the crux.

The recent controversy in Jammu and Kashmir is another example of how inept our politicians are and how regressive their mindset is. This is what happened. And in hindsight it all seems very well planned. The Jammu and Kashmir government currently headed by PDP – notorious for starting militancy in 1989 along with Congress party decided to grant 100 acres of unused and unusable (i.e. for agriculture) to land to Amarnath Temple Trust. (Amarnath Temple is one of the holiest shrines for Hindus and lakhs of people throng to the temple every year) That land was to be used by the temple trust to build temporary servicing facility for the pilgrims. This land transfer procedure was started couple of years ago. Suddenly, some Muslims in Kashmir decided to protest against it. The reason being that they feared that land will be used to relocate Hindus in Kashmir and that in turn will change the demography of the Kashmir. (in short, they don’t want no Hindus in Kashmir) Now land was given to the trust strictly for building temporary facilities for Hindu pilgrims. And, thinking sanely it’s all but improbable that 100 acres of land will demography of the state. But sanity is indeed a rare commodity. Like an orchestra this tiny protest was enough for PDP (the same political party that allotted the land at first place) decided to withdraw support from the state government. This prompted Congress Party Chief Minister to take the land back from the temple board. This was obviously to anger Hindu population. And they achieved their goal.

Hindus across the countries arose against this gross injustice and minority appeasement. Widespread protest was held in Jammu (there are very few Hindus left in Kashmir) against government decision. But the state government stuck with its guns. This was enough for JKLF - Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front, an separatist organization to start violence in Kashmir. And this leads to the climax - Pakistan is lodging complain against India in United Nations, in Organization of Islamic Committee (of which India is not a member) and various Human Rights group. Oh actually no! This is not the climax. . The climax is the statement issued by Indian government (and I quote from Indian Express) “such statements amount to "clear interference" in its internal affairs and will undermine the composite dialogue process.

Wow, so Pakistan has more say in Kashmir than India. They are creating anti-India activities in India and to that all that Indian government has to say is that it may affect the composite dialogue. I got no words on this! Bravo!!! Way to go.

But this is all fault of RSS,and BJP. Remember Pakistani’s are good, it’s just their army and politicians are bad. Hold on, I was under impression that Pakistani army recruits from general Pakistani population and recent government in Pakistan is democratically elected. Now this mystery I can’t solve.

We the Guantanamo - Post Script

It was purely coincidental that within a week of me writing a blog on Guantanamo Bay prison camp Wall Street Journal published an article that unequivocally proved the necessity of having that prison camp. I wish I could just copy and paste that article on my blog but one, it’s too long and second, that will be copy-right infringement. Not that they will come after me but we will save that for some other time and for some other incidence.

The article was written by DEBRA BURLINGAME – a former Attorney and director of National September 11 Memorial Foundation. Moreover, her brother was the pilot of Flight 77 that was rammed into Pentagon. So it is safe to say that she is one of the closest to the tragedy and involved greatly in efforts to maintain the sanctity of this ghastly incidence. All though, the article is concerned about the recent supreme court verdict that granted knuckleheads of Guantanamo Bay all the rights of normal criminals, the example that she illustrated in her article is relevant to my prior blog. Mr. Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi was an ex-resident of Guantanamo Bay prison camp. And for some reason, partly due to heavy public out-cry and partly due to continuous pressure of so called human rights activist, he was one of the few terrorists released from the prison camps. Earlier he was granted the status of enemy combatant and they lead the trial of him about his alleged crimes. His enemy combatant status was one of the first to be granted to Islamic terrorists of Taliban. This status qualified him for annual review of his past deeds. (I am not expert in Law. In case if I am misquoting law stuff then please let me know and I will correct the information.)

In his trials Mr. Ajmi denied any involvement in Jihad or about his participation in Taliban movement. He stated that he went to Pakistan simply to learn Koran. Interesting, because he was an Arab and last time I checked Arabs were still Muslims and they surely do have facilities learn Koran in Arab land. But instead of learning his lessons, after his repatriation back to Kuwait, he sneaked into Iraq and blew 100 tons of explosive along with himself. The blast was so severe that it ripped the surrounding buildings part. Surprisingly, it killed only 13 people. I wonder how many more blasts will require for so called human rights activist to shut up and mind their own business.

To rub salt on the wounds, the attorney – Marc Falkoff, who fought case for Mr. Ajmi recently published a book of poems penned by Mr. Ajmi. Talking about Mr. Ajmi, the attorney said – “One thing you won't hear is hatred,"

No kidding!