Murder in the name of democracy

I went today to a meeting in Madurai to condemn what happened in Iraq at the instance of the George W Bush. Many women groups, student organizations participated under the banner of the world social forum to talk on the indignities, which the people in Iraq suffer at the hands of their invaders. There was a sudden commotion and the police who were present in fair number started pushing people and grabbed the effigy that some had planned to set fire. An instance of the murder of democracy. The question that turned to spontaneous slogan was whether the police are our police or Bush’s police. Would Bush have been burnt as if it was voodoo magic? Will the fire cause death and destruction as the US bombs that rained on the Iraqi people? Perhaps, the burning might lead to the hanging of human beings to please the Emperors as happened in Iraq? Why then should the police of a state in a nation that is supposedly not under the rule of the modern day Hitler behave as if they were the SS unleashed? The police officer explained that he had to stop the burning as otherwise he would have gotten a memo since it happened in his jurisdiction. Now we have the good old Indian bureaucracy thrown in with the suppression by the State. The police, the State and Mr. G.W. Bush have one thing in common – the need to suppress human rights and democracy. That is why we have people being hung by trials sometimes fair, many times farcical and, as happened for Saddam Hussein – a downright pathetic drama by Bush Jr.

Long time ago, as the dark Lord of Iraq, who has now fallen from favour, was being groomed, the US looked the other way as their trusted man killed innocent people in a village. The gobbledegook that arose from the killings hardly filled a page. Since it was done under the sponsorship of our good Uncle Sam, as in the case of the murder of Allendez and other such Sammy disposals, they come under the heading of the now famous ‘collateral damage’ not meriting trials and hangings at that time. Now of course since the US interests have lifted the invisible warps, pages and pages are filled with the atrocities of our now hung Saddam. The mistake Iraq’s Lord made, as others like Osama Bin Laden are also realizing, was to fall out of Sam’s patronage and usefulness. If only Saddam had bent backwards and allowed the oil in his country to be pillaged by Emperor Bush as he deemed fit for his cronies – he would not have had to be hung by the neck until he was dead. Of course, it is difficult to be hung by other parts of the body until one is dead – takes a bit of doing.

Human rights are a term the US dislikes except when it can be used as a stick to get nations to comply to its illicit demands. Of course, in the US there is hardly any violation of human rights – since their definition of what is human in their land is close to Hitlerian terms. Palestine, Afghanisthan, Iraq, Iran… the list of countries that have come under the US bulldozer attitude are almost legion. Organisms and their children who are expendable in the calculations of the power elite of US after all inhabit these countries. Creatures that permit their resources to be looted are permitted to live. Others must die for the greater common good of the race of Homo N.Americanus.

A nation thirsting for oil will make the world go up in flames. If that happens to be the only nation that has used weapons of mass destruction repeatedly during its history, then the future is better. And if it so chances, that it is the only nation that does not bother about the UN resolutions and treaties, except if they are useful for furthering its ends, then of course the odds improve further. Perhaps, it is also the nation that has the most stockpile of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons – then we are in real good business. But then if that nation also speaks of democracy and practices dictatorship of the power elite, the world had better shut up and watch itself getting hung in silent acceptance. This new year prizes are being given in green dollars to those who are not able to guess which nation qualifies for all these honours – so if you are amongst them better hurry back home for getting your share of the spoils.

Democracy allows different voices to flourish. People of many identities that can peacefully coexist. So what if people wish to protest inhuman action? Does that jeopardize the fabric of our nation? The protests are not about hanging of a dictator or a murderer as Saddam is labeled. To hang or not to hang – that is not the question. The question is who should sit in judgement and how: Chavez’s Devil or the people of Iraq? Whether it is nobler for the people of a nation to suffer the invasion of liberators who make their place a more dreaded and inhuman place to live OR to rise in anger against the tyranny and injustice inflicted in the name of democracy – that is the question.