What ...?

This has been the reaction of majority of the people across the globe on hearing about Obama winning the Nobel Peace prize. First time when this news item popped-out in Google, I thought it is the bookies at play and it took me a while to realize what I am reading is in fact true.

Obama himself had to play it down, equating it to a prank played by his daughters. Just few days back his celebrity status was put to reality by the first round elimination of his hometown Chicago for the 2016 Olympics race and now he has to accept, rather embarrassingly, this global celebrity status.

So, what would have made the prize award committee to this decision? Sometimes we do attribute people, for who they are not than who they really are. Perhaps the ghosts of George Bush is still helping Obama, in the fact that the world feels so relieved and celebrating the absence of a Bush and his hawkish coterie to decide the fate of the world!

The conservatives within the US could see this as a conspiracy by the Europeans to weaken the American strategy on the ongoing war and the possible toughening of stand against Iran. Is this prize going to take the commander of the American force more on the path of dialogue than blazing missiles?

Has this landed Mr. Obama with yet another monkey on his back, to engage the world in dialogue than missiles?

What effect this would have on the individual, who is also the supreme commander of a force that is engaged in at least 2 full-blown wars, which are in no sight of end in the foreseeable future. Especially at a time when he is in the midst of a serious deliberation to increase the head count in Afghanistan by nearly 40,000 additional men.

Then there is Iran, the Pak-Afghan border that is increasingly becoming the nerve center of global terror, the missile-shield tussle with the Russians - that seems to have simmered down a bit for now, the ever boiling Netanyahu and a world that is ever turning hostile on nuclear armaments.

Though Obama inherited this foreign policy mess, as an American, the same pair of hands that is going to receive this Peace prize, is not without any stains of blood.

It sure is quite intriguing that the Nobel committee that could not find a merit to award the peace prize to Mahatma Gandhi on 5 different occasions when he was nominated, found a compelling case for Obama, when he hardly had been in the office for two weeks, since his nomination!

There are human rights activists, all across the globe, fighting their life out for causes so close to their heart, while a simple reach out to the Muslim community and much other mere rhetoric by Obama, appears to have convinced the prize committee.

Oh, does this world make sense to anyone?

Anyway, Mr. Obama, for whatever you have done or not done, Good Luck and Yes, you can!

C'mon, cut the ...

You could not ask for a better juicy spice to add to the headlines on an Independence Day, other than to talk about your civil liberties and freedom being compromised over the incident of how our own SRK was detained and questioned upon his entry into the United States.

What is wrong?

The point is not about the paranoia that has gripped the US since the aftermath of 9/11 and just having a last name that is synonymous with a specific religion drives them to into this extra mode of caution. Perhaps, as it does on some cases, the xenophobia potentially could drive few people go over-board. That is a different issue, altogether.

The point is not that SRK was questioned for 2 hours; our concern was more that he was questioned just like any other normal citizens and treated un-fairly!

It is high time we get over this regal shame of giving this VIP treatment to individuals, even in areas that matter the most, like Security. If the US reserves the right of a harsh preferential treatment on the basis of a last name, so do we. We have an institutionalized preferential treatment based on societal standing that goes too soft on few people. This is going to cause us more damage than we could ever understand.

Seldom we, Indians, like to be frisked or even stopped at the gate by the duty bound security guards. At work places, I have seen the frown on the faces of people walking or driving past the security gate, when the security guard asks them to display their id cards.

Why? Because of the simple indifferent attitude that ‘Who is he to question or stop me?’ But, we do want the Best of protection and security and always look at it as the other people's responsibility. It’s not me; it’s him! Hello! The other fellow is just doing his job and how on earth is he going to know that Your Majesty is above the law - though none of us is not – and you should not be touched?

What puts me off at airports or the work place is not I being checked, but the lackadaisical way in which it is being done, under the guise of preferential treatment to the elite few. I have seen many instances at work places where, just to keep the visiting white skinned babu happy, our people taking the short cuts of skipping or rushing the mandatory security checks on the individual and his physical belongings like the laptop, which he carries.

Added to the SRK incident is the comedy of one of the minister’s comment – “we should do tit for tat”. Please do. Not doing that is the issue and don't spare anyone. There will be tons of people who would be more than happy to be strip-searched, if that can only give them the comfort feeling of being secure.

Who are we to decide who is an icon and who is not? In the absence of it, let us all be equally treated as law abiding citizens.

Treat no one as a ‘Global Icon’ and get over the colonial hangover of being sycophantic.