Osama: A Cathartic Killing.

The killing of Osama Bin Laden has been dissected in international media. While the world heaved a collective sigh of relief at not just the killing but the near total absence of any outcry from the proverbial Arab street. The latter, specifically, is making analysts sit up and take note.

Are Americans wrong to celebrate the killing of Osama? How different is such an American from those who celebrated 9/11 watching the towers fall? Stunned by Obama's action that looked very much like Bush  the world at large gave a muted appreciation but the ubiquitous finger wagging intellectuals added a "nevertheless its not nice to celebrate a person's death" and for good measure compared it with the celebrations that erupted in parts of Middle East seeing civilians leap to their death from the towering inferno. Such moral bracketing is despicable and loathsome. Celebrating the death of a mass murderer is NOT the same as celebrating seeing innocent men and women leap to their deaths. I had aptly compared it to Diwali in my earlier blog .

Like World War II, Korean War, Vietnam, First Gulf War, this was not a war that America sought out. America in the midst of a recession was busy addressing its economy. George Bush came to office forswearing nation building. He had declared that "America is not the world's 911" (911 - number for all emergencies in USA). John Cherian, writing for Frontline magazine, claimed that America went to war to capture one man. An insulting sleight of hand. America did not go to war with Afghanistan just chasing Osama. Afghanistan was the hot bed global terrorism running practically schools were terror tactics were taught to jihadists. That terror network had to be dismantled.

Some have pointed out that unlike common belief that this attack is indeed covered by international law. More than a few sought to lecture America that  this is not justice but sheer vendetta, justice would be to arrest Osama and indict him in a court of law. America did that to Ramzi Youssef who had bombed the towers in 1993. Youssef, too, was picked up in Pakistan, arraigned in a court of law, defended by a lawyer paid by US taxpayer and is in a supermax prison sentenced for life (no death penalty). What good did it do us? Would the likes of Osama be mollified by such trials? Even if such a trial was carried out a would-be-Osama (and not a few intellectuals) would still mock it as a staged trial. It would be free dangerous propaganda circulating on youtube. Osama's culpability in 9/11 was proved beyond doubt by any standards of investigation, including his own despicably boastful videos that nailed his guilt.

Some brushed it as inconsequential killing that may unnecessarily inflame passions again. The treasure trove of intelligence unearthed has shown that Osama was not just in hiding but actively plotting with his sick mind. There are those who would still say such intelligence was 'planted'. I've no arguments for instinctive Anti-Americans who loath America. Let me reiterate that Obama is the president under whose watch all of this is happening. Now the anti-Americans would drool "all American presidents are the same". Trying to convince them is like having a conversation with a dinner table. The killing has deep symbolic effect across segments and it has perceivable impact in real terms too.

When the Japanese launched Pearl Harbor their idea was that America lacked guts and courage for a prolonged bloody war. After decimating American navy when the planes headed home, General Yamamoto, who spear headed the campaign, educated in USA, is reported to have said "all that we have done today is to wake up a sleeping tiger". Osama thought the same. The nation of Playboy, Bay Watch etc would run away with its tail in between its legs. Osama repeatedly referred to how US ran away from Vietnam and Somalia. The Vietnam debacle especially emboldened him. If bicycle riders could humiliate America why not mule-riders? Destroying that comfort is valuable.

I did not want to write blogs on the operation itself immediately when the details were sketchy. Unlike my initial reaction this was not a 'kill' operation. There were preparations done to take him alive. However that was a very remote possibility. The SEALS were operating in very hostile territory, under darkness racing against time and against an opponent who valued his life very little hence their decision to kill him cannot be second guessed from arm chairs. The decision to bury him at sea was a brilliant one. I don't buy the reasoning given for that like "no country would accept him", "according to Islam we had to bury him in 24 hours". He was killed on land and taken to sea to be dumped for the fishes. I hope they had a feast or maybe they found him too distasteful for their morals.It would take another 5 years minimum until some investigative reporter pieces together the story for a prize winning book.

The killing of Osama provided yet again an opportunity for anti-americanism to come out in its full rich spectrum. Anti-Americanism is a rich tapestry woven out of many strands that mirror the colors of the soul of the beholder. The spectrum of such animosity ranges from sheer loathing to supposedly well meaning criticism couched in intellectual bromides.

A few days after the killing The Guardian newspaper from UK, no friend of America, printed a column that said the greatest myth about Osama was that USA/CIA created him. Soon after Peter Bergen, who had interviewed Osama in person in 1997 for CNN, wrote an op-ed for Washington Post titled "top 5 myths about Osama". The first myth was that Osama was a Frankenstein created by CIA. From Bergen's column:


"Instead, all U.S. aid to Afghanistan was funneled through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, the ISI. Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, the ISI officer who coordinated Pakistani efforts during the war, explained in “The Bear Trap,” his 1992 book: “No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujaheddin.”

Since 9/11, al-Qaeda insiders have responded in writing to assertions that they had some kind of relationship with the CIA. Bin Laden’s top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in his autobiographical “Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet,” wrote, “The truth that everyone should learn is that the United States did not give one penny in aid to the [Arab] mujaheddin.”

I just finished reading "Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer awarded. The radicalization of Osama and the jihadist ire against America has got very little to do with American foreign policy or Israel. Osama declaring war on America follows a tortuous route spun with several threads that culminated in a fateful ideological conclusion. I plan to write on the various in the days ahead. 

What does this killing do for Obama? Not much in real terms. The 2012 election is far away. The Obama team is very well aware that Bush Sr lost the election after winning the war. Bush Sr lost to a relatively unknown Bill Clinton. Unfortunately for Obama the economic situation mirrors that of Bush Sr. But so far the GOP has not produced a Bill Clinton. Obama may yet win 2012 but this killing, while giving a welcome and richly deserved boost, is not enough to guarantee a second term. Its, still, the 'economy stupid".

I shall part with just one more thought. Just like Yamamoto many of the intellectual (if you can call them that way) leaders of Al Qaeda were educated in American universities. They and the 19 hijackers were guests of a generous America. What is it with American education and anti-americanism????

Anna Hazare: Inspiring A Nation and Combating Naysayers.

I had been waiting to write this blog for a long time. I was waiting for the results of Tamil Nadu assembly elections. Now I am emboldened to flesh out a narrative given the verdict, that is nothing short of revolutionary, by the TN voter.

Like many Indians I had no idea of who Anna Hazare was until I saw Facebook postings and news items of a frail man with a Gandhi cap going on a fast unto death until corruption was rooted out of India. Corruption, with its many tentacles, is like an octopus stuck on the face of India. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can escape the venom of corruption that courses along the veins of India's body. Can we eat a fruit from a vendor without pondering if it was infected to hasten its fruition? Can we buy a bottle of water without pausing to think if it was tampered with? Passport office, RTO, Government secretariat, a traffic stop, a doctor's prescription, a medical laboratory reusing a slide used for examining stools, a college, a postman delivering a pensioners meager pension, banks, schools, scams running into numbers that the average man cannot even comprehend and much more.

Is any Indian naive enough to think that all would change with one fasting? Not in the least. Not the voters who have the maturity not to be lured by money and boot out the most corrupt regime in TN's history (surpassing Jaya's 91-96). Whatever Hazare achieved or did not he certainly achieved in unifying a wide array of critics across the political spectrum. Let's look at the critics first.

There is the well meaning intellectual who is horrified at an ultra-constitutional authority like the Jan Lokpal. Their concerns are very valid. Then comes the realist who reminds us that India is not corrupt for want of legal framework or legal avenues hence this is one more attempt that may very well scupper. So far I am with them. Another set of critics projected their own prejudices and pet causes as a template within which Hazare was judged as a hypocrite or liar or fundamentalist or plain buffoon.

Arundhathi Roy takes issue that Hazare is trying to root out corruption while not opposing the liberalization policies which in her mind are the fountain head of corruption. Opposing corruption while not opposing economic liberalization is a non-starter for her. Corruption did not start after 1991 when India launched privatization and unshackling the economy. Its government programs, especially social welfare programs, that are notoriously corrupt.

Gnani is angry that Irom Sharmila's fasting did not evoke the same level of public sympathy. In his eyes this is middle class hypocrisy. He upbraids the middle class, who constituted most of the sympathizers, as protesting against corruption only because it interferes in their 'comforts' or 'enjoying life'. Jeyamohan aptly criticized this as misplaced anger. Hazare touched an issue to which every Indian in every station of life could relate to. India is a subcontinent with diverse problems and each has its own intricacy. Divided by language and culture not many issues achieve a pan-Indian unity. As much as the northern India does not care for Tamil Nadu fisherman being slaughtered in the ocean the south India does not care much for India's brutal repression in parts of North India.

The media attention came in for lot of flak. Some commentators wryly noted that  in between World Cup and IPL this was a welcome TRP generating entertaining. After all the media, as enablers of corruption, was one of the key features of the despicable Radia tapes saga. Some alluded to extended jingoism coming out of a world cup victory. Even if we were to concede all that I am tempted to ask "so what?". Its not like the media was beaming jhatka-matkas to tick up viewership. Its not like people are clamoring for something dishonorable. Its not like a people rose up to say "release Barabbas".

Hazare's companions, the Bharat Matha depiction, praising Modi, Bhushan affairs were all fodder for criticism. Why hold Hazare responsible if Pappu Yadav offers support from within Tihar Jail? Hazare did not solicit Pappu Yadav. What is wrong with a Bharat Matha picture? Political correctness has run amuck when such objections are voiced. Swami Agnivesh is a respected social worker, just because he is a 'swami' its churlish to paint all of them as 'Hindutva'. Again none of them were agitating for anything ignoble or devious. They were all coming together to try to shake a nation to address a cancer that is eating into the body of the country. What is wrong with imagery of religiosity? Have we not seen the venality of so called atheists in Tamil Nadu? Atheism does not bestow any virtue as much religiosity by itself does not do so. EVR's pet project was erecting statues for himself while he was alive. Jayakanthan aptly observed that DK members are not atheists its just that their god is EVR.

Is undertaking a fast a blackmail? Is fasting to get one's nominees and oneself included in a panel 'Gandhian'? Yes, fasting is a sort of emotional blackmail if one chooses to call it as such. Was the fast as farcical as Jaya's fasting or MK's comical one? Not by a mile. More to the point Hazare was not putting his life on the line to gain electoral advantage or score brownie points. That Hazare wore a Gandhi cap and went on a fast prompted the label hungry media to call him a 'second Gandhi'. One could ignore that and move on.

Why did Hazare's fast yield results while others, most notably Potti Sriramulu's fast for Andhra, fail? Whether its the storming of Bastille or a guy setting himself aflame in Tunisia, revolutions and popular uprisings are characterized by an indefinable chemistry. Revolutions and momentous uprisings succeed or fail on a multiplicity of factors. When Gandhi announced his Dandi march nobody, not even Nehru and Patel, thought it was worthwhile. Irwin thought it was a joke. By the time Gandhi raised a fistful of salt he had shaken the foundations of an empire. Cable TV, social networking and above all the fact that every Indian has been singed by corruption personally made it possible for Hazare to succeed. The way many have asked "why did not the Indian government suppress this one like it habitually does?" kind of makes me wonder if they wished Hazare to silenced in some encounter. Again, very different dynamics operates here. Hazare is not a gun toting Maoist who is blowing  up schools and is plotting to overthrow the government. Also Manmohan Singh is not Indira Gandhi. Hazare is not JP either.

Jan Lokpal is ultra-constitutional. No doubt. Jaya has formed a 33 member ministry, the largest so far in Tamil Nadu. She could not go higher because the Supreme Court has restricted the number of ministers a cabinet can have. Why should the Supreme Court interfere in the liberty of a CM? What can we do in a country where ministries where used to lure party hoppers. Kalyan Singh's jumbo ministry in UP, I think he had 100 ministers, is a shameful episode. Much of what the election commission did is unfair. That before election a state's entire law enforcement machinery was deemed unreliable gave them no other option but to seek measures that only had a fig leaf constitutionality. People love this only because politicians have been crooks.

In a country where the constitution was written in such a ham handed manner where prosecuting a sitting CM or PM is next to impossibility such measures are inevitable. Paula Jones was a nobody yet she could prosecute the sitting President of the USA. To prosecute Jaya, a sitting CM, Swamy needed the permission of Channa Reddy the then Governor. Reddy and Jaya's parties were in alliance.The Founding Father's of USA agonized over balance of power and how checks and balances were incorporated. India while throwing off the yoke of colonialism retained the colonial mindset of treating the rulers as a superset subject to different rules from the common man. It was funny listening to Veeramani shedding tears for respecting the constitution. This from a man whose organization and its progenitors took pride in burning the constitution when it did not suit them.

When a government servant, a gazetted officer, applies for passport the mandatory police verification is waived off. Other hapless lesser mortals have to be verified. This is constitutionally sanctified class stratification. Government rules stipulate that a pensioner has to present himself/herself physically to a government officer periodically to certify eligibility for pensioner. Imagine you live in a village on a meager pension and you can imagine the dictatorial power that a clerk can have over you for certifying that you are alive.

The constitution, the government rules are all breeding grounds for corruption rendering a population that is intrinsically corrupt to the extent that many have lost completely all sense of ethics. An education internet user from Australia wrote in comment section "buying a black ticket is not unethical or corrupt. The buyer is paying the seller a premium for 'services' rendered such as not having to stand in queue". There is more than a shade of truth in decrying middle class hypocrisy. However political corruption stands out for many reasons and should be considered the head of this venomous snake.

The black ticket seller and buyer would run at the sight of a cop or at least try to be more surreptitious. Whereas its only a politician who would smile and wave when arrested. When CBI raided the premises of Kalaignar TV Cho drily remarked "if CBI recovers any incriminating document the management should be arrested for sheer incompetency given that the raid was very well expected and took more than a year to happen". Jaya's cases still grind through the lower courts, 15 years after they were filed.

Before any reader smugly asks "is there no corruption in USA or UK?" let me say "Of course there is but not of this scale where everyday life is a torture". Even when it happens justice is swift and impartial. My brother recently wrote, "In Britain, The Daily Telegraph newspaper exposed the scandal of MPs' expenses claims a year or so ago. Following that the worst three offenders were charged and the case came to court withing a year and all three were sent to prison for sums that would be considered loose change by Indian politicians. Sadly such a justice system is light years away in India.". I could cite many such cases in USA. Tom De Lay and Charlie Rangel are famous examples. Bill Clinton suffered mightily for his indiscretions.


Last year as soon as I came back from India I had to take my vehicle for annual inspection to our local DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) in New Jersey. I looked up the DMV website for what papers I needed to take. Just basic stuff. I checked on the webcam online to see how the queue was. I went to the DMV, waited in queue for 5 mins, I was early. When my turn came I handed over the registration, gave my keys and stepped out. Within 5 minutes the inspection was completed, it was free of charge, I got my car and whizzed home. I told my cousin that I should blog that and draw the contrast with India. My cousin said 'People will think you are crazy'. Only those who have been through an RTO office with its scum bag touts will appreciate what I just narrated. 


That a state's CM was openly bigamous provided good fodder for jokes and innuendo. This was not a mere infraction. Rajathi was well aware that in the event of anything happening to MK she and Kanimozhi would be left hanging dry hence she let loose an avarice that set tongues wagging. Not only MK several of his cabinet ministers like Veerapandi Arumugam were openly bigamous (manaivi + Thunaivi -- Tamil words that rhyme for wife+concubine). Every house repeated the story. If one started analysing the ethical implications of a culture that shrugged of this one would open a can of worms that needs a separate blog by itself. 


Veeramani and his acolytes organized protest meetings to "unmask" Hazare. Remember this was the same guy who a few months back organized meetings to celebrate A.Raja. Suba.Vi, a suave talking professor, decided to discredit Hazare in broad strokes. Suba.Vi alleged Hazare was against social justice (euphemism for quota based reservation). There is no proof of that. Even if it be so, its a disconnected issue. Just because I don't like quotas should I not protest against bribery? Veeramani and Subavi then proceeded to deconstruct Hazare as a paper tiger, as a front man for vested interests, as the mask of Hindutva etc etc. 


V.P.Singh is a favorite idol for DK/DMK. When V.P.Singh took on Rajiv Gandhi he too was called a paper tiger. V.P.Singh was then derided as propped up by pseudo intellectuals in Express. Just as many DMK worker wished that 2G spectrum will not be an issue so too back then many wished Bofors would not be an issue. After all what does the common man care for corruption, what does the common man understand of Bofors or Fairfax or 2G. The common man has answered resoundingly. 


Hazare's campaign coming weeks before the election did have a salutary effect on many complacent voters. For having tapped into the higher yearnings of the common man and for inspiring a nation to reach for higher goals we owe Hazare a big thanks. Lets criticize his ideas or remedies. If he too has feet of clay let him fall. But mere vilification only shows the nature of the vilifier it does not diminish Hazare.

Take Your Daughter's To Work

I want to take a break from the deluge of Osama related news. For a change I want to write about something that I had been thinking for a very long time. I'd say this blog is for my daughter and for every girl child out there.

The last Thursday of April is observed as "Take your children to work day" in USA. It originally started in 1993 as 'Take your daughter's to work day". Gloria Steinem, the feminist, was the force behind this. Today companies organize events and really go all out to make the day enjoyable for children who accompany their parents to work. It is  to inculcate a spirit concerning work chiefly for girls. Women as a working force received big impetus during two pivotal wars in USA. The first was the Civil War and then World War II.

The idea behind this blog germinated when I was reading historian, now Harvard University Dean, Drew Gilpin Faust's "Mothers of Invention: Women of the slave holding South". Faust is considered one of the most pre-eminent historians of the Civil War. She later became the first woman dean of Harvard in 2007 amidst a furore. In 2008 she published another bestseller, "This Republic of Suffering:Death and American Civil War", this was Pulitzer finalist. Dr Faust draws attention to how Civil War reshaped the mores of America. US lost more men in Civil War than in any other since. This completely changed gender relations. With men away at battlefield women, especially in the conservative atavist South, stepped out of their traditional boundaries. Thus began a new era for women.

While their men folk went out to war the women ran the households, that includes doing chores that a 'lady' never did before. By the close of the war when the slaves were freed the women were compelled to do menial chores too. During the war women would knit socks for the men at the war front but when they ran out of cotton they had organize purchase of cotton. Simple but a landmark event in 1860's. Deprived of men to work women stepped into the professional arena. Chiefly, teaching and nursing. When women were sought to become teachers the society confronted an entrenched discrimination. Until then most schools for girls did not teach math and science like the boys were taught in their schools. By 1860's scientific discoveries, all by men, were shaking up the world chiefly in Europe. This discrimination formed the background for a controversy which enabled Faust to become Dean of Harvard.

During World War II women were recruited to do jobs that were usually the dominion of men and "Rosie the Riveter" as the poster campaign was known was born. The iconic poster was

Drew Faust's mother tersely told her, "It's a man's world, sweetie, and the sooner you learn that better off you will be". Faust, a rebellious daughter, did not pay heed. She went to Bryn Mawr and later to University of Pennsylvania to do her PhD. Princeton did not accept women graduates till 1960's. As PhD student, having completed her requisite coursework that required her to be at the University newly-married Faust asked her professor if she could complete the thesis from remote so she could accompany her husband. The professor jeered, "if you want to be with your husband why are you doing  PhD". This to a woman who as 9 year old wrote to then President Eisenhower decrying racial segregation.

When Hillary Clinton campaigned in 2008 in New Hampshire men holding T-shirts that said "go and do laundry" appeared at her rallies. A WSJ opinion poll stated that, in 2008, USA more ready to elect an Afro-American man than a woman. If Hillary's make up was not sharp the press read meanings into it. If her jacket had less than conservative neckline it was noted. Her pant suits were made fun of. An MSNBC commentator referring to Chelsea's lobbying of delegates remarked "they are pimping her out". A remark he would not have made if the child campaigning was male child. Hillary Clinton remains the ONLY presidential candidate to have ever won a primary election.

Women, an IBM study says, lose approximately 7 years in their career due to motherhood. Only recently Clinton signed the FMLA giving 12 weeks paid leave for maternity. Women are traditionally paid less for doing the same job as that of a man.

Larry Summers, former Secretary of Treasury, highly respected economist, commented during a conference that we should study as to why women are not adequately represented in science and math. Summers was already facing some opposition at Harvard as Dean and this controversy simply blew the lid. He was caricatured as a dinosaur and booted out. Then Harvard set about searching for a dean. They finally hired, for the first time in their history, a woman as dean. Faust was dean at Radcliffe at that time.

The 2009 Nobel Prizes were a windfall for women scientists. Other than Madame Curie and her daughter I cant remember any other woman Nobel laureate in the sciences. 2009 changed that. Check out http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2009/10/2009-nobel-prizes-stellar-year-for.html . Women were introduced to the sciences only in 1860's, women enrollment in colleges, in Ivy League universities, did not become an accepted fact until the post-war period. Even today if we go to "Pottery Barn kids", an upscale shop for kids, we could see it divide in halves. The boys half, decorated in blue, would have toys of guns, cars, building kits etc. The girls half, in pink, would have kitchen sets, bedroom sets, make up kits etc.

But then things change. I am seeing change for the better in America as recent improvement suggest. Corporations now like to boast that they are rated high as work place of choice for mothers. Diversity, racial and gender wise, is a stated goal and companies do invest money to promote diversity. The wage gap is fast closing. Now, for the first time, women outnumber men in workforce. Woman CEO's are no longer eyebrow raising. A credit card company is now running an ad showing a young girl child as an entrepreneur.

When Faust was reminded about her being the first woman dean, she said "I am not the woman dean of Harvard, I am the dean of Harvard". Hillary conceding the nomination to Barack Obama referred to the votes she received as "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling". America redeemed itself with Obama's election. One more redemption is pending.

I started this blog referring to "Take your daughters to work day" only as I finish I realize that coming Sunday is "Mother's day". Three cheers to my mom and to my wife.

America's and Obama's Moment of Glory

Its Diwali time in America. Its the one metaphor that can capture the mood of the country. America has slain a beast that had brought unfathomable destruction to lives and the American way of life. 9/11 has a very personal meaning for me. Our family, my wife in particular who worked in Wall Street, endured unspeakable horror and anxiety. That was a day, as an Indian, I felt comforted that I was in America. I was sure that my wife would reach home safely. Volumes have been written about that day, Giuliani becoming America's mayor, the steely resolve of New Yorkers, civilians committing suicide to foil the plans of barbarians and so much more. I shall not rehash those now.

My favorite columnist Lance Morrow wrote a vitriolic column in Time laying out the "The case for rage and retribution' . "A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let's have rage. What is needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury, a ruthless indignation that doesn't leak away in a week or two" and Morrow asked Americans to "relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred". In prescient words he closes, "the worst times, as we see, separate the civilized of the world from the uncivilized. This is the moment of clarity. Let the civilized toughen up, and let the uncivilized take their chances in the game they started".

All these years many have mocked that America, with all its technical glitz and unparalleled power, could not bring to justice one individual. Not many realized that the America we see in movies is not the America in reality. This escapes even the well informed many times. Very coincidentally Time magazine's cover story for this week is Robert Mueller, chief of FBI. The story highlights that  prior to 9/11 FBI did not have agents devoted full time to gather intelligence. Today there are 580 in a new category devoted for intelligence. Now consider tracking a fugitive like bin-laden (in the domain of CIA) who does not use any modern amenities that can be tracked or hacked. Add to that the fact that he lives amidst his fellow tribesmen of undying loyalty. Now compound it with other bizarre facts like not having, almost nil, 'humints' (human intelligence agents), zero agents who even knew rudimentary Pashtun, the language of the fugitive. On 9/11 Bush realized the archaic nature of communications equipment aboard Air Force One. After the demise of communism America took a well deserved holiday and basked in the glory of being not just the super power but a hyper power where the second in line was so far behind that it did not matter. 

Americans are fast learners and learn from mistake so learn we did. America cultivated humints, prosecuted a just war, reshaped a country and then got distracted in an unwise war of choice. No wonder Osama was free for close  to 10 years. The details of his capture are now common place and any reader can find it himself/herself.

This is Barack Obama's moment of glory. While candidate Obama, like any politician, adopted lofty sentiments to shine himself up, President Obama has been a hard nosed realist. Much to the frustration of his voters time and again Obama has reiterated or continued many of Bush's policies that he once decried. What amazes me in the continuity in officialdom despite the fact that key positions are political appointments. When Bush took over he retained George Tenet, a Clinton appointee, as head of CIA. After 9/11 many thought Bush would fire George Tenet as a scapegoat. Bush did not. Obama retained Robert Mueller, a Bush appointee, as head of FBI. Obama literally angered his voters by retaining Robert Gates, another Bush nominee, as secretary of Defense. When Obama got elected but was still yet to assume power he started communicating with Robert Gates. Gates acknowledged that if he got calls from both Bush, his then current boss, and Obama, the president elect, he would give higher priority to Obama as  the incoming CEO. Today when Obama has won a richly deserved glory not one of his republican opponents demurred in praising him. Heck even Rush Limbaugh praised Obama.

While the groundwork for killing Osama began in Bush's tenure Obama deserves all credit for what is a very perilous mission. We are told that for 40 tense minutes anxiety, to put it mildly, hung in the air in the situation room at White House. Any misstep could have landed in a diplomatic hot water or could potentially have crippled Obama's re-election. Like Truman said, "the buck stops" at the President's table. Across the spectrum there was lavish praise for Obama. Krauthammer too. 

It was a week that started with political theater when Obama appeared almost a weakling stooping to disprove Trump's, a republican candidate to be, racist ridiculous charge that Obama was not born in USA thus constitutionally illegitimate. Then he went on a road trip to carry on his battle with republicans over deficit control. On Saturday, in the White House correspondent's dinner, he joked and laughed at Trump and at himself too. All this while he was contemplating an operation that could redefine his presidency. During the campaign when John McCain in a very stupid maneuver suspended campaigning Obama chided him saying 'a president should be able to multi task'. 

Hollywood has a despicable habit of caricaturing CIA as trigger happy thugs, bumbling idiots, insensitive boors, oil hungry organizers of coups and so on to everything except honorable, intelligent officers in the service of their country. Whether its dismantling A.Q.Khan's nuclear bazaar or capturing Al Qaeda operatives or this phenomenal feat CIA has time and again proved that its an organization that keeps America safe. 

Now there are those who rush to say, "we condemn Osama BUT..." and then launch into broadsides on American foreign policy plainly frustrate me. This is the real world there are no angels in the world. Starting with Noam Chomsky down to Tamil bloggers I've heard enough of this moral equivocation. Is American foreign policy completely benign? Of course not. Nor do I wish it to be. Has America made completely egregious condemnable crimes? Yes it has. There is My Lai. Then depending on how much one hates America one can have his or her pick from justifiable to the patently unfair listing of imagined crimes. Chile, the Shah of Iran, Grenada, Haiti, Philippines, VIETNAM then there is Iraq. 

Lets sample Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is considered the greatest genius on cognitive psychology and linguistics yet he is mostly known for his perpetual vitriolic and acerbic criticism of USA and Israel (he is a Jew). Every book store will have some screed of Chomsky's, invariably 100% the blurb on the jacket would declare "Chomsky, the man whom New York Times, calls 'arguably the greatest intellectual alive'". 

Chomsky draws a contrast between Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the US led war in his interview to Frontline, "This is quite different from the Soviet invasion. The Soviets were facing a major mercenary military force, backed by the United States and other powers. They also had additional constraints: they never bombed cities or destroyed them, and they never used what amount to weapons of mass destruction, like carpet bombs or daisy-cutters". A very specious distinction to put it mildly. Soviet Union destroyed civilians as policy unlike US. The civilian casualties in Soviet repression ranged from 1-2 million. If this is not intellectual dishonesty pray what else is?

Nothing angers me more than the tongue in cheek condemnations of 9/11 which are laced "yet did not US bring about the attacks due to its policy". The 19 hijackers came from well heeled families who were not even remotely touched US policies. If even one hijacker was a Palestinian or a Vietnamese or a Chilean or a Filippino or a Haitian I could remotely understand. Those 19 thugs had nothing but hatred fueled by religious fundamentalism.

Krauthammer in a searing column in Time eviscerates these foreign policy clingers, "Al-Qaeda always invents some excuse, some historical injury to justify its barbarism. Today Iraq, yesterday Palestine and, when all else fails, Andalusia, a bin Laden staple that refers to the Muslim loss of Spain to Ferdinand and Isabella (in 1492!). Various casus belli are served up as conditions change. Only the gullible and the appeasers buy them. Now we're told that the Iraq invasion has increased al-Qaeda recruiting". He adds damningly, "In fact, the 1990s was the decade of Muslim rescue: the U.S. intervened militarily, and decisively, to save three Muslim peoples--the Bosnians, the Kosovars and the Kuwaitis--from conquest and catastrophe. Yet it was precisely during that era of good feeling that al-Qaeda not only recruited for but also conceived, planned and set in motion the worst massacre of Americans in history. So much for the connection between American perfidy and anti-American terrorism." Only a conservative columnist can provide that crystal like clarity in brief passages. The entire column is a compelling read. 

"Oh was not Osama America's Frankenstein?". "American recruited fundamentalists to defeat communism unmindful of long term consequences". Both only carry a shade of truth but serves as convenient mental constructs to simplify a world thats labyrinthine. 

New York Times, in a manner that only the Times can do, published a nice section called "A survey of Books on Osama" has highlighted some good books on Osama that were reviwed in the Times. Choose especially Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer winning "The Looming Tower". Wright painstakingly lays out the winding roads that map out Osama's radicalization from Holywood watching anti-communist to jihadist anti-American. The crystallizing event for Osama is the stationing of US troops in Saudi after Gulf War-I. A war that US fought, mostly at the behest of Saudi and other Arab nations which were shivering to their boots lest Saddam run over them.

I am sick of hearing complaints about US unilateralism. Western Europe was resurrected after the ravages of war by unilateralism on the backs of American taxpayers. Hundreds of billions of dollars under the Marshall Plan stabilized western Europe. When a Libyan town faces genocide from its ruler only American cruise missiles and American tax payer money rush to its aid. Oil, Oil, Oil, Oil. Yes there is oil involved but did pontificating France put its money and weapons on the table. As a commentator observed US is NATO and NATO is US. Nicholas Kristof, resigned to pragmatic real world, wrote,"Critics argue that we are inconsistent, even hypocritical, in our military interventions. After all, we intervened promptly this time in a country with oil, while we have largely ignored Ivory Coast and Darfur — not to mention Yemen, Syria and Bahrain.We may as well plead guilty. We are inconsistent. There’s no doubt that we cherry-pick our humanitarian interventions.But just because we allowed Rwandans or Darfuris to be massacred, does it really follow that to be consistent we should allow Libyans to be massacred as well? Isn’t it better to inconsistently save some lives than to consistently save none?". Arguments anyone. Today in Iraq and Afghanistan women go to schools, vote in elections and even contest elections. In the entire Middle East today Iraq is the only country to hold a democratic election, even the ever waffling UN certified that the elections were fair and free. 

Vietnam is another albatross. Who went there first and instituted a regime of terror? Who terrorized Algeria? Which country treated North Africa as its foot stool? The lover's of liberty and egalitarianism the preening French. The conduct of France in African colonies would make American imperialism look like picnic. Vietnam is a blot on America. 

When Soviet Russia marched into Afghanistan Margaret Thatcher asked Indira Gandhi, as key member of NAM, to condemn it. Indira refused saying it was not aggression. This same India today rushes to condemn US. Non-Alignment. Bollocks.

When America gets attacked the custodians of human rights and flag bearers of anti-imperialism smugly lecture us about our evil ways. We never hear such lecturing when Russia is attacked as a direct consequence of its brutal suppression of Chechnya. I love to see Hindu N.Ram tie himself up in knots condemning US imperialism while being palanquin bearer for Russia's state sponsored terrorism. 

After 9/11 N.Ram worked himself up into a lather foaming at the mouth advising America to "go all out to bring its authors to stern justice - justice under the rule of law and through the law courts, by marshaling and laying out evidence to convince the world, through the collective agency of the United Nations, and through pro-active international diplomacy". The title of that editorial in the Frontline Issue dated Sep 29th 2001 is "Dangerous implications of America's unjust war". Remember it was referring to the Afghan War not the justifiably contentious war of choice that Iraq was. Not content with his pontificating he orchestrated a scolding of America by Noam Chomsky at Chennai. What could be better than having a white American, that too Jewish, to scold America.

On Jan 24th 2011 Chechen rebels attack Moscow airport and kill 35, here is N.Ram's editorial in HIndu dated 26th Jan 2011, "in recent years, the virus of terrorism has spread to other predominantly Muslim territories in Russia's south and mutated to patently jihadist insurgency, which has joined hands with al-Qaeda to create an ‘Islamic caliphate' across the Caucasus...Monday's atrocity should serve as a wake-up call for Russia to curb terrorism in the Northern Caucasus as it prepares to host the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Football Cup".

Russia should curb terrorism so that Winter Olympics could go on unimpeded. That when the casualty was 35. When America is attacked in the most stupendous manner killing 2600 any declaration of war is unjust we must supplicate the UN, marshal evidence, wait for a constable to serve summons to bin-laden. Today Barack Obama served the summons as bullets to bin-laden. A Fox news viewer aptly summed it, "I am happy to know that the last man Osama saw before dying was an American".

Incidentally NYT asked Chomsky as to whether he ever thought of renouncing his American citizenship given how much he hates America. Chomsky replied, airily with no hint of sounding hypocritical, "America is the greatest country on earth". 

As the news broke out around 10:30 PM EST crowds gathered in front of White House and Ground Zero in NYC. Today as I was speaking to my father the metaphor of Diwali struck me as appropriate

I found the picture above (From NYT) very interesting. Its a photo of the scene in the situation room at the White House. The President of USA is sitting on the side while some military person is sitting at the head of the table and conducting the operation. Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Outliers" talks about America has one of the lowest "power distance" equations where people are more comfortable approaching or challenging a superior. This is important when results matter.

This killing does not mean that the hydra headed terrorism is finished. Far from it. This is a pivotal turning point. A powerful symbolism but only a symbolism. It is elementary knowledge that Al Qaeda has many local variants across the globe and they are still very much alive or awaiting to come alive. Obama reiterated that. Every sensible columnist has cautioned on triumphalism. 

The picture below says it all. I pass through this place every week. 

A passerby at Ground Zero in NYC

Near White House.

What makes a speech great?

I am one of the minority in US who does not think great of Obama's oratory. Obama puts me to sleep. I've attempted to hear his speeches many times and I'd be snoring after 5 minutes. Before people jump at me saying "republican" let state unambiguously that I love to listen to Bill Clinton. If Bill Clinton and Barack Obama spoke about health care reform in 2 rooms I'd go to Bill Clinton's room. While I was mulling on this topic I wondered about how some speeches get to be called "great speeches". As an avid one-time debater and orator I've collected such CD's and read quite a few of the so called "great speeches".

Today every school boy in US knows about Lincoln's famous Gettysburg speech, "a government for the people by the people". A historian, Gary Wills, wrote a Pulitzer awarded book, just dissecting that speech alone. But in its day the speech was not reported prominently. The speech received mixed reception in the press, in fact there are several versions of the speech, Lincoln spoke for just 2 minutes. With the passage of time and with the perspective that time enable us to appreciate of events today the speech is one of the most celebrated. Any speech attains greatness primarily from the significance of the historical background in which it is delivered, secondly from the words chosen in that order. Lincoln's choice of words rose to the occasion and remains great.

Sometimes only a fragment of a speech will attain the status of a classic and would be oft quoted. When US was literally and metaphorically shell shocked after Pearl Harbor FDR gave his famous, "a date that will live in infamy" speech. Only those words remain etched in public memory because they perfectly captured the sentiment of a nation. Amongst the nearly hundred inaugural speeches only one American President's inauguration speech is noted and quoted (rather mis-attributed), "ask not what your country has done for you, ask what you have done for your country". JFK, rather his celebrated speech writer Ted Sorensen, had plagiarized the words of Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran and used the words out of context. Khalil Gibran addressed the words to corrupt Lebanese politicians thus "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert." Its a citizen asking a politician if he had done anything for the country. JFK, a politician, inverted it to ask citizens. Even Obama's ardent admirers felt let down with his inaugural address because in their mind he was inheriting JFK's mantle of orator-politician. 


Winston Churchill was the uber-historian-biographer-orator-politician. It was said that he took the English language to war against Hitler. Amongst his many speeches a couple stand out for some key passages that remain unrivaled in the history of public speaking. The first is his speech delivered to the House of Commons when he took over the reins from Neville Chamberlain delivering the immortal lines, "I've nothing to offer but blood and toil, tears and sweat". Hear him say the word "sweat" (near the minute marker 3:29), that's the bull dog warrior for you.

He is addressing a nation that was in dread. He does not promise anything easy, he lays it out clean and honest. He does not even promise a quick victory. He stated bluntly, "we have before us many, many, many long months of struggle". Faced with an enemy like Hitler Churchill could easily label him evil and say unequivocally, "you ask what is our policy, it is to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the long and lamentable catalogue of human crimes". Note that Hitler's tyrannies for which he will be loathed by the ages were yet to begin and whatever he had done against Jews in Germany was yet not very well known to the outside world. I've often wondered why did Churchill choose to say "never surpassed" instead of just "unsurpassed". If we read the line again then the choice becomes clear, unlike saying 'tyranny unsurpassed' the words 'tyranny never surpassed' has a staccato stabbing effect. He then declares the goal very clearly, 'victory, victory at all costs'. The speech nevertheless finishes with hope, 'come, then let us go forward'. The speech itself could be analyzed for mastery of the art of rhetoric. 


During the course of the war Churchill would deliver many memorable speeches with lines that are now committed to memory by every student of history and literature. The last famous speech he gave was in US. After the war cold war had erupted and Churchill saw it with a clarity that was not apparent to many at that time. At Westminster College, Fulton he delivered what is now referred to as the Iron Curtain speech, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent" . This speech is famous for the clarity of vision that was stated plainly without befuddling the issue. There is no Obama type "on the one hand and on the other hand" hand wringing. 


While I exult in Churchill's rhetoric I wonder too how come we never speak of Adolf Hitler's speeches. Hitler was known to be a great orator too. Hitler had charisma and a magnetism that did make him a successful politician. Yet by the nature of the evil he unleashed and that he was defeated perhaps has made pass by his oratorical skills. After all history is written by the victors.


All of the above pale into insignificance before Martin Luther King Jr's most famous "I've a dream" speech. (Aug 28th 1963)

A member of the oppressed class came to the capital of a country and flung rhetoric unmatched and shamed a nation's conscience. The speech was not extempore, parts of it had been delivered in earlier speeches. The language, the delivery, the structure and above all the historical significance, even its own day, all came together to create the greatest speech ever delivered in human history. 


Another of MLK's speech is marked out for reasons of sentimentality. The night before he was assassinated in Memphis, TN he delivered a speech that was prophetic. He delivered what is now called, 'I've been to the mountain top speech' . MLK, the preacher, alluded to how Moses died before entering the Promised Land. Moses could only glimpse it from a mountain top before the Lord took him. MLK in words that continue to haunt, said "Like everybody I like to live a long life, longevity has its place but I am not concerned about that now, I just want to do God's will. I don't know what will happen tomorrow,....I've seen the Promised Land, I dont know if I will get there with you but I want you to know that we as a people will get there". Next day MLK, aged 39, was assassinated. In 2009 Barack Obama paid respect to MLK saying that today "the dream of a King comes true". This speech is considered great because of what happened later thus rendering it a dreadfully prophetic speech.

In the vein of rhetoric matching a historical occasion, as an Indian-American, its impossible for me to not mention Jawaharlal Nehru's speech when India was born. Nehru, with his opening lines "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny" soared effortlessly on scales of polished rhetoric and sentiment.

The lines "we redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure but substantially" alludes to the painful partition that was underway. Nehru is supposed to have told Padmaja Naidu "I was reminded of the images of our beloved Lahore going up in flames". Capturing the essence of the moment were the words, "a nation so long suppressed finds utterance". The speech was supposed to be extempore. Amongst all the speeches cited this is possibly the only extemporaneous speech. The second occasion when Nehru found the words to address the nation at a moment of exceeding tragedy was when he had to announce the death of his beloved Bapu.

Just as MLK's last speech is appreciated because a tragic event made it prophetic and hence lent a certain greatness likewise is Ronald Reagan's most memorable speech exhorting Gorbachev to "tear down this wall". The speech, as the wiki link quotes a Time magazine report says, was little noted in its own day. Yet, today when Communism is buried and the Berlin wall remains as dismantled pieces in museums across the world (and in people's homes too, my aunt who lived in Germany at that time has a piece).

Reagan was famous, or notorious depending on the readers political leaning, for labeling Soviet Russia as "Evil Empire". That moral clarity is brought out in this speech that he delivered in front of the Berlin wall. Reagan, in short simple lines, drew a contrast between the prosperity of the west and decrepit state of all communist states. Prisons and houses both have walls but with a key difference. The walls of a prison are there to prevent people from leaving of their own free will. Communist Russia erected such walls. Jamming radio waves, disallowing foreign broadcasts, severly restricting travels of its citizens and finally a wall to keep them inside. A wall complete with, as Reagan points out, "dog runs, barbed wires".  Suddenly he gets blunt and says in words that are simple yet forceful, "Mr Gorbachev, 'tear down this wall'". Listening to an American President challenge an oppressive regime with moral clarity and with words that are unambiguous the German crowd, waving American flags, erupts into an applause.

Amidst all these speakers where does Obama fit? Nowhere. His most famous speech, possibly the only one he will be remembered for, is the one he delivered in John Kerry's 2004 Democratic Convention. Obama, a partisan ideologue, waxed eloquently about how "there is no red America or a blue America, there is only the United States Of America". His body language and gestures betray a nervous speaker, which he was. The words are trite, given that it was said to a partisan crowd that was there only to applaud he naturally was rewarded with a raucous applause. The one other speech that his admirers might point to is his speech on "Race" that he delivered to defuse the Jeremiah Wright crisis that almost derailed his run for the presidency. I found it to be a pabulum yet his palanquin bearers ranging from Cornel West to the common voter thought it to be scholarly. Krauthammer, as always, differed.

The success of Obama the orator was chiefly possible ONLY because Bush had been President. Barack Obama owes his Presidency, Nobel Prize and his fame as intellectual etc only because there was George W Bush as president for 8 years. As Obama's ratings plummeted, especially during the health care reform, his supporters wondered where was Obama the candidate who could sway thousands. He was, in their view, talking more like a professor, endlessly prevaricating, endlessly hand wringing. It is a frustration that only seems to grow by the day.

 Historical background, latter day events, choice of words, clarity of vision, the indefinable chemistry that a speaker shares with the audience all go into making a speech as a great one for the times to come. Obama fatally falters in articulating a vision even when a historical revolution in Egypt comes across he delivers a speech that was shamefully inarticulate. Words are not a problem for Obama, articulating a vision is.

Gandhi and Lincoln: A Life of Evolving Ideas.

Joseph Lelyveld's, just released, "Great Soul:Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India" created a furore in India. Gujarat government immediately banned it before anyone had read it. The furore centered around two issues. First, and the most inflaming, was Lelyveld's imputation that Gandhi might have had bi-sexual impulses. Second was Lelyveld delving deep into how Gandhi, the one who became Mahatma, was forged in South Africa. A recent sad trend in India is for Dalit leaders and Dalit opinion makers to trash Gandhi as racist while uncritically praising Ambedkar. Everyone can choose whom they want to idolize but when we choose to trash someone we need some justification. Meena Kandasamy, a Dalit activist, ruffled a few feathers by quoting Gandhi from his days in South Africa, about blacks. A post office used to have two entrances, one for whites and another for the rest. Gandhi had written that "Kaffirs" (referring to blacks) should not be clubbed with Indians, the latter being superior to blacks. The quotes supplied by Meena Kandasamy were accurate. The online edition of Gandhi's "Collected Works" has them verbatim. [“Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized - the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals.” ~ CWMG, Vol. VIII, pp. 135-136] So shall we label Gandhi as 'racist'?

The 2011 Pulitzer for the best book on an American historical subject went to Eric Foner's "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and Slavery". Just as Indian kids learn about how Gandhi was a Mahatma, American kids learn how Lincoln ended slavery, though a tad little less hagiographic.  Lincoln, as anyone with a little deeper knowledge of history would know, had very jaded opinions on blacks. While he was strongly anti-slavery he did not believe that all men were 'created equal' as Jefferson, the slave owner, wrote in "Declaration of Independence". Foner, writes, "while his racial views changed during the Civil War, he never became a principled egalitarian.."

A little perspective helps us to appreciate Gandhi better. The institution of slavery remains America's 'original sin'. George Washington who decreed that his slaves are to be free men after his wife's death in his lifetime would go to great lengths to recapture a slave who had escaped. Thomas Jefferson famously sired an illegitimate child with a slave while declaring that all men are created equal. It would be childish to  decry all of them as arrogant hypocrites. Far from it they were struggling between what they knew was right versus what was possible when a country was being willed into becoming. Abraham Lincoln became president fully aware of the slavery issue and knew full well that as President he would have to address either wholly or in part. In a sort of historical passing of baton Lincoln was killed 4 years before Gandhi was born in 1869. Unlike Lincoln Gandhi was born into a society that was steeped into racism for centuries and lacked an intellectual framework that challenged such evil. Anti-Slavery abolitionism, intellectual opposition to slavery were rigorous in America for a long time, in fact ever since its birth. Slavery in America did not gain the religious sanction, or at least to the level that casteism enjoyed in India. Gandhi's stay in London was not a period of intellectual fermentation. In fact he went to great lengths to keep his famous promises to his mother. It is this man who came to South Africa.

Eric Foner admirably cautions, "the problem is that we tend too often to read Lincoln's growth backward, as an unproblematic trajectory toward a predetermined end. This enables scholars t ignore or downplay aspects of Lincoln's beliefs with which they are uncomfortable- his long association with the idea of colonization, for example- while fastening on that which is most admirable at each stage of his career, especially his deep hatred of slavery". Foner then invites the reader to trace lIncoln's "growth, as it were, forward, as it unfolded, with sideways and even backward steps along the way".

Thanks to the movie Gandhi is even more sanitized and fossilized. Most Indians who have never read a full length biography of Gandhi are shocked and swayed when Meena and others fling accusation from selections that lend heft to their personal agendas. The same Gandhi who wanted separate doors for Indians was also one who would later slap his wife for not cleaning the toilets of a low caste ashram inmate. This was the same Gandhi who would choose to stay in the huts of outcaste when he toured. He would eat their food.

Lelyveld has done a signal service to Gandhi in fleshing out the evolution of Gandhi. Every schoolboy in India knows how Gandhi was thrown out of a train because he was brown skinned. Lelyveld adds a little known fact. Gandhi wrote about that incident to the train company and got a free ticket to travel first class again, which he did complete. In a long life like that of Gandhi's there are always new events that can be teased to throw some new light. Gandhi, Churchill, Lincoln, Napoleon, Einstein are all a biographer's delight.

Gandhi lived through a very tumultuous era. He judged appropriately within his time. Malcolm X is a firebrand Afro-American leader who was famous for his violent speeches that, unlike Martin Luther King Jr, decried any pacifist approach towards white America. In Malcolm's view both races could never co-exist. Till last month the most famous biography of Malcolm X was the one by Alex Haley. Manning Marable's recently published biography had a shocker. Malcolm X had met with the violence prone white racist group KKK (Ku Klux Khan) to negotiate separate living spaces. Its akin to a Jewish leader negotiating with the Nazis. Marable goes on to write that after Malcolm X parted ways with "Nation of Islam" his views on racial reconciliation started to mellow and mirror King's approach. Lives like that of Gandhi, Malcolm X, Abraham Lincoln etc were all lived amidst very turbulent times, they were involved in redrawing centuries old social boundaries. Their lives caused tectonic shifts and they themselves had to first undergo such shifts within themselves.

It is one thing to call Hitler an anti-semite but to call Gandhi anti-Dalit only portrays an amateurish attitude towards a very complex life. Anyone is free to disagree with his convoluted, at time nonsensical too, logic of preserving components of Hindu religious structure but to attribute malicious intentions is sheer injustice. Let us learn to appreciate lives in their rich spectrum. Very rarely in life do we come across sheer evil like we saw in Hitler or Stalin or Mao. Even rarer, or shall we say never, is to see complete unsullied good.

A short note on Lelyveld's biography. Leyveld is no cheap sensationalist. He is a Pulitzer awarded writer who has worked in South Africa for decades. When evidence emerged that Jefferson had a child through a slave within hours that information was incorprated in the guided official tours at his residence in Monticello. Annette Gordon-Reed who wrote a biography of that episode was awarded a Pulitzer and to cap it was also selected as a "MacArthur Genius". Jeyamohan, a noted contemporary writer in Tamil, chides America for indulging in such tabloidism and slyly imputes a Christian conspiracy behind such maligning of a historical figure loved by Hindus. He forgets that America is the country where "The Last Temptation of Christ" was screened. Also see my earlier blog on free expression in USA http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2011/03/protecting-speech-we-do-not-like.html . 

The Book I love Most

I’d name “The Story of Philosophy” by Will Durant as the book that best mirrors my soul. “Story” pips the post against “Atlas Shrugged”. 

 

First published in 1926, the book has never been out of print for 85 years. Durant’s magnum opus, “The Story of Civilization” spanning 11 volumes written over 3 decades is out of print. “Story of Philosophy” is still the most loved introductory book on Western Philosophy possibly outselling the more scholarly “A Brief History of Western Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell.

 

Durant had completed his doctoral thesis in 1917 and was teaching at Columbia University when he started writing on western philosophers for the “Little Blue Book Series”.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Blue_Books  These books were intended for the working class and were extremely popular. Simon and Schuster evinced an interest to collect these lectures into a book and thus was born “Story of Philosophy”. Dr Durant had divided the book into 11 chapters with 9 chapters focusing on individual philosophers starting with Plato, running through Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Nietzsche, and Kant etc to Bergson with roughly 50 pages devoted to each. The last two chapters dealt with “Contemporary European Philosophers” and “contemporary American Philosophers”.

 

In his preface to the second edition published in 1933, Durant, very disarmingly, notes “many of the criticisms were disagreeably just. The Story of philosophy, was and is, shot with defects”. That, was from an author whose book was successful and is being re-published in a revised edition. Then he charmingly apologizes for excluding scholastic philosophy, “forgivable only in one who had suffered much from it in college and seminary and resented it thereafter as rather a disguised theology than an honest philosophy”. Throughout the book Durant’s sense of humor and candor adds levity to an otherwise tough subject. He regrets having omitted Chinese and Indian philosophy and says he atoned for it in the first volume of his “Story of Civilization”.

 

Page after page after page is filled with quotes he has gleaned from prodigious reading to illustrate the subject at hand. He draws on Browning, Plato, Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky in the first page to outline the uses of philosophy. “We are like Mitya in the Brothers Karamazov – ‘one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions’”. The quintessential western attitude of self-deprecatory humor is evident when he quotes Cicero, “there is nothing so absurd but that it may be found in the books of the philosophers”. When he is not quoting others the accumulated wisdom of his readings is distilled into shining prose, he differentiates Science and philosophy, “every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement”.

 

Durant rivals a screenplay writer in introducing the philosophers. Racing through how geography of Greece contributed to its politics and culture he culminates with Critias being killed on a battlefield, “Now Critias was a pupil of Socrates and an uncle of Plato”. With that line he then open the scene for Socrates. His transition from the chapter on Aristotle to Francis Bacon is sheer mastery of drama. Within one year Alexander, Demosthenes and Aristotle had died, Durant writes the closing passage of Aristotle, “within twelve months Greece had lost her greatest ruler, her greatest orator and her  greatest philosopher…For a thousand years darkness brooded over the face of Europe. All the world awaited the resurrection of philosophy”. One could imagine the drums roll with the curtain falling in between two acts. Then comes Francis Bacon.

 

Will Durant wanted to reshape how history was written by historians. He called his approach “integral history”. He would not write about historical events in isolation but present them as ‘integral’ to a larger picture. In just a paragraph Durant gives a vivid portrayal of England in the time of Bacon. “Her literature blossomed into Spenser’s poetry and Sidney’s prose; her stage throbbed with the dramas of Shakespeare and Marlowe and Ben Johnson and a hundred vigorous pens. No man could fail to flourish in such a time and country, if there was seed in him at all”. The very first paragraph on Schopenhauer presents in highly stylized prose in most succinct nature the cultural setting from Schopenhauer sprang forth.

 

The biographical sketches are brief and filled with wit. The chapter on Voltaire abounds in sharp wit and many a tongue-in-the-cheek remarks. The romance of Voltaire and Mme Du Chatelet is famous. Chatelet was married, no surprises to a marquise. With her husband’s knowledge, we are talking about the French here, she took Voltaire as her lover,  “the morals of the day permitted a lady to add a lover to her ménage, if it were done with a decent respect for the hypocrisies of mankind; and when she chose not merely a lover but a genius, all the world forgave her”. Why was Schopenhauer so pessimistic? Our teacher turns a psychologist here. Schopenhauer’s mother, a famous author herself, was domineering and considered her son a competitor. “A man who has not known a mother’s love-and worse, has known a mother’s hatred-has no cause to be infatuated with the world”.

 

The care to introduce the philosophers is matched and sometimes exceeded by how Durant gently leads us into the complex ideas that those philosophers spent a lifetime to craft and expound. Baruch Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ is considered to be the most abstruse philosophical text alongside Immanuel Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”. Durant cautions us, “Spinoza is not to be read, he is to be studied; you must approach him as you would approach Euclid”. The teacher in Durant shines when he, a tad patronizingly but wonderfully, suggests “Read the book not all at once, but in small portions at many sittings. And having finished it, consider that you have but begun to understand it. Read then some commentary, like Pollock’s ‘Spinoza’ or Martneau’s ‘Study of Spinoza’; or better, both. Finally read the ‘Ethics’ again; it will be a new book to you. When you have finished it a second time you will remain a lover of philosophy”.

 

Immanuel Kant has the reputation of being the most obtuse philosopher. How could the hoi-polloi approach a book that Kant’s contemporary returned half read saying he feared insanity if he completed it? Durant the teacher becomes a cartographer. “Let us start at various points on the circumference of the subject, and then grope our way towards that subtle centre where the most difficult of all philosophies has its secret and treasure”. Then he plots the “roads to Kant” via Voltaire, Locke and finally Rousseau. Each section, less than a page, is like a master composer leading the listener through scales of ascending music which then bursts into a full symphony.

 

What about criticism? There is ample measure of it. Each philosopher is succinctly criticized by Durant the philosopher. He does not merely echo some opponent’s criticism but wears the robe of a judge himself. Francis Bacon is considered the father of modern science, especially experimental science. The Royal Society, in England, has a bust of Bacon as its patron saint. Bacon is chided that “while laying down the law of science, failed to keep abreast of the science of his time. He rejected Copernicus and ignored Kepler and Tycho Brahe”. Not content with that chiding Bacon gets scolded too, “In truth, he loved discourse better than research”. His work was “full of repetitions, contradictions, aspirations, and introductions”. Having criticized him sharply Durant then applies a balm, “he (Bacon) broke down under the weight of the tasks he laid upon himself; he failed forgivably because he undertook so much”.

 

Only death, the finale, remains. Francis Bacon contracts illness experimenting with a fowl to find how flesh can be preserved from putrefaction by being covered with snow. Bacon’s words in his will are cited “I bequeath my soul to God…My body to be buried obscurely. My name to the next ages and to foreign nations”, Durant the closes with, “The ages and nations have accepted him”. Nietzsche, insane in the twilight days of his life, hearing a talk of books muttered, Durant says, his face lit up, “Ah! I too have written some good books”. The concluding line is profound, “He died in 1900. Seldom has a man paid so great a price for genius”. Schopenhauer is concluded with the lines, “in an age when all the great seemed dead he preached once more the ennobling worship of heroes. And with all his faults he succeeded in adding another name to theirs”.

 

What impressed me deeply was Will Durant’s prodigious effort in reading not just the principal texts but biographies and criticisms. Out of his accumulated reading he weaves a tapestry that is rich and can be done only by a person who did not merely read but digested and subsumed all that he read in his bones and blood. Without that kind of assimilation the style of writing that glides from persona to another, from one idea to another, from one era to another is not possible. To that he adds a typical Western mind that does not stand in mute wonder in confronting hallowed names and much revered ideas. Foibles, fallacies and weaknesses of person and theory are not swept under a rug. Nor do we find tabloid sensationalism. Especially when dealing with Bacon’s personal weaknesses (he was corrupt and imprisoned) or Voltaire’s many foibles Durant is very conscious of their cultural milieu and is gentle. Durant does not shy away from playing favorites or discarding that which he considers inferior. He chooses Benjamin Jowett’s translation of Plato as the best to read amongst many. He picks his favorites amongst Bacon’s essays.

 

Francis Bacon in his essay on “Books” says there are books to read, skimmed and a few to be “digested”. “The Story of Philosophy” fits that last rare category of books to be digested.