Sirocco

I'm sick of the 'ogues'. You know, the demagogues and the pedagogues (which is just a horrible-sounding word for teacher actually) and the ideologues - oh brother the ideologues! Those guys really, really get my goat. Take this guy for instance: Biju Mathew He's written this long 'analysis' of the situation in Bombay, and with the title itself "As the Fires Die: The Terror of the Aftermath", you know you're in for a long read. And it doesn't disappoint you at all. This left-winger unleashes all the usual boogies - the facts are just emerging, however the story so far is all conjecture. He then goes on to insinuate that the Indian Government is lying about Pakistani involvement - or at least that he believes they're lying. And so on and so forth, with standard 'intellectual' bilge straight out of the red book in his head about the modern liberal state being a hollow shell filled with neo-conservative err... fillers. Of course, the li

In my earlier note, I had pointed out that one of the duties of a citizen is to pledge allegiance to the state. I meant specifically to the Nation-State, whose identity may be represented by a Constitution and a legitimate form of government. A rule-of-thumb definition of a nation-state would be a certain form of state that derives its legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and this distinguishes the nation state from the other types of state, which historically preceded it. India is - or should aim to be - a nation-state in this sense. The government of our Republic is the persona of our geopolitical identity, and the current borders of our nation (including some of our neighbours) reflect our cultural, & ethnic boundaries. Some may claim that India as a

Thank you India. What a groundswell of support, of compassion, of unity. A giant has stirred in his sleep. Not an easy thing to achieve no doubt - but not enough, nowhere near enough. Kumbhkaran has merely heard the first blast of the first trumpet of those who wish to awake him, and he doesn't have the luxury of waiting for more. The lumpen Indian middle-class polity has a window - albeit a small one - to ensure that the 3 P's get the message: Thus far, and no further. The 3 P's are Pakistan, Politicians, and Preachers. Yes, unfortunately the holy ones do deserve inclusion in the Axis of Weasel. Mao may have believed that power flows from the barrel of a gun, but no one picks up a gun without a demagogue telling him he has to for religion/race/country/what ever. Silence the demagogues and the intellectuals by removing causes for discontent, and well, most people go back to doing what they really want to do - loving, working, living happily ever after. I believe that the f