Hosni has left the building!

The tweets are in. Egypt is free. Free from what? An oppressive dictatorship that lasted 30 years and took away people's rights and shit. Oh nice. Good for them. Yeah, man, like, it's a wind of change, man. You know, Tunisia, now Egypt. The people have spoken, man. They got rid of the dictators. The people did, yeah.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Let's stop one second and see what happened today. Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt since the assassination of Anwar Sadat, resigned and handed over power to the military, before leaving Cairo for the seaside resort of Sharm-al-Sheikh. Remember Sharm-al-Sheikh? Never mind. A certain King did something similar in 1952, handing over power to Gamal Nasser, and it was called a coup.

Coup d'etat: (n) the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a government, usually by a small government’s surrender; or the acquiescence of the populace and the non-participant military forces.

Every one in charge of Egypt since that time has been a military leader. Mubarak is a former Air Marshall. The military showed no signs of siding with the people, as happened in Tunisia. Yes, the President still had to have Parliament ratify his bills, and any amendments to the Constitution. Sure, the Establishment rigged the legislative elections well enough to stop that being an issue. The Military now has control over both the legislature and the executive. The head's gone, but the body's thriving.

Mubarak's heir apparent is, of course, is a long trusted CIA man, the man who a Wikileaks cable referred to as "Mubarak's Consigliere." Omar Suleiman is not Gamal Mubarak, Hosni's dear son and heir presumptive thus far. But he's a man the US trusts, as does the military. He was the chief of Egyptian intelligence who helped the US not torture hundreds of terror suspects. He's been cast in the role of peacemaker, and a quasi-democratic leader who will usher in a new era in Egyptian politics. He is their kind of guy.

In 1911, Louis Kuehnle, the Commodore, was in charge of the Republican Party machine in Atlantic City. Then Woodrow Wilson came along, this Virginian who had become Governor of New Jersey and was looking to make a name for himself. He promised to dismantle the party machine and bring proper democracy and law and order to the vice city. He exposed the numerous abuses of the Commodore and his allies. The people were infuriated. That didn't bring down the machine. Deals were made. Kuehnle went to jail for election fraud, but kept getting what Indians would call a hafta until his death. Enoch L. Johnson - played by the excellent Steve Buscemi in the equally excellent Boardwalk Empire - took over and made sure the machine survived, well oiled as it was by Prohibition. Wilson used his popularity to become President. The head was cut off, but the body flourished. Maybe, just maybe, the men in charge decided that Mubarak had become toxic and had to be replaced by a more efficient dictator, so that the Establishment could thrive.

So, I'm sorry I'm not really excited about today's events. I'm sorry I'm not tweeting or buzzing my exuberance. A lot of people believe they changed the world today. Bully for them. I'm not a cynic, really, but I feel it hard to believe that real change took place today.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong. That the military - out of the goodness of its heart - gives the people fair elections and a popular leader emerges, who will safeguard the rights of the Egyptian people and dismantle corruption and part the Red Sea on weekends. Or that the people don't stand for this travesty and manage to pull off a true revolution. It's possible, but I won't be holding my breath.

P.S. It may seem from the tone that I am disparaging of the role the people played, in their continuous protests. On the contrary, I believe that without them, even this change wouldn't have been possible, and Hosniji would have been in charge till kingdom come. What I'm trying to say is that they shouldn't take this as a victory, but as an essential step towards true representative government. The protests shouldn't stop until that is achieved. I'm just skeptical that it will.

Cop Out

Barack Obama should not be allowed to go to Copenhagen. The last time he went there, Chicago came last in the voting for hosting the 2016 Olympics, even though it was one of the two favourites. This time, he was responsible for the failure of a critical summit that held the future of human life in the balance.

Is it because the rest of the world doesn't like him a lot? No, he's one of the most popular US Presidents of all time. And it's not because he goes around invading countries whenever he's bored. I think it's mostly because his mantra of inspiring hope, with dollops of human interest stories, which works wonders in the US, seems to fade with the lack of substance in his global efforts. Not at a time when the world is facing down the barrel of the disastrous consequences of global warming.

In all fairness, Obama came to the doomed conference with his hands tied. His energy bill hasn't been passed by the Senate, which means that he doesn't know to what extent he can commit to curbing emissions. Less than a year before a congressional elections the Democrats are expected to fare badly in, he was in no position to be make major concessions. The weak House version of the bill promises a 17% reduction in emissions by 2020 on 2005 levels, which is a paltry 4% down from 1990 levels. Obama's solution, a cynical ploy at making Copenhagen a non-binding feel good "first step", didn't go down too well, and he ended up alienating not just the rest of the world, but also votes on the left in his own country.

So what happens now? Obama will be hoping to extract some mileage from the imminent passage of his healthcare bill to maybe take a stand on climate change. But it seems unlikely in a mid-term year. Also, the intertwined nature of the economies of the US and China, the two greatest emittors of greenhouse gases in the world, makes it in neither's interest for the other to be limited by forced emission cuts. China is the US' factory and bank, while the US is China's primary market, which means that it's the two of them against the world. India is unlikely to do anything unless the Chinese do more. And the rest of the world is pissed off at the US, China, Brazil, India and South Africa for privately reaching a deal without them, compromising the very identity of the conference.

Copenhagen started out as a summit that would save the world. Somehow, it degenerated into a free for all, and finally ended as a face-saving first step at combatting climate change. Of course, this ignores the previous steps taken in 1992 in Kyoto, a good treaty that has been implicitly been allowed to die. The summit's sent a message that the people who are in a position to do something about climate change, and are primarily responsible for global warming in the first place, are unwilling to do anything about it.

The world is doomed, and our leaders are taking up fiddling. Time to get our affairs in order.

The Red Menace

I love the name 'Operation Green Hunt'. It says all the right things, gets the urban news-watching population tingling, and gives the impression that the government is finally doing something about the Red vermin terrorising the hapless people in villages centuries behind us. Add to that a suitably gruesome murder of a cop, and heartless media coverage of his son's grief, and you have a nation fully behind your operation. Get the news channels to set appropriately worded polls that give 90-10 splits in your favour, and you can undermine the efforts of the last signs of dissent. Mr. Chidambaram is a very smart man.

Naxalism in India is finally making news again for reasons other than the latest death toll. Talking heads appear again on TV, competing with each other to break decibel levels. Although our apathetic generation cares more about the Champions League T20, the rest of the nation is sufficiently riled to generate enough TRPs. Facing the brunt of the media's - and therefore, the people's - anger are not the Naxalites themselves, but human rights activists, who - horror of horrors - don't support a state offensive against its own people. They are accused of a lack of patriotism, callousness and sympathy for the Naxalites. Idealogues like Swapan Dasgupta, and our beloved Home Minister line up to ask them, where were you when people like Francis Induvar were brutally beheaded? They ignore the fact, and have ignored for a long time, that these activists have frequently condemned the violence of the Naxalites. Can you blame them for ignoring all those press releases? The average PUCL statement is dull and dreary, and always fixates on things like custodial killings and torture; how can it compare in newsworthiness [sic] to calling Mmbai Bombay in a B-Grade film?

The activists' stand is clear: they condemn violence on both sides, they condemn government apathy to the plight of the people who live in these godforsaken places. They have never shied away from condemning the latest Maoist beheading, even in the heady days of Lalgadh. But at the same time, they oppose the idea of a state-funded private militia like the Salwa Judum terrorising people, or the idea of a state that facilitates torture of its own, even innocent, citizens. They were active in fighting the incarceration of Dr. Binayak Sen, arrested for giving a damn: a fight that, for the most part, received a handful of column inches on Page 7 of a few newspapers.

Chidambaram attacks their stance by saying that they were putting a gang of murderous criminals and the government of this nation on par. While a section of society often mistakes one for the other, it's true, the two aren't equal. The state, if anything, has a greater responsibility to abide by the rules. After all, it is supposed to be the legitimate power in the conflict, the good guys. If they resort to inhuman acts of torture and murder to fight murderers, they lose their moral legitimacy, as well as make it the duty of every conscientious citizen of this nation to stand up against them.

Human rights activists are also accused of romanticising the Maoists. These accusations are a huge compliment to their oratory and written skills: it is very difficult to romanticise the beheading of Francis Induwar. Most activists do not support the Naxalites - those who do are well within their right - and criticise their heinous crimes. But the legitimate grievances of the tribals and oppressed cannot be denied. The pathetic state of development in these areas feeds a resentment against the state, and is responsible for the support the Naxalites enjoy. The example of Punjab has shown that it is impossible for an insurgency to survive without the support of the local populace, and for a movement to last forty years, it needs more than just adequate terror. Whatever be their methods, the Naxalites command respect for living and working with the people in the heartland.

The best way to fight Naxalites is not through jingoistic crackdowns with catchy names, but through the elimination of their support from the people. This can only be done through addressing the grievances of the people, and developing the jungles. This includes an end to land grabbing, providing access to water, healthcare and all the entitlements of the people that the state has denied them. It includes an end to exploitation and a humane police force. Unlike your average jihadi, the Naxalites are not fighting to take away your freedoms, but secure a viable future for the poorest of the poor. The best way to defeat them is to give the people what they want.