Reflections on News & Views
Sunday, January 22, 2006
The Hindu's editorial: "One party, two visions" (Jan 21, 2006)
Letter to the editor
Your editorial, One party, two visions (January 21), is indulgence in appearances, characteristic of much of mainstream journalism today. It ignores the inherent unity that apparent “oppositions” entail in the political market and competition. The ideal of a two-party (or even multi-party) system is nurtured to structure and limit political choices in a bourgeois system, transforming the electorate from a referee in the match to a football. Political parties, irrespective of their political ideologies, come to nurture the same within themselves, too. Like a firm in a commodity economy, their success depends on how many incarnations (choices) they themselves can take, even if it means to change just the colour of the packaging. BJP has been remarkably successful in this regard – earlier, if it was Vajpayee vs Advani, today it is Advani vs Singh. The extent of its success is evident from the fact that even The Hindu’s sensible journalism has been mesmerised.
The published version: Changing the packaging (January 23 2006)
An early comment on ADVANI'S JINNAH DRAMA (June 2005) ¶ 2:35 PM 0 Comments
Your editorial, One party, two visions (January 21), is indulgence in appearances, characteristic of much of mainstream journalism today. It ignores the inherent unity that apparent “oppositions” entail in the political market and competition. The ideal of a two-party (or even multi-party) system is nurtured to structure and limit political choices in a bourgeois system, transforming the electorate from a referee in the match to a football. Political parties, irrespective of their political ideologies, come to nurture the same within themselves, too. Like a firm in a commodity economy, their success depends on how many incarnations (choices) they themselves can take, even if it means to change just the colour of the packaging. BJP has been remarkably successful in this regard – earlier, if it was Vajpayee vs Advani, today it is Advani vs Singh. The extent of its success is evident from the fact that even The Hindu’s sensible journalism has been mesmerised.
The published version: Changing the packaging (January 23 2006)
An early comment on ADVANI'S JINNAH DRAMA (June 2005) ¶ 2:35 PM 0 Comments
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
BBC asked - Should the world trust Iran?
Recently, BBC posted a question for readers’ comments – Should the world trust Iran?
As an answer, I posted the following alternative questions for the BBC readers’ to ponder upon (I don’t know whether they will publish it or not):
“Why is it that we never ask such questions in 'reverse' whenever it comes to the 'Orient' - in this case, for example, should Iran trust the world? The 'oriental', 'southern' countries, who represent the majority world population too can have their own interests to preserve, considering that they have more responsibilities. Why do we limit "the world" to a few 'hegemonies' and dub their psychotic fear of "others" or their "obsessional neurosis", as Freud would say, as the concern for 'international security'?”
However, many of us do know the answers, don’t we? This is the way hegemonic ideologies rationalise the hegemonies. Questions determine the way we answer them, and the function of mass media, and all other educational ‘institutions’, is to school us in this mode of problem solving – don’t go beyond what is asked, as anything “beyond” is irrelevant, incoherent, and hence unpublishable. ¶ 9:52 AM 0 Comments
As an answer, I posted the following alternative questions for the BBC readers’ to ponder upon (I don’t know whether they will publish it or not):
“Why is it that we never ask such questions in 'reverse' whenever it comes to the 'Orient' - in this case, for example, should Iran trust the world? The 'oriental', 'southern' countries, who represent the majority world population too can have their own interests to preserve, considering that they have more responsibilities. Why do we limit "the world" to a few 'hegemonies' and dub their psychotic fear of "others" or their "obsessional neurosis", as Freud would say, as the concern for 'international security'?”
However, many of us do know the answers, don’t we? This is the way hegemonic ideologies rationalise the hegemonies. Questions determine the way we answer them, and the function of mass media, and all other educational ‘institutions’, is to school us in this mode of problem solving – don’t go beyond what is asked, as anything “beyond” is irrelevant, incoherent, and hence unpublishable. ¶ 9:52 AM 0 Comments
