The New York Panic

ON THE SPOT Tavleen Singh It is a funny time to be in New York. In all the years I have been coming to this city I have never before seen it gripped with such a sense of panic. Not even when I came here in January 2002 when the wounds of 9/11 were fresh and we who came from far away went to Ground Zero and wept to see the pictures of those who died so terribly on that terrible day. That time there was sadness in the city and a deep tangible melancholy. This time there is panic and paranoia and it hits you unexpectedly. On my second day here I went to buy some sneakers from the New Balance shop on Third Avenue and when I emerged after buying my shoes discovered that the street had been closed to traffic. There were crowds on the pavements on either side and nervous policemen yelling ‘‘Stay on the sidewalk, please, just stay on the sidewalk’’ every time someone tried to cross the road. Police helicopters circled overhead and the crowds of spectators grew larger by the minute. When I asked someone who such heavy security could be for he said, ‘‘It could be anyone. There are so many heads of state in the city at the moment that even the police sometimes don’t know who they are protecting. It could be our President but he isn’t supposed to be here till tomorrow.’’ Even as he said this a cavalcade of big black vehicles, ambulances and fire engines roared by. In the middle of the cavalcade was a long, black car with the American flag flying on its bonnet. It was the American President. The meeting of the United Nations General Assembly brought him to New York along with our Prime Minister and heads of state from all over the world. But I have been here before at this time of year and there has not been this sense of panic and paranoia. This year it is the shadow of the meltdown on Wall Street and the shadow of the impending general election that makes the atmosphere so fraught. Wherever I have gone, whether to have lunch with friends in some sunny garden or to eat in the newest French restaurant, the subject veers around inevitably to whether Barack Obama is going to make it and the possibility of him losing causes tension. My friends are of intellectual bent and the appointment of Sarah Palin as the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee has got through to them in a way almost nothing else about the election has. They cannot understand how someone as unqualified to be President should get so close to the job. They point out that till yesterday she had never met a single head of state and had never been abroad. They worry about her ability to make decisions if she ever became President. But, there are millions of ordinary, less educated, less intellectual Americans who like Sarah Palin because they think of her as one of them.If the election casts a long shadow so does the economy, and the Bush administration is blamed for allowing things to reach such a pass. Comparisons are invoked with the great crash of 1929 and people talk of the need for a new reconstruction commission. The next President inherits a country that has lost faith in its financial institutions and in the ability of its top leaders to make the right decisions. There is cynicism and anger and a general sense that the country has lost track of where it is going. The economy is the biggest issue making even the war in Iraq fades a little into the background. There is a sense that Wall Street was allowed to function without sufficient regulation and that it was this that made big financial companies behave so recklessly that loans were given to people who could never have paid them back and these loans were guaranteed by insurance companies who should have known better. Many of my friends in New York are journalists and normally they have an optimistic approach to the future. This time they seemed pessimistic about everything. According to them the economy was not the only thing that caused them to be so gloomy. There is also the sense that the war on terror has been badly handled. There is a sense that George W. Bush has so antagonized the Islamic world that America is more threatened by terrorism than it was before the war on terror began. Last week’s bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad seemed to come as a reminder of how badly things have gone wrong.Then there is the sudden resurgence of racism. Everyone I talked to agreed that if Obama did not become President it would be because he was black. It is not just white Americans who have discovered that they are more racist than they imagined. I have Indian friends in New York who do not hesitate to admit that they find the idea of a black President of America unacceptable. If he were not black, they admit, he would be more than acceptable. ‘‘If he were white he would be another Kennedy.’’ If Obama still has a chance of being America’s next President it is because young Americans are on his side. It is with them that hope lies. Even those who do not support Obama agree that if he does become President the mood will change.

BOB’S BANTER

Robert Clements The Making of A Terrorist..!The little boy lay fast asleep in the little outhouse of the religious place where his father was the keeper. His mother lay next to him and near the doorway was the lithe frame of his father still wheezing uneasily after pneumonia attack.Suddenly the boy was wide awake, his father’s wheezing had stopped and as he looked he saw him getting up and slowly stepping out. ‘‘What is it dad?’’ he cried. ‘‘Sssshhh’’ said his father and then he heard; people stealthily jumping over the wall, and looking out he saw flames that burnt from the end of poles they carried.‘‘Stop!’’ cried his father and the little fellow heard the sound of laughter.‘‘No!’’ cried his mother as she rushed out to save her husband from the mob. The mob tore her clothes, turned their sticks on her husband, then torched the structure he was supposed to guard.‘‘Stop!’’ cried the watchman and felt the sticks on him.‘‘Don’t touch him, he’s sick,’’ screamed his wife, then felt groping hands all over.The little boy watched in terror as they thrashed his father, then torched the religious place, which was over a hundred years old. ‘‘No!’’ he cried silently as his mother was raped, then taken and thrown into flames, where his father was burning. ‘‘No!’’ he sobbed silently as the structure crumbled and the men did a mad dance round burning building, man and woman. They left not knowing they’d created a monster whose acts of terror would put their own gruesome one to shame.The village came later to douse smoldering embers. The police came later to look around. The press came later to sniff. ‘‘Do something!’’ screamed the papers. ‘‘Why?’’ asked the political leaders, ‘‘Will we lose votes if we arrest the fellows or will it pay to keep quiet?’’‘‘Keep quiet!’’ whispered the ministers, MLAs and even the police, and the Chief Minister did just that. No action, no court case.The boy grew up. The boy went to college. The boy had friends. And then the blast; diabolically planned, cunningly executed, hundreds dead! ‘‘The work of an educated terrorist!’’ screamed the papers. ‘‘Why are educated youngsters becoming terrorists?’’ screamed another paper. ‘‘Why?’’ you and I ask.It’s simple, isn’t it? When we wreak havoc on the weak, when no police action is taken, when courts delay justice, then those little boys and girls and their friends strike back. Terror is their warped sense of justice.Fight terror, by demanding swifter police action, faster courts and pushing your politician to act, even if the place targeted is not yours. Your silence after injustice takes place, religious place is burnt, or weak are battered, helps in the making of a terrorist..!
source: sentinel assam