The greater the American attempts to impose a unilateral global order the more disorderly are the prospects of peace and stability in our time. Optimism of the will is giving way to overblown expectations of limited intellects and a moral void. .
The bombing of Syria on the dubious pretext that the Assad regime had use chemical weapons against its own citizens appears to be close accord with Saddam Hussain’s alleged ‘weapons of mass destruction and the Gulf of Tonking ‘incident,’ manufactured by the Lyndon Johnson administration in the summer of 1964 as an excuse to expand its war against Vietnam, which ended in a resounding American defeat.
That France and Britain have joined the United States in yet another adventure reminiscent of Libya in 2011 is testimony to the immunity that the US and its western allies have packaged with their spurious boasts of promoting freedom and democracy across the globe.. What has happened to Syria, with possibly Iran to follow, is a warning to the international community as a whole that the cloven of military might concealed in the velvet glove of pious intent may be used with cavalier unconcern against fancied opponents.
No United Nations approval was sought; there was no patience to permit the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to reach Syria and investigate western accusations of the Assad regime’s alleged use of chemical agents against his own population. ‘Mission accomplished,’ Trump, just as George W, Bush did after the US invasion of Irraq.’
The picture of Assad at his desk the morning after the bombardment is an indecent exposure of US helplessness in toppling the Assad regime. The barrage of missiles rained upon the country avoided Russian bases and troops, and also Iranian facilities. Russian restraint is likely to bring a haul of diplomatic and strategic dividends. It will surely dawn on the American public that President Trump has no Syrian policy; that his foreign policy lunacies may end in catastrophe. Daniel Ellsburg, Vietnam war whistleblower with the ‘Pentagon Papers,’ has appealed to the US Defence Secretary to disobey his President’s damaging military adventures that could end in nuclear apocalypse. Trump’s antics may hopefully seed a massive US peace movement to undermine his administration as it once helped destroy Richard Nixon’s.
The lessons of Syria have wider implications. It would be naïve in the extreme to suppose otherwise. The pages of the Indian print media bulge with pieces on US, French and Swedish military hardware available to India’s armed forces. These are little more than paid advertisements masquerading as independent reporting. What hidden tricks will be applied to persuade India to conform to prescribed codes of conduct drawn by the self-appointed guardians of our universe.
The country is not as well prepared to meet a credible contingency as is usually cracked out to be. The Air Force is critical under-strength and has been for the past decade and more. As the tender to purchase high performance aircraft from France has fizzled out, another tender is to be floated. By the time any deal with a foreign partner fructifies, we may be moving to 2030, 40, or even 50. No parallel theatre can match the absurdity.
In face of such damning evidence, Prime Minister Modi censured past governments of ineptitude and inertia in meeting the country’s defence requirements. Alas, his own government has thus far proved no better. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman went to Moscow to engage in closer defence cooperation with Russia. Not a word has emerged on the outcomes.
A recent Times of India editorial put the boot in, writing: ‘ Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that that the Indian armed forces cannot be compelled to buy indigenous weapons reveals gross shortfalls in achieving global standards.’ The paper advocates greater private sector involvement in the defence industry. That alone will not suffice. Bureaucratic rust, political inertia and the smug assumption that all is well can be likened to ostriches with heads firmly in the sand.
The bombing of Syria is a wake-up call. The barbarians are the gates.
Home from Home: Armenians in India
Recent events in India have shamed India – and rightly so. But the flourishing Armenian diaspora in Kolkata and its achievements are a cause of justifiable,, if silent, pride. Little Armenia, with its church and educational institution and charities surely epitomize all that is noble and wise in the human spirit.
Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy represent a beacon of hope for dispossessed Armenian communities in Iraq, Iran and eastern Anatolia of the former Ottoman empire, where they were subjected to the 20 th century’s first genocide in 2015.
Earlier this month the community celebrated 197 years of the Academy’s presence in this bustling metropolis, once the capital of the British raj. A plaque on the entrance of imposing Armenian College informs the new visitor and novice student that ‘the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray was born on the 18 th July, 1811’ on the site. From 1821 the building housed the Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy.
The younger Armenian generation are is exercised by events in the Middle East, one with first-hand experience said , that while Saddam Hussain was a dictator, he wasn’t an oppressor of Armenia and the broader community of Iraqi Christians. The US invasion and its aftermath had ruined the country. It was during this desolation that Razmik Hakobyan, now 24, was sent in 2004 to the Armenian College [a school] and Philanthropic Academy [ACPA] for ‘safety and education,’ following a bomb attack close to his house in Baghdad. He was just 13, when a family friend told him of Kolkata’s Armenian institutions.
India’s Armenian story began in 1645 with the first Armenian arrivals in Bengal, where they traded and engaged in philanthropic activity in Dhaka and Calcutta and prospered. Armen Makarian, a former student and school coordinator, says the educational institution is the only one of its kind in the world. The Very Reverend Father Moyses Sargesyan says while the majority of his students are from Armenia, significant groups from a wide range of countries; he hoped Armenians in western Europe would come as well, with internet website easily accessible.
The principal problem in education is the widely differing English language skills of pupils from scattered backgrounds. To surmount the hurdle an intensive six-month course has been included in the curricula. Skills have vastly improved, said Soumitra Mallik the Academy Principal. While Armenians teach the Armenian language, culture and history in the 25-member teaching staff, most of their colleagues are Indian. Students have taken quickly to English and Mathematics, leapfrogged to Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant of Venice.’ Arindrajit Saha explained: ‘Studying Shakespeare within a brief period of time can be considered an important marker.
Students are grateful for the high quality and the low fees of their education. Many visit their original homelands as tourists, but return to India.. Armenian roots are one, the branches many, and for those from India, India is home where they long to be.
Indian athletes trail clouds of glory
Indian athletics was once the poor Cinderella of the country’s sports, but no longer. It is now radiant in its finery and turning heads back home and in Australia [one of the world’s truly great sorting nations] the site of the Commonwealth Games, with strong and challenging contingents from across continents are competing for gold, silver and bronze medals, and for the honour and pleasure of being participants is such a magnificent event in the most salubrious and hospitable environment. Indian sportsmen and women, have excelled in the badminton, squash, shooting, boxing, paddling events. Many thousands of their compatriots have watched TV screens enthralled by their performances and bearing. The successes of Indian women have been particularly heartening in the light of the horrific sexual attacks they have had to endure recently in dark corners of the country.
Lip service to gender equality is no barrier to criminal male behavior. Social awareness, self-assurance and pride in what they do are better able to take an unshackled society forward.
Women cricketers have matched the accomplishments of their male peers, as have chess players, pilots, scientists and engineers. Amid the darkness there are gleams of light. In yeasrs to come, they must shine brightly until the scourge is banished from every corner of the country.
