Arundhati Roy: Baby Bush go home

[Guest guest]

" Zepp " <zepp

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 12:21:05 -0800

[Zepps_News] Arundhati Roy: Baby Bush go home

 

 

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,1720429,00.html

 

Baby Bush go home

 

Arundhati Roy

Wednesday March 1, 2006

The Guardian

 

On his triumphalist tour of this part of the world, where he hopes to

wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President

Bush's itinerary is getting curiouser and curiouser. For his March 2 pit

stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried very hard to have him

address our Parliament. A not inconsequential number of MPs threatened

to heckle him, so Plan One was hastily shelved. Plan Two was that he

address the masses from the ramparts of the magnificent Red Fort where

the Indian prime minister traditionally delivers his Independence Day

address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as it is by the predominantly

Muslim population of Old Delhi, was considered a security nightmare. So

now we're into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from Purana

Qila, the Old Fort.

 

Article continues

Ironic, isn't it, that the only safe public space for a man who has

recently been so enthusiastic about India's modernity should be a

crumbling medieval fort?

 

Since the Purana Qila also houses the Delhi zoo - George Bush's audience

will be a few hundred caged animals and an approved list of caged human

beings who in India go under the category of " eminent persons " . They're

mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive animals,

incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their gilded

cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and unruly

multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the centuries.

 

So what's going to happen to George W Bush? Will the gorillas cheer him

on? Will the gibbons curl their lips? Will the brow-antlered deer sneer?

Will the chimps make rude noises? Will the owls hoot? Will the lions

yawn and the giraffes bat their beautiful eyelashes? Will the crocs

recognise a kindred soul? Will the quails give thanks that Bush isn't

travelling with Dick Cheney, his hunting partner with the notoriously

bad aim? Will the CEOs agree?

 

Oh, and on March 2 Bush will be taken to visit Gandhi's memorial in

Rajghat. He's by no means the only war criminal who has been invited by

the Indian government to lay flowers at Rajghat. (Only recently we had

the Burmese dictator General Than Shwe, no shrinking violet himself.)

But when George Bush places flowers on that famous slab of highly

polished stone, millions of Indians will wince. It will be as though he

has poured a pint of blood on the memory of Gandhi.

 

We really would prefer that he didn't.

 

It is not in our power stop Bush's visit. It is in our power to protest

it, and we will. The government, the police and the corporate press

will do everything they can to minimise the extent of our outrage.

Nothingthe Happy-news Papers say can change the fact that all over

India, from the biggest cities to the smallest villages, in public

places and private homes, George W Bush, incumbent president of the

United States of America, world nightmare incarnate, is just not welcome.

 

 

--