Henry, King Of The Intellectually Less Fortunate

The recent fine imposed by the Broadcasting Standards Authority of $3000 for Paul Henry’s racist observations on Sheila Dixits name was pathetically limp wristed. It also could not have come at a better time for Henry as it coincided for the launch of his memoirs “What was I thinking?”, and provided him thousands of dollars of nationwide advertising.

How there was no fine imposed for his repugnantly racist questions about the Governor General is bewildering.

Random House, his publishers, who admit to him being a ‘complex character’ probably very wisely decided to launch his book at the same time as the judgment.

The book has sold 4,000 copies in it’s first week which is litmus test not so much of Henry’s contribution to New Zealand society but on sections of the society.

It seems New Zealand is suffering another intense brain drain but now from experts refusing to leave. Any citizen who spent the 30 odd dollars on his memoir and not on a bucket of KFC needs to reassess their life’s philosophy. Then check in to a mental health facility.

But these imbeciles who endorse Henry’s character mostly need to broaden their jaundiced horizons. But I really hope they don’t.

That would mean mixing with them. That would bore me to death. ‘Yes Dave, Indians eat eggs’, ‘Yes Susan, India does have elephants but they are not the main mode of transport’. My wife was asked in Onehunga how on earth could she be television producer when India didn’t have any electricity. She sweetly replied Indians watched TV by candlelight.

These stratas of society really should remain just stratas. Easily identifiable mono culturalists. Bitching and moaning about immigration and globalisation as they speed off to have a curry after an hour shopping at The Warehouse. Marked out and easy to maneuver around.

They are welcome to tune in for TV breakfast shows run by fellow bigots. That means for a few hours they are off our roads. It worries me greatly that Henry is back in radio and his disciples might be simultaneously operating dangerous machinery and listening to tripe.

I am also told within their raving loony ranks are National Business Review journalists who propose that Dixit should change her name. On the contrary, it is a cruel fate that Henry’s name is not reminiscent of a Punjabi abuse. It is also fateful that he did not poke fun of goras with truly ridiculous names in New Zealand’s political sphere. Chris Carter had an assistant with the very judgmental name of Badcock and another man suffered friction with being Christened James Cockburn.

What I will agree with Henry is his anger at the New Zealand Government apologising to the India Government for his appalling behavior. That was setting a precedent for the Government to accept responsibility for precious dandys who pollute our culture.

We can barely tolerate them at home but internationally they are an intense embarrassment.

(Image stolen from nz-tees.spreadshirt.com)

Loony or Messiah?

The last few days saw the surging anti-corruption movement in India suffer an affront with Baba Ramdev’s supporters being lathi charged in Delhi. This has prompted Ramdev to declare he will form a militia of 11,000 armed soldiers. Is Baba Ramdev a guiding light to the movement or will he potentially derail this rare chance for Indians to wipe the window to the gears of Government clean?

Baba Ramdev’s wide influence in India cannot be overstated. He has for many years been a televised Yogi with an audience of millions of people. I cannot tell you how surreal it was to be sitting in Arunachal Pradesh, the remotest state of India, to be lectured on the benefits of Ramdev’s signature explosive breathing. The late tribal Minister, who was enthusiastically telling me this, was convinced this would cure his hypertension. As indeed Ramdev’s drug company insists that his herbal remedies cure HIV and cancer.

This creative entrepreneurship has spawned an empire worth many millions.

This is a break from the Swami tradition of austerity. Gandhiji on being asked why on earth he travelled third class replied because there is no fourth class. If Ramdev was asked why he was travelling in an aircraft’s first class he would reply because I couldn’t charter the whole blessed aircraft, which is exactly what he does.

But India has changed. This hedonistic behavior inspires awe not disdain. His eccentricities are swallowed whole by millions of followers.

Including his five-point plan. 100% voting. 100% Nationalistic thought. 100% boycott of foreign companies. 100% unification of the country. 100% yoga oriented nation.

These tickle me but his points that address corruption make me sit up and pay attention. The death penalty for graft convictions amongst them. This would be a sound move if it didn’t involve the impracticality of liquidating the entire political class but it is academically deeply satisfying.

The repatriation of the estimated trillion dollars in Swiss bank accounts. I have met industrialists who openly admit to having offshore accounts. It seems there is a finite amount of black money you can blow up in 5 stars and weddings attended by a populace that would qualify as a New Zealand city.

He has tempered these Swadeshi instincts with a reported purchase of a Scottish Island for several million pounds. Which is a just spare change for a man worth 1,100 crore.

But can we be too precious about the individuals who are leading the people to what we pray is a historical change? Who gives a monkey’s uncle if the diseased limb of corruption is severed by a scalpel or a garden spade?

Yes, Ramdev is the polar opposite of Hazare. Hazare is the cleaner than clean Gandhian. Not the MLA Gandhian who habitually sports a gold Mount Blanc pen in his kardi kurta pocket but the real deal. Hazare would sooner starve to death than charter an aircraft. Yes, this has gained a deep respect but not a universal respect. No contemporary politician has understood this modern voter burnout to Gandhian austerity like Mayawati.

Mayawati, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, understands down to her chopals that Gandhism isn’t moving off the shelves like it used to. She sells bling. She shamelessly flaunts her massive personal wealth like a West Coast rapper and commissions pharaoh like memorials to her living self. The dalits love it. She’s one of them and they want to be like her.

They no longer respect Gandhian ideals because the lifestyle they aspire to rid themselves of is in fact Gandhian and is practiced out of simply having no choice. They are now revolted by the hypocrisy of money grabbing gangsters shouting twisted versions of the Gandhian gospel. Ramdev is unashamedly capitalist, much like the electorate.

He still has a long journey to be an enduring national leader. For India’s villagers are uneducated and because of this they rely on a steel strong instinct for a person’s character. Will he stand up to this aggressive litmus test? Will the result be saffron or a cowardly yellow?

What is indisputable is that Ramdev is a marketable hybrid of emerging India’s worlds. The jet setting sadhu. A living metaphor of India’s half complete metamorphosis from spiritual socialism to globalisation.

He has my reluctant vote because I think he can learn to not talk of armed revolution when having fasted for three days. He has the vote too of 85 year old K.L. Gupta who made his way from Indore to Rajghat, alone and in 40 degree weather. Even with his catheter bag he slept outside on Delhi’s pavements so he could pray with Hazare and Ramdev for his beloved India.

Indian Nuclear Plants Sitting Ducks

The nuclear developments in Germany over the few days on the heels of the Fukushima crisis has grave importance for India.

The German Chancellor recently did a 180 degree turn on her decision of last year to greatly extend Germany’s 17 nuclear plant’s lifespan. With overwhelming public concern for nuclear safety after Fukushima she now has proclaimed Germany will be free of nuclear power by 2022. Indeed, currently only 4 of the 17 plants are now on line. This was monumental as her policy of only late last year snuggly embraced the burning atom as the panacea of long cold German winter power shortages.

Fukushima of course was largely influential in this about turn. The world watched with dropped jaws and crossed fingers as we watched little men in white overalls look very industrious. For the better part of I was convinced they didn’t have the foggiest idea what they were doing, or worse what was happening, but it was terribly reassuring.

What wasn’t reassuring, actually quite destabalising, was that this was happening in the most technologically advanced country in the world. The world sees the Japanese as very clever and insanely organised, if not a little humourless. If it could happen there it could certainly happen in German, indeed they even share traits.

This is why the rest of the world certainly shouldn’t have nuclear power. The rest of us are dimwitted, disorganised and always up for a laugh.

But what has not been reported widely is the findings of the safety enquiry commissioned by Merkel to assess the structural integrity of the plants. This was the decider. Regardless that the tests were conducted with 30 year old safety perimeters they have concluded that none of the 17 nuclear plants would withstand a crash by a large plane and seven would not withstand the crash of even a light aircraft!

This is terrible news for India. "You don't have to take the bang to the enemy; the bang is already there when you take out his nuclear plants." India is surrounded by some strange idiot neighbours. Pakistan to her West should have been certified years ago and China to her north is madly ambitious. Giving these countries the courtesy of constructing nuclear plants for use as bombs at their convenience is being far too hospitable.

As Matin Zuberi says,"The core of a typical nuclear plant contains about 1,000 times the radioactivity released by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. A high explosive bomb used against it would acquire the attributes of a nuclear weapon without its blast effect.”

What worries me to my core is that India could suffer an incalculably catastrophic disaster not from powerful missiles from a highly militarized neighbour but from some dribbling at the mouth nutter with a Cessna or a Tata tempo laden with explosives in the car park.

With the US assassination of Osama exposing the porosity of air defense systems, with their brazen abuse of Pakistani sovereignty, India is mortally defenseless. All it would take for an Indian nuclear plant to be breached would be a Pakistani helicopter with an almost effeminate explosive. If a German plant cannot withstand the impact of a small aircraft we can assume a plant in Kalpakkam would not repel a crazed, red eyed Pakistani pilot high on patriotic tripe.

The terrorist attacks of the last few years would not have found a place in fiction. They have been too brazen and wholly implausible. Now the ridiculous notion of a terrorist attacking a nuclear plant must star highly in security agencies risk assessments not in the grubby newsprint of pulp fiction. After 26/11 any satanic scenario seems wholly real.

If India cannot protect the heart of Mumbai, as indeed the Americans could not protect her New York from a handful of murderous zombies, then what hope can we hold for a dozen nuclear plants?

How could these plants be protected from erstwhile human beings who are dedicated, increasingly sophisticated and have, as the Headley trial has evidenced, State sponsorship? It is like the Peacock desperately trying to save her white domed, delicate eggs from the village rats. The point of difference being that only one egg cracked will leave Hindustan a desolate, sterile nuclear landscape.

It is deeply ironic how delicate these plants are that harness such brutal power. But it is deeply moronic that India’s political establishment have swallowed the sales pitch of nuclear plant manufacturers with this very real risk of incineration.