Black Friday - Bothered!! ...some additional thoughts
Many nations across the South American, European, African, and Asian continents are struck with conflict. Look at Sudan, look at Cambodia, look at Bosnia. Look at Bhagdad where a bomb blows up everyday. Children aren’t playing dodge-ball, but instead, dodging bombs. The daily events that occur in those territories make headlines for maybe 30 seconds to mention the death toll of 300.
It's as if those 'casualities' are casual occurences, so no one pays much heat to them.
When 9-11 happened...you better bet EVERY news channel in EVERY part of the world covered it. ZEE News - all about "Amreeki jahas pe attack". United 93 followed shortly after.
But when BLACK FRIDAY happened... did Mumbai get the worldwide coverage? March 12, 1993 - ATTACK on the BOMBAY STOCK EXCHANGE! - 13 bombs across Bombay in total!!! over 1,300 INJURED! Riots to follow!!!!
...who cares right? - A brief mention in the "60 seconds Around the World" coverage..and that's that.
After all...as someone said to me, "History isn't made until it happens in America".
Perhaps when terrorism struck Indian soil (as it frequently has) been given its due attention, perhaps history wouldn't have repeated itself in a doubly terrifying manner!!!
Had the issue not taken 13 years to resolve, had it been a more URGENT matter...
maybe the course of 9-11 could have been altered.
History is often neglected. As much as we say, "learn from other's experiences" - few chose to.
I remember when I was in college, I wanted to petition for a WAR HISTORY class. I wanted a course that discussed WHY WAR ERUPTED, the causes leading up to it, HOW it was resolved, and WHAT current events do we see that mirror the same outline. This wasn't a cry for World Peace...we can make that possible or impossible (that's a whole new debate in itself), all it was, was a thought as to how we could make better decisions. Be aware...even as common participants in the political and judicial system.
We don't want another Armenian Genocide, we don't want another Holocaust, we don't want the Nanking Massacre, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia Genocides!!
Well I never created the class... but I sure am bothered by the fact BLACK FRIDAY was far away from the limelight for so long. The film TRULY deserved to be seen by NOT just South Asian audiences, but Universal viewers
Also, if you chose to look beyond your frame of reference, check out the below sites - they'll help educate you and if you chose, allow you to help. But please, don't get me wrong...$$ isn't the only way to help. To me, there are 3 steps: to know, to understand, to act - if you can do any of the three..you are helping in some way.
www.care.org
www.hrw.org (human rights watch)
www.unitedhumanrights.org
www.worldbank.org
Comments
part of the choir here! history definitely belongs to the victors. i watched black friday last year at iffla, and the thing that impressed me about the film was the sincerity of the characters from the police to the criminals. it doesn't pain the bombers as drooling at the mouth, murderous islamofascists; but poor people that have somehow found themselves in the midst of something that they cannot comprehend except to go with their visceral faith and hurt pride.
Posted by: mo lenjavi | February 13, 2007 02:55 PM
Thought provoking. Though I have not yet watched the movie and would reserve my comments on it till I watch it.
However, that's the way media works. Its all about commercial transactions based on demand and supply. If people prefer to watch SRK do "chhaiya chhaiya" on top of a moving train than some hapless people in a war-torn country in Africa, then more number of popular channels would cover the former. Not fair but who said life is fair!!!
There is one interesting statement from Blood Diamond that captures this very well. Speaking about the dismal situation, Connelly who plays a reporter states "They might catch some of this on CNN—right between sports and weather." Gets the point across very aptly.
However, all is not lost. There are still millions of people across the world away from limelight working in organisations to make this world a better place to live in. We should try to do our bit to help them in whatever way we can. That shall be more than enough.
Posted by: Aditya Bob Mahendru | February 14, 2007 11:01 PM