aug 31st, 2007
amidst a bunch of stuff about how great musharraf and pakistanis and in particular pathans are (now this is an old limey syndrome: they are absolutely impressed by the pathans, possibly because they are also into buggering little boys?) the economist correspondent lets the cat out of the bag: why he doesn't like indians:
http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9709203&fsrc=nwl
quote:
By and large, however, Pakistanis are first-rate company. In particular, they rarely exhibit the prickly nationalism of their Indian cousins, which can be a turn-off for foreign guests. In its place, I often find, is a rather beautiful kindred sense, transcending frontiers of race and nationality, of wondering what the hell is going on.
unquote
i see, it's because indians like india. whereas pakistanis, like limeys, have a self-image as conquerors of india. so they can get along really well. gee, thanks for explaining this to us.
the fact of the matter is that indian obsequiousness is disgusting -- and all those morons who repeat that idiotic phrase 'adithi devo bhava' get on my nerves. that phrase really means treat the guest as god if he deserves it, and not if he's some damn-fool white guy or barbarian communist or mohammedan. but somewhere we lost the 'if' condition. most visitors do not deserve to be treated well. (interestingly, this is one of the few good things about kerala -- nobody is obsequious to the white guy, and nobody treats him as superior. the local try to hit on white females, instead.)
by the way, has old simon long moved on? is it somebody else who's the economist honcho in delhi? i have noticed a steady deterioration in the economist's views about india, which i imagine is because a new person has shown up. does anyone know?
10 comments:
"the locals seem to hit on white females instead"...and this is a matter of great pride to you? What is the difference then between you and the semitic types you love to slander? Both of you treat women as chattel, don't you? If a semite does so, at least he is following what his faith tell him to; woman is either born of a rib of man or has only 1/4th the value of man. What's your excuse? You claim to be of the faith that revers the sacred feminine? Your endorsement of such disgusting practices reveals what a chauvinist you are, Hindu nationalist or otherwise. I appreciate your efforts to rasie awareness about Hindu nationalism on your blog, but you seriously need to get over your male supremacist attitude. Your blog has almost degenerated into a mutual appreciation society of pompous males who mouth teh same platitudes over and over again without doing much construtuve work, and you are fast losing audience of who are not.
Disappointed.
you have a tendency to fly off the handle about very minor issues, soniya. this is the second time you have done it here.
the first was on some innocuous comment about that most disgusting outfit, the salvar-kameez, which is basically the same as the mohammedan male outfit, and is intended as a burqa-lite. men who have to endure the sight of these ugly devices have every right to bemoan the fact that women en masse have chosen to make themselves ugly. unfathomable, indeed, when they look so divine in saris. but you made some pointed racist remarks about south indian men. which does not exactly make you a shining paragon of virtue.
now you are hitting the roof about another innocuous thing. men are basically programmed to hit on women. in fact, women are most upset if men ignore them, as in, say, san francisco's castro street. there is nothing in hinduism that says men must not chase women. in fact the literature is full of stories of people falling in love, which, generally speaking, must involve men chasing women, since women usually wait to be pursued, and don't do much pursuing themselves.
this has nothing to do with chattel, and really has nothing to do with semitic cults. it has everything to do with hormones.
not clear why a man being interested in a woman, chasing her, hitting on her, etc. are such 'disgusting practices'. they are kind of necessary for the propagation of the species.
this does not make for male supremacism as you put it. the point i was making in passing about kerala men is that they don't stand in awe of random white women and treat them as some superior, unattainable 'memsahibs', but as women they could legitimately pursue. this emphatically egalitarian perspective is indeed laudable. in fact a number of white women tourists end up marrying local men, which must mean the women, at least some of them, do enjoy the attention.
anyway, this is a very minor point and not worth obsessing on.
as for your general comments about your disappointment, well, everybody's mileage varies. if you want to be constructive, why don't you post things that will be cause constructiveness? for instance, have you done anything for CAPEEM?
turns out 'theresia' is yet another alias for the indefatigable, and often banned, daisies. so 'theresia's posts will be deleted as soon as they are observed.
Ok, now I see the ultimate insult soon to be hurled my way: “Feminist”. How can I not be thrilled at the prospect of strange men making detailed observations on my anatomy wherever I go. Sorry to disappoint you Rajeev, but only the most desperate women take delight in being ogled by leering men. Cultures like Italy and Spain, which identify as “macho” have high degrees of violence against women. Sure, a woman needs to be appreciated, but there are better ways of going about it other than wolf-whistles and eve-teasing. And this may be news to you, but a woman also has a brain and preferences about whom she may be attracted to. We certainly don’t appreciate being ogled by any random man on the street, and certainly not being “hit on” by local men when we are traveling (And I don’t speak for white women, this applies to women of any color, no matter where they are traveling).
My earlier comment was related to someone calling a NYTimes journalist a whore etc. If you are such a fan of evolutionary psychology, why this double standard? After all, women will be attracted to men in position of power, regardless of their color! On the contrary, the lustfulness of Indian men towards phoren travelers is seen as a virtue and not the attraction to white skin. Leering at every woman and considering every woman a potential bedmate only shows how sexually frustrated Indian men are. Educated men like you should definitely not be abetting such behavior. No one objects to your statements such as this one, because your readership is largely male.
I know this comment is going to be delted pretty soon, and I may be even banned from posting here. But if it at least makes you stop and think for a little bit, my purpose is served.
Good luck with your Hindu nationalist agenda.
soniya, there's a whole field of study called socio-biology that suggests that since all individuals are programmed to spread their genes, it makes sense for males to try and be as promiscuous as possible; and conversely, for females to try and force males to be monogamous so that her children (and her genes) will get to survive.
this is what's behind the behavior of men anywhere, whether it's europe or arabia or india or the US (where the incidence of random violence against women is quite high, and it's not leers, it's rapes).
in fact, your statement that women like men who have power follow the logic of sociobiology -- a rich/powerful person can ensure the survival of their children/genes.
what i have seen is that indian women often throw themselves at ugly white men just because they are white, which is quite disgusting (just go to any hotel bar in bombay or bangalore and you'll see this). and indian women in the us who have got some poor henpecked white guy to marry them show them off as though they were some trophy. look around you in america and you'll see this. so why complain if some indian guy tries his luck with a white woman? they have learned from hollywood that white women are friendly, if you get the approach right.
no, i am not going to delete your comment or ban you yet, because you are just an excitable young person, not a nuisance.
but you might consider the following though: those who are older, like me, have had a chance to observe the evolution of feminism. it started off reasonable, and indian men, fundamentally respectful towards women, could agree; then it became shrill ("a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"), and now there's a backlash -- the excesses of feminism are rejected by the next generation, which is more at ease with men.
also, as i am not politically correct, i make no concessions for any group on this blog. and that includes women. all are treated equally here, there is no 'reservation' for women.
this argument is idiotic, and i shall not say anything more about this, because it's a triviality. my main point was about the economist and its revelation why brits like pakistanis. this is much more interesting than some tired old feminist rant.
By and large most limeys prefer muslims. Read up dalrymple, even though this bum lives in India and makes most of his money here. One of the reasons I guess is that both adhere to semitic cults. Basically the same shit. But anyway this is shuld not upset us too much. England and by extension Europe is essentially a dying society, read the columnist spengler in the Asia Times for a better understanding (falling birth rates, increasing old age population, too much wealth/luxury, etc etc and the most symptom of a dying society -- the rejection of religion. No wonder the mad rush to convert hindus). And waiting in the wings are the muslims, who have no such warm feelings for the Europeans. Ultimately we’ll have the last laugh when this Frankenstein finally turns on them. The coming londonistan.
And in any case why blame this guy. He is after all a limey. Read all those gushing articles which Indians (Hindus) right when they get back from pakistan. And these are not just senile Punjus like Kuldeep or Khushwant Singh, u have mani Shankar Iyer (the self styled secular fundamentalist) , who like to repeat ad nauseam his love for Pakistan, the fabulous time he had in Karachi, how he was born in Lahore, etc etc,..
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