chuck-raa

The more I think about the events of the past few years, the more I am getting convinced of this century being a ‘repetition’ of the last one. 20th century began in the midst of the rise of a new power: Germany, and this power was not ready to wait for its time to come. It’s desire to matter inspired rapid growth, which meant heavy industrialization that required vast resources: material & man-power. The greater its power grew, the greater were its demands… we all know where it went.

It’s appears very difficult to refuse to see the similarities that the present-day China has to the old Germany. It also betrays an almost resentful desperation to change the world order: to reach the cliched ‘natural place’ at the top of the order. It is also being appeased everytime it steps on others’ feet… How long? How long will this last, will China ever be satisfied? Will it stop demanding its neighbour’s property? Will it stop financing civil-wars to control natural-resources? If the parallel between the challengers is obvious, so is the one between the superpowers of the day: Britain and USA. Both naval powers, both derided for being more material than aesthetic, both lands of free thought, both spreading their influences (soft & hard) far and wide, and both at a state where they would rather avoid an open confrontation.

Where does India fit in? Are we the old France? Are we the old Poland? Or, worse, are we the old Russia? What about Australia? Africa, though, will have to wait for another century… and when they do get to a stage where they demand compensations, I wonder how they can decide about who to start with?

My parents saw wars, it’s almost certain to me now that I will have to see a world war. Will I — who grew-up getting bullied — fight in the trenches? Am I going to be in a nuclear attack, or just hear about it? Will I get killed in a battle? Will I kill any one in those battles? My first thought is a wish that I not die in the world war, a sober one though is that India should come out of the war a better nation, the last is whether it matters at all? 6000 years and we still refuse to understand that every thing that grows later decays; from whence it grows again, thus continuing the cycle.

PS: I think water is going to be one of the objects of contest in those wars

olimpics

Some years start with a bang. Looks like this is one of those, Tibet’s up in flames. The Chinese, probably, wanted to carry the Olympic flame to the top of the world to show their might, as it goes with the ‘best laid plans‘, the roof caught fire instead! All the while, we are doing what we do best: watch, applaud and argue over the stats

As Signal at nationalinterest.in writes

The Olympics in August this year will only ensure that the Chinese have to adopt a twin pronged approach. On the one hand they would want to welcome the world and the international press to showcase the economic might that China has become, with its fantastic stadiums and breathtaking architecture and infrastructure while at the same time black out questions on the freedom of speech and religious freedoms in the country. Given this dilemma the Chinese will find questions on Tibet even tougher to answer. China will have to realize that globalization and the fruits that come with it, have also an important caveat. The more one opens to the world the more the world will scrutinize your systems. The dissent that China sees is the result of that sobering lesson that globalization has to offer.

This image from the same site completes the irony

Every one agrees that China is on the rise, every one agrees that the brutality in the Chinese policies is going to cause lot of trouble for all others, but every one forgets this while investing in China to improve their immediate/short-term profits which are directly dependent on the very policies that they complain about… Is China this century’s Germany?