Local Elections

My father had assumed that I would vote in the local elections (equivalent to the municipal elections in Indian cities). He was surprised that I came home without voting, and that I had not talked about it much. "You always jump about when there are elections, you get so excited", he said.

I didn't vote because I just didn't have the time to read up on the candidates. I didn't think it made sense to vote when I barely knew anything about the candidates.

Why didn't I have the time? I just got busy with work stuff. My corporate world encroached on my citizen participation. Democracy is time-consuming. Does unbridled capitalism leave time for real engaged participation in democracy?

"It is not flashy, but election might change power in city", as the local paper The Telegraph put it. I should have participated.

Uplifting SlumDog Millionaire

Uplifting. This term is being used fairly commonly to describe the movie SlumDog Millionaire. The movie is ‘uplifting’ because in spite of all the trials and tribulations Jamal undergoes the movie ends happily for him, causing people to leave the theater on a high note. But I take serious issue with that particular happy ending. My friend put it well when she said, “Everything bad that happens to him is because people do bad things to him. But everything good that happens to him is by accident”. In other words everything is against him; he only escapes his difficult childhood because 'it is written'. To me this implies a message that you have to be lucky to aspire for a different life than the one you are born into. If one accepts that thought, then one accepts status quo when it comes to the disadvantaged and underprivileged people in the world today. There are millions of people are being exploited, but there are always people who will escape their circumstances through sheer luck. I volunteer for Asha (http://www.ashanet.org/) because I am not happy with the small number who escape through sheer luck – I want everyone, or as many children as possible, to have the opportunities to improve themselves.

As the movie progressed all I could think of was the millions of children in similar circumstances who are not going to win the million dollars. Many have complained that the movie focused only on the negative side of India, and some wonder whether all that indeed happens in India. Asha volunteers know that nothing in the movie is inaccurate. We work with organizations that fight the powerful channels that supply young girls to men. We work with organizations that are fighting the begging mafia. And we work with organizations that deal with the aftermath of riots and work towards preventing more riots. We know all that happens in the movie happens to children, day after day. But we also know that one kid winning a million dollars is not a solution in any shape or form. I think the movie does a disservice to the problems it so starkly portrays by leaving viewers with an uplifting feeling. I wonder how many people run out of the movie theater wanting to do something. To me the movie’s end trivialized the solution to the problems the poor face.

It is of course the filmmaker's choice. He is not making a documentary, but an entertainer. But the challenges that Jamal faces to me were too realistic to be entertaining. Feel-good movies in general are not so starkly realistic when they portray the difficulties of the hero. The hero typically undergoes some difficulties and then something nice happens to him and the movie ends happily. Even if the difficulties are realistic, they are not the difficulties of a multitude of people. They are the difficulties of one hero and a few like him and he gets past them and lives happily ever after. The fact that this movie was so realistic in its portrayal of the difficulties, and then becomes so unrealistic in portraying how the hero's life changes for the better, really disturbed me. How can people find this uplifting? Or entertaining? Friends tell me I am taking the movie too seriously. But then the difficulties that kids like Jamal face ARE serious! And real!

Stark. That is what the movie felt like to me. Real situations where hope is represented by the very, very, VERY long shot of winning a million dollars.

Voting

I managed to get to the polls relatively early (by my standards). The birds were chirping as I went along, as if they were heralding this momentous day. There was hardly a line at my polling station and I picked up a ballot and went to the little enclosed space to mark the ballot. As I stood there and looked at the names, a wave of emotion swept over me. It surprised me completely and I was taken aback. I had increasingly become a strong supporter of Obama, but was somewhat detached, content to observe the campaign from the outside (unlike my eager involvement in the Howard Dean and John Edwards campaigns). I do not know why the act of casting the ballot today made me emotional. Was it because the questions and thoughts Obama has in his first book about bringing about social change echoed my own sentiments as I struggled with similar issues as an Asha volunteer? Was it because a President Obama embodied the fact that the United States of America was truly a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country? Was it because it is amazing and humbling that after 9/11 and after Saddam Hussein is known as a reviled dicator the US can still elect someone called Barack Hussein Obama? Or was it simply that the election of Obama would finally bring to an end to the appalling governance of President Bush?

Perhaps it was all of the above. What I know is I was moved to tears.

Taxes

I think this would be a good non-profit to start (if one does not already exist that does something similar). A non-profit that explained the purposes of taxes, and how taxes can help provide infrastructure that will help taxpayers and their children in the long run. Let us take one example, education. The US has an education quality crisis in schools, and it has to do something to have more youngsters get a college degree. The jobs one could get out of high school are rapidly diminishing and if they want to compete with people outside the US who are working on outsourced projects more and more Americans have to really become part of the knowledge economy. All this requires an investment in education. Subjects like basic Science might not appear to have an immediate monetary benefit and thus cannot be left to private enterprises to manage. Government intervention is necessary. Such intervention is also necessary to guarantee quality education for all as a basic right. It will help the families of Joe the Plumber and Mary the Waitress if an investment was made in education. Of course the taxes have to be fair and reasonable. But the anti-tax folks don't bother to even look at the nature of the taxes - they just say, "we don't like taxes!".

Anyway, a non-profit that focused on discussing this with the people from the grassroots on up would be very beneficial. Then maybe people would not get swayed by sound bites during the general election.

(Amazing how the election has become all about sound-bites, this has been the case pretty much after the two conventions. This is why primaries are fun - issues are discussed. In the general election the targeted voters all seem to be people who don't have the time or inclination to do in-depth research and serious thinking, but are instead be swayed by a convincing speaker who has a good screen presence.)

Socialist! Socialist!

'Socialist' they call Obama - in almost the same tone they would call someone 'thief' or 'a fraud'. If they can successfully make that stick, then they would indeed get some traction, since Americans don't like socialists. Growing up in India in a socialist environment I can see the good things of 'socialism'. But for someone who has grown up in the US that word, and anything that can even be remotely connected to the notion is such anathema. Bred as they are in the environment where wealth is 'infinite' and can 'continue to grow', where supposedly anyone can come up if they work hard, they are opposed to the socialism with a vengeance. It is all a matter of what you are exposed to growing up!

Similarly, the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was considered a liberating group, a group fighting for freedom when I was growing up in India, because of the Indian government's policy at that time. It came as quite a surprise to me that the PLO is considered a terrorist organization in the US. So much of all of this is just what one is subtly influenced to think.

Going back to socialism, portraying someone as socialist also seems to be one way of portraying someone as the 'other', as someone different from yourself. Instead of saying, "he is black so he is different", the refrain now is, "he is socialist so he is different". People don't want to vote for the 'other'.

Spreading the Wealth Around

Overhead a Dutchman say on my flight to Amsterdam a few days ago - "We spread the wealth around." And he went on to say, "the gap between the rich and the poor is much less in The Netherlands than it is in the US."

"No country in the world has succeeded with socialism", says Palin at rallies. I wonder what she would say if she went to The Netherlands.

Oh, and while we are talking about The Netherlands - it is such an public transport friendly country that we could not get a taxi back from the customer site back to Amsterdam airport. The customer was not particularly apologetic, and pointed us to the train station, where we had to take one of the frequent, very comfortable trains to Leiden and change there to a train straight to the airport. While my colleagues were trying to find a taxi at the train station a couple in their sixties went merrily cycling by. It was raining, but no matter. They wore raincoats and cycled on. It is good exercise too.

It was such a delight when I bought something at a store and the storekeeper did not give me a plastic bag but default.

"Angry Leftists"

Hmmm.....the speakers at the Republican National Convention (RNC) seem to like an enemy. "Angry Leftists" and "the media" seem like favorite targets. Sly digs at "change we can believe in" and "hope" pepper talks, even from those who appear mild like Laura Bush. I don't recall this in the Democratic National Convention (DNC), though I grant that some biases might be coloring my view. :) Fred Thompson went much further accusing the democratic nominee as incompetent, inexperienced and liberal (what a bad word that is at the RNC) who will take the country back ten years etc. etc. The worst I can remember from the DNC is people saying McCain was more of the same from the last eight years. Well, I suppose McCain's heroic personal story makes it harder to attack him with vengeance, but still .....

And oh, women seem to be rather prominent at this convention, from speeches by woman leaders like the captain of fire-fighters in the Minneapolis to Laura Bush highlighting all the women in her husband's administration. Very subtle digs.

It is very entertaining to see the differences between the two conventions. Starting with the attire of Laura Bush and Cindy McCain I was struck by the relatively dressy skirts they both wore (not to mention the pearls around Cindy McCain's neck) compared with the relatively professional suits and pant suits of the women who spoke at the DNC. Michelle Obama wore dresses, but somehow they felt more bold than dressy. Then there is the heavy emphasis on the Christian religion, one could be forgiven for thinking the US is a Christian country and not a secular country. It was an unexpected realization that so many Americans seem to want a "Christian" America. And of course the interspersing of military pictures and scenes throughout the events. I wonder whether the RNC always has that or it is more now because McCain. Perhaps both, and the need to be seen as being right about the Iraq war makes highlighting military action necessary. Country music appears to be predominant and you may laugh when I say I quite like that. :)

Fred Thompson has been the most polarizing speaker far, aiming strongly worded verbal slaps at the democratic party. Am I glad he is not the nominee! I wonder that he was not picked as the vice-presidential nominee. Would have satisfied the evangelical base as much as the current nominee I think!