A Modest Proposal

On Christmas Day 2009, aspiring Nigerian pantybomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab set his explosive-laden underwear on fire in an attempt to bring down the aeroplane on which he was traveling to Detroit. This was the first attempt to bring down an American airliner since shoebomber Richard Reid tried to light his explosive shoes on fire in late 2001. It was also a huge failure in airport security, since security protocols had been strengthened multiple times since the September 11 attacks, and this sort of thing was just not supposed to happen anymore.

To it's credit, the US administration immediately tried to rectify these security holes. Homeland Security Janet Napolitano tried in a time tested manner to stick her head in the metaphorical sand and pretend that security worked just fine. The Transportation Security Administration issued new guidelines that would ban blankets, toilet privileges for passengers and inflight movies on the theory that if flying was made tedious enough, terrorists would refuse to fly. Bill Clinton (who is not a member of the administration but might as well be) redoubled his efforts to reduce the number of virgins in the world and the next, thereby denying terrorists a valuable recruiting tool.

However, it is already apparent that these measures will not fly. The American public is in no mood to be denied its blankets, potty breaks and the chance to catch up on old reruns of Friends on boring long-haul intercontinental flights. They are even less inclined to put up with intrusive searches by hand or even by the proposed new millimeter scanners (that would report TSAs to see, save and share with 37 of their best friends images of your privates). The administration is thus caught between a chunk of vitrified minerals and a hard place: It must make sure that such attacks never come so close to success in the future, but it must also try and not inconvenience the great majority of the American flying public. The security apparat is this scrambling to find a new security protocol that will allow them to stay within these two strictures.

It is our opinion that there already exists a method that would allow the TSA to secure American planes while at the same time keeping most passengers from unnecessary discomfort. However the weak-kneed civil libertarians and bleeding heart liberals who currently populate power structures in Washington are too yellow to even consider it. That method, that solution, that silver bullet is a simple technique perfected by police departments in ghettos across America: Profiling. But how would this profiling work?

Consider this: What is common to Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Mohammad Atta and Umar Frouk Abdulmutallab other than they are all lowlife terrorist scum? That's right, they are all engineers. Engineers are overrpresented in the membership Jihadi terrorist groups. Al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (the parent organisation of Hamas), the Lashkar e-Taiba, Jamiya Islamia and Hezbollah were chiefly founded by engineers. It is no exaggeration that most if not all the top leadership of jihadi groups are trained in engineering. This phenomenon is so striking that sociologists write lengthy papers (link pdf) trying to explain this trend.

But what does this have to do with airplane security and with profiling? Well, it's simple. While it is true that most engineers are not terrorists, it is evident that almost all terrorists are engineers. That being the case, it is the our opinion that if you are male, an engineer and between 18 and 28 years of age, you should be strip searched at the security gate of airports. This is a serious and harsh version of profiling, but if we do not do this, we are going to lose an airliner. It also has the effect of reducing the level of scrutiny that other passengers go through. Sadly, given the climate of appeasement and political correctness that permeates the holders of power in this country, that is unlikely to happen. And I think that is the problem.

Avatar as a Rorschach Test

On the cab ride back from the theater where we saw Avatar, my friend Uthra remarked how it was odd that protagonist Jake Sully's avatar in the movie appeared with a U-shaped marking on his forehead which very closely resembled the naamam of the Indian Vaishnavite Brahmin subcaste. She also remarked that the blue colouring of Na'vi, the alien race to which Jake's avatar and many other characters belong was similar to Ram and Krishna, two of the avatars of Vishnu. Clearly, she said, the Na'vi were Vaishnavites.

Of course, we just had to stretch the metaphor further. The very concept of Avatars is Vaishnavite in origin. Also, the Na'vi are worshipers of Eywa, a force that maintains the balance of life on their world. This is also the prime motivation of Vishnu. The Na'vis' human antagonists, on the other hand, wish to destroy much of their world to extract resources for their own civilisation - a motivation that can broadly be described as Shaivite. The main human villain, Colonel Quaritch, ever has three horizontal slashes on his head that resemble the tilak that Indian Shaivite Brahmins wear on their foreheads. Clearly, by our reasoning, Avatar is Vaishnavite propaganda aimed at showing Shaivites in a negative light and positing a victory for the Vaishnavites in the future struggle between the two (this is obviously nonsense - Shaivites are the the Vaishnavites' superior in everything that matters).

But when I came back home and read the multitude of reviews of Avatar, I realised that almost everyone else that saw the movie had been engaging in similar allegory. Some praised it as a metaphor for the displacement and genocide of the Native Americans. Others hailed it as a commentary on the unjust seizure of private property by corrupt local governments using eminent domain. Ross Douthat of the New York Times eviscerated it as an advertisement for taking up pantheism in preference to the Western world's more prevalent Abrahamic religions. Annalee Newitz of io9 decried it as an escapist fantasy seeking to assuage white guilt while maintaining white privilege. Other people looked through their 3D glasses and saw variously notions of the white man's burden, the noble savage, blame-America-first liberals, Iraq War criticism, the military-industrial complex, gorilla researchers in the Congo and many other things besides. And they either loved or hated the movie for these reasons.

Make no mistake, Avatar is a path breaking movie. It is perhaps even a historical movie - the first to utilise technologies such as performance capture, the first to depict CGI characters in primary roles without entering the uncanny valley, the first to use 3D in a non-gimmicky fashion in a mainstream film. It is visually appealing and an incredible experience to watch and listen to. But in spite of all this, Avatar serves as a kind of Rorschach test to project our hopes and fears into. We either love or hate Avatar based on not what it is, but on the deeper meaning we read into it. It becomes to us either a needed confirmation of cherished views, or an unwelcome statement of positions we despise and we develop strong feelings based on these readings of the movies.

So what I am basically saying is that Avatar is the cinematic equivalent of Barack Obama. Stay tuned for the inevitable Nobel Prize next year.

Reflections on Armistice Day

As an Indian, the 11th of November never really had much significance for me. World War I is largely absent from the Indian consciousness. Sure, many English-speaking Indians are aware that it happened - we studied it in our history books and perhaps even read British and American books about it. Even so, it is largely a war that happened to other people. We wear no poppies on the 11th of November, and nor do we hold solemn marches on the 25th of April. The poem In Flanders Fields hold no significance for us, nor does the vast majority of the literature written by men who fought in that futile and pointlessly wasteful war.

Yet Indian soldiers served, fought and died in this war. A million men - forming the largest all-volunteer force to serve in the war - were sent overseas to fight for a country they would never see and a King-Emperor whose name they could not pronounce. They fought in the meat-grinder of the Western Front, where Khudadad Khan became the first non-white man to win the Victoria Cross. They fought in the East Africa Campaign where they died in the thousands of disease and privation while their incompetent commanders let a tiny German force run rings around them for four years. Some were even sent to Gallipoli to fight in the ill-considered and badly thought out Dardenelles Campaign. The greatest number by far fought in the original War for Oil - the Mesopotamia Campaign.

Perhaps the defining event of the Indian experience in World War I was the Siege of Kut, a part of that same Mesopotamia campaign. The Siege began in the December of 1915, when the Sixth (Poona) Division of the Indian Army established a position in the town of Kut after retreating from another battle. Their dithering commander, Charles Townshend, failed to break out of the town despite multiple opportunities to do so, and his equally incompetent counterparts in the relief force failed to dislodge the numerically inferior Turkish besiegers. Finally after four months, his soldiers starving and reduced to eating their pack animals, Townshend surrendered unconditionally to the Turks. While he lived out the rest of the War in comfort, Townshend's troops were treated brutally by the Turks. Of the 30,000 odd troops he started out with, about 13,000 lived to surrender along with Townshend. Barely four thousand survived the two and a half years of ill-treatment and privation at the hands of the Ottoman Army. After failing to do much to protect his men from their captors, Townshend returned home to a hero's acclaim and was elected to Parliament.

While the Siege of Kut is a particularly egregious example of the suffering of Indian troops in the War, other theaters and battles were quite bad as well. Three thousand Indians died in East Africa of disease alone. The Indian contingent in Gallipoli suffered close to 60 per cent losses, along with most of the other Allied forces. Why did so many sign up to fight this faraway foreign war in such terrible conditions? Undoubtedly many joined up for the money, for the steady pay and the wartime bonuses. Some joined to continue the martial traditions of their families and communities. A large part of the Indian contingent in World War I were actually soldiers in the armies of the Indian Princes, sent to fight for the Emperor of India, who also conveniently happened to be King of England. Given the paucity of written accounts by these soldiers though, in most cases we will never know why they joined up.

My great-grandfather was one of those men. We do not know why he joined, but he served as a Regimental Medical Officer in the 1/1 Gurkha Rifles for duration of the War. He spoke of serving in Iraq and Palestine, so perhaps he took part in the Mesopotamia Campaign (where, among other actions, his unit participated in one of the failed attempts to relieve the Siege of Kut) and Allenby's march to Jerusalem. He left the Army at the War's end, settled down in Bombay and began a successful practice. He was a pillar of the community who raised five children, including my grandmother. He was lucky. Lucky not to have been with his unit in the year it spent on the Western front (where they were gassed by the Germans in the second battle of Ypres, the first use of chemical warfare in modern warfare). Lucky not to have been in the Siege of Kut, where only one out of six who joined survived to the end of the war. Lucky not to have otherwise fallen to enemy bullets, disease or hunger, as fully one in every ten Indian soldier in that war did.

Many were not as lucky. Between 90,000 and 100,000 Indian soldiers died in World War I. A similar number were wounded, and perhaps some of them died of their wounds in peacetime. Many surely returned physically whole, but mentally and emotionally scarred by shell shock and post-traumatic stress to communities that did not understand their conditions and could not treat them. Their courage, sacrifice and honourable service in this futile foreign war won them few favours from the British, who continued to think them inferior. And we, their descendants, have largely forgotten them, made their names mere footnotes in the histories of our newly independent nations, and ignored their memorials.

They were, as the saying goes, the unknowing, led by the unworthy, doing the impossible for the ungrateful. So this Armistice Day, I say, let us just think of these men. Let us remember them, and the courage they displayed in the face of great hardship for little reward. That is the least they deserve.

The Gustavus Adolphus theory of Viking Conquest

Today is, as we all know Gustavus Adolphus Day. It is a day of solemn celebration of this great man, of marzipan medallions eaten on no other day (thanks for the factoid Betsy!) and of general Gustavus Adolphusness all around. But it is also an occasion to consider Gustavus Adolphus's greatest achievement: his awesome name. As a keen student of Renaissance European history I feel I can say with no fear of exaggeration than Gustavus Adolphus' is the awesomest royal name of the entire era.

But a closer look at the history of the Swedish monarchy will reveal that Gustavus Adolphus is by no means the awesomest of Swedish regnal names. Amongst Gustavus's royal forbears of the Houses of Munsö and Stenkil you will find such awesome names as Eric the Victorious, Emund the Evil, Magnus the Strong and my favorite, Blood Sweyn (this last king was so awesome, his less awesome nickname was Sweyn the Sacrificer). All these are good, manly names. They are names to strike terror into the hearts of recalcitrant subjects and people who are tardy with their taxes. These are, then, names that inspire hardened warriors to get into boats, sail to distant lands, rape, pillage and carve blood eagles into their enemies.

That last point is an important one. For many years, historians have puzzled over the ferocity, bloodlust and sheer military prowess of the Vikings that terrorised the known world (and parts of the unknown) from the 8th century to the 11th. These bloodthirsty beserkers made their presence felt from Newfoundland in the west to Azerbaijan in the east, from Iceland in the north to Morocco in the south. They toppled long established kingdoms, harried others, and founded nations that bear their mark to this day. This is all historical fact. What is not so well understood is how they did it. The Vikings were not superior in any outward way to their adversaries. They shared a common descent and language family with their victims in England, France and Italy (all ruled at the time by Germanic kingdoms that had not long ago conquered the Latin civilisations there). They were at a similar level of technology and culture. Their strategy and tactics were not vastly different from the way the Saxons, Franks and Lombards they faced would have used at the time. Why then did were the Vikings able to carve a swath of war and destruction across all lands within their reach?

To answer that question, I now ask you to consider the names of their Kings. The Kings of the Swedes we have already seen. The names of their counterparts across the Oresund are no less dripping in cojonidad*. The Danish Kings rejoiced in such names as Sweyn Forkbeard, Halfdan the Cruel and Ragnar the Hairy. Across the Scandinavian mountains, the hardy Norwegians knelt to Kings such as Eric Bloodaxe, Harald Hard-Reign and Haakon the Broad-Shouldered.

Clearly these are names to inspire awe and strike fear into the heart of the disobedient. When Eric Bloodaxe tells you to get into a boat, cross the Atlantic and scalp some Skreylings, well, by Odin, you do it. Hafdan the Cruel probably never had his subject question his orders. Blood Sweyn's nobles surely quaked in their boots, tormented in their dreams by fear of the consequences of not obeying his foolhardiest command.

This theory seems doubly strong when you consider the names of these Vikings' adversaries. The King of England at the time of Sweyn Forkbeard was widely known as Aethelred the Unready. His forbears included such kings as Edgar the Peaceable and his successors included Edward the Confessor. The French were ruled by kings such as Louis the Pious (and as if that were not bad enough, his alternative name was Louis the Debonair) who was succeeded by such men as Louis the Stammerer, Charles the Fat, Charles the Simple and Louis the Lazy. The Lombard Kingdom of Italy from about that time was ruled by such men as Rodoald the Lecherous and Hildeprand the Useless. Clearly, no sensible man would fight for kings such as these. When in the army of one of these kings, facing an army led by say Harald Hard-Reign or Emund the Evil, abandoning one's colours and fleeing for one's life certainly seem like good, prudent choices.

Thus, we have a working hypothesis for the success of the Viking bands against the armies of the Germanic Kings of Western Europe. The question remains, then, of what we can gain from out newfound knowledge of this piece of history. The answer to that, I think is simple. Too often we have found our leaders, the leaders, indeed of the entire free world lacking in the authority to deal with their adversaries and contemporaries in the rest of the world. The simple solution to this issue is to give them manly, bloodthirsty regnal names along with their Presidential and Prime Ministerial dignities. Would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad feel free to defy Barack the Disemboweller with as much impunity as he does now? Would plucky MEPs dare to question Gordon the Blood-Drinker on the floor for the European Parliament? Would upstart Pakistani generals dare to upstage Manmohan Iron-Fist? The answer, I hope you will agree, is no. They would not. And the world would be a better place for it.

The way then is clear. Let us do what we can to bring this about. Write your representative, sign petitions and make phone calls to bring about the necessary constitutional amendments and laws in your country to do this. Let us make this so, and together we shall create a better world.

(* I just made this word up)

My Nominee for next Year's Peace Prize: The Norwegian Nobel Committee

Ever since the announcement yesterday morning that US President Barack Obama has been awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize, some (or at least me) have begun to wonder who might be in line for next year. Since the Norwegian Nobel Committee that awards the Prize famously only accepts nominations until the first day of February in the year of the Prize, I figure its not too early to nominate a winner. And my nominee is the Norwegian Nobel Committee itself. Or more specifically, the current Norwegian Nobel Committee. Thorbjørn Jagland, Kaci Kullmann Five, Sissel Rønbeck, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn and Ågot Valle, I nominate you yourselves to be next year's Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Why do I want to nominate these worthies for the Prize? Well, they have managed, through their surprising and likely poorly-thought-out Peace Prize pick, to unite people from all over the world in shock, disbelief and disdain at their decision. Not often do you hear the Taliban, the Republican National Committee, pretty much the entirety of the US media and arguably Barack Obama himself agree on something like this. People all across the world, whether in the US, Norway or India, whether leftists, rightists or typists all agree that Barack Obama did not deserve the Peace Prize this year. They may have different reasons for this belief: that his awesome work is still to come, that he is the AntiChrist and will plunge the world into cataclysmic war, or even that this Prize will hurt Obama's Presidency. But they all agree that the decision to give him the Prize right now was stupid.

Now sure, there are some among the President's supporters who think the Prize was rightly awarded, or that he totally deserved it, or that they knew this was going to happen this year. But then, the fringes of any movement produces some seriously loopy individuals. Hell, some of Barack Obama's supporters like to paint him naked, being given an oil massage by a Unicorn. Uniting the rest of the world, the vast majority of the people on this planet, is achievement enough. In making their strange decision, the Norwegian Nobel Committee have united the fraternity of peoples in a way that Alfred Nobel could scarcely have imagined. So take a bow, you crazy Norwegians, and award yourself the Prize you so richly deserve.