For the first time in my life, I got the chance to watch some world leaders delivering speeches in UN General Assembly. It was an opportunity that I cherished. It was a wonderful experience listening to Benjamin Netanyahu especially. Other speeches also like Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Abbas, Muammar Gaddafi were very informative.
The world at the moment is reeling under tense times. The Economic Downturn is still around in some measures. Afghanistan and Iraq still remain far from stable. US and China interdependence is leading to increase in China’s illegitimate influence in African Oil rich nations and in turn strengthening China and increasing headache for India. The perennial headache of Pakistan still poses a grave threat to national security of India like 26/11 attacks in Mumbai and unstable governments in Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar contribute to the rapidly deteriorating stability of the region. Africa as usual is reeling under its heap of dictators and Europe is entangled with USA in Afghan-Iraq wars and Economic Downturn. Russia is still struggling with economy and instablity of the Caucasian region. Australia is dogged by racism and economic downturn as well as mining company dispute with China. South America has its share of problems with some Communist leaders always at conflict with USA and Swine Flue along with the Narcotic wars. Middle east remains the point of attraction though, with USA at war in two major countries, Israel-Palestine conflict and Iranian rebel heroics with Nuclear Energy, with a ripple of instability after elections in Iran has made the entire situation worse. This all made sure that the UN General Assembly was going to be one interesting meet and it fulfilled its promises.
Hugo Chavez in his characteristic speeches spilled venom about US policies. Maahmoud Ahmedinejad went full on with claiming the Holocaust as a lie and stressing that Iran will do what it wants to do. Then came the real interesting bit, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi broke all the speech records with 96-minutes speech while breaching the protocol and exposing his inability to understand the Global Questions. His funny suggestions included Independence to Kashmir and making it as a buffer region between India and Pakistan. One of his amazing inventions was that India is in some way responsible for deteriorating situation in Somalia.
But, Benjamin Netanyahu stole the show with his awesomely well drafted and astonishingly well punctuated and executed speech in English. He simply rocked with his composed stature. I personally do not agree to many of his views and for that matter many of Israel’s policies. But, if I were to select the best speech of the General Assembly it would be of Netanyahu (Though I didn’t listen to many speeches, I don’t think any other could beat this). He refuted Ahmadinejad’s claims of Holocaust denial with Paper proofs that he brought from Germany. He dismissed Iranian government by calling them Iranian Tyrants. He simply called the speech as shameless and also termed those who gave it a hearing as shameless. He slowly established Israel’s achievements and sufferings and how Israel was always mistreated by Arabs and then defended Israeli offensive against Palestinians. He refuted United Nations Human Rights Council’s report and called it biased. He compared the Gaza rockets to German bombings of World war. He was all over the place. He touched every point regarding Israel. It doesn’t matter he was right or wrong, he stood there in complete support of Israel’s policies, it didn’t matter if some policies were of the Government before him. Even the Palestinian bench gave his speech a hearing for almost 70% of the time then they walked off in protest.
In contrary Mahmoud Abbas’s speech though very informative and sounding truthful, lacked the fervour and it only showed the helplessness of the West Bank Palestinians without the support from their Extremist Gaza brothers.
I couldn’t hear Pakistani Speech, but no major news channel gave it any importance and thus probably it didn’t matter much. Also, no international media gave any big mention to S.M Krishna’s speech for India, but I happened to read its excerpts online. I read that he urged the World Community to help bring the 26/11 perpetrators to justice. If this is what he said, I must say this is ridiculous.
India calls itself emerging superpower and it couldn’t even stand up for itself on World Stage. There was one attack on USA and Afghanistan and Iraq are still burning. I am not comparing USA and India, but just look at the responses. USA didn’t have any proof, neither were they needed to show it to the World, they just did what they had to, to bring the perpetrators to justice. Here, we have for the first time in Mujahideen history, caught a Mujahideen alive, we have his testimony(though we have made a National Sensation out of him). We have all the call records, proofs that even FBI acknowledges, we have FBI giving a deposition in our court and still, we urge the International Community to help us. Why I mean, why can’t we be firm, since we have some strings of World economy moving on our terms. It just shows our inherent low self esteem. This would cost us dear in near future. Look at Israel, being such a small country in such a hostile neighbourhood, they still manage to hold their own. Though, some may claim they are protected by US, but even Pakistan is protected by US. Like Israel, Pakistan also has nuclear weapons (which it has proliferated to other hostile countries for money{Read more here}). Everyone can see, where is Pakistan and look where is Israel. That proves it doesn’t matter what you have, what matters is what you do with it. India has everything to make it big, it just falls short of doing.
P.S. : World’s 20 biggest Economic Powers met at G20 Pittsburgh summit, which had a lot of importance for India and it overall went well as India did well with holding its own. Bu, amusing was the next similar style event hosted by eternal rebel Hugo Chavez. He held a summit of important African and South American nations to discuss their prospects. Interestingly, Brasil attended also the G20. Though, I am all praises for Chavez for his this kind of initiative.
I Also saw Robert Mugabe’s interview with Chritiane Amanpour and was amused by his constant answer of “because of US Sanctions”, this made me remember Pakistan’s perennial answer of “because of India”.
Note : I saw all the speeches on TV. I am clarifying this just because, I read the post and it doesnt mention where I saw the Gen. Assembly. Though, I saw the Gen. Assembly for the first time in my life.
Tags: 26/11, Benjamin Netanyahu, G20, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe, UN General Assembly
So from local politics to national politics to the world politics. Your blogs nowadays seem like news report from the correspondent who is going places !! Very well written and organised. Interesting questions are raised which I think we as Indians have pondered upon from time to time. Like in your earlier blog, as I had commented, we have tolerance where we don’t need to. But now thats how our inherent nature has become. The people in the government are seeking their private gains, short term it may be but then they are there in the system all this years like a cancer slowly destroying the very ethos of this nation from within. We require people who are strong nationalists. Nationalism is not about putting the interest of the self first but it is about interest of the nation first. Its a big irony in a democratic state like ours that people who have been elected can think of getting away from their responsibilities and duties. I for myself, know that I am doing nothing about the present scenario. I am niether fully involved in active politics nor am I doing any social activities which would make me advocate steps to eradicate the cancer of our system. But I would like to say, in my case it would be the small things that matters that would ensure change.
1. Exercising my voting right.
2. Making more and more people aware of their rights and the importance of having the right choice.
3. Trying to enlighten people about things I might know and they don’t.
4. Try to inculcate a life of ethic and moral wherein I myself try to keep my national integrity at highest level (It could be the small things as not littering to big things as not cheating in our manufactured equipment).
We are at the twilight of change. Darkness or Light, only time would tell but we cannot quit. We cannot leave. We cannot deviate from our righteous path.
Well said Hari! If even 10% of Indians do what you plan to do, it would be a great feat. All the best to your endeavours.
While you are there, try to visit the UNO office at Geneva Switzerland and let me know your experiences.