Oh, grow up…!
An important aspect of growing up is to learn that the sun doesn’t rise just to shine on you each day. That there’s more in life than your own concerns – and that there are others, who want to do things their own way, which might, on occasion, not directly serve your own interests and might not even be strictly to your liking. Some of the people you have to deal with might even disagree with you about things you hold dear, or sacred.
So, what happens is, ideally, that you learn to deal with that kind of stuff. In other words, you grow up.
Most people try to do this, and do manage, to a degree – on certain days with more success and grace than at other times but most of us give it a shot.
The majority of countries though are like small children, with most of them not even trying – or pretending to give a good Goddamn. They want things to go their own way – and if they can, they will make sure things will. Like all small children, they are ego-driven, monomaniac dictators at heart – and they do love to throw the odd tantrum:
The BBC World Service said it had been told it could no longer broadcast on the FM frequency in Russia. All broadcasts ceased at 5pm local time yesterday. On Thursday the Russian licensing authorities ordered the BBC World Service’s Russian partner, Bolshoye Radio, to drop the BBC from its programming or lose its licence.
The Kremlin was last year accused of jamming broadcasts by foreign radio stations - a tactic of the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It has also been accused of pressuring Russian stations to end rebroadcasting agreements with other foreign broadcasters, including the US-government funded Voice of America and Radio Liberty.
So, if you don’t like bad news, just ban it. Jam foreign radio stations, kill the odd local journalist – and if you are a totalitarian, one party dictatorship to begin with, things really could not be easier:
China has ordered its media to report only positive news and has imprisoned a pro-democracy dissident amid a clampdown on dissent ahead of the most important meeting of the communist party in five years.
Media controls have been tightened, Aids activists detained and NGOs shut down as president Hu Jintao prepares for the 17th party congress, when the next generation of national leaders will be unveiled in a politburo reshuffle.
Chen Shuqing, who is a founder member of the banned China Democracy party, suffered the toughest punishment meted out so far when he was found guilty on Thursday of “inciting people to overthrow the government”.
Of course, it’s not just states that act like spoilt pre-teens. Religions are extremely good at it as well. The bulk of Christianity’s most disgusting acts of childish egocentricity are in the past: Crusades, witch & heretics burnings and all those other things that happen when you give small children enough wriggle room and matches to seriously misbehave.
Islam, on the other hand, has recently come into its own, when it comes to the tantrum throwing stages of what would seem to be a serious case of arrested development. We’ve had Rushdie; we’ve had those damn cartoons. We even got ourselves a new, true, Islamist icon: Rage Boy.
And now we have this:
The poet and novelist Taslima Nasrin has been attacked at the launch of her book Shodh (Getting Even) in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Reports suggest that a crowd of between 20 and 100 protesters, led by three local politicians (MLAs) belonging to the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) party, burst into the Hyderabad press club shouting slogans describing Nasrin as “anti-Muslim” and “anti-Islam”. They ransacked the venue, throwing chairs and overturning tables, as well as reportedly slapping the writer in the ensuing melee.
Of course, whenever things like this happen, some moronic, so-called religious ‘leaders’ will be quick to make a name for themselves as well:
Ms Taslima Nasreen’s worries are far from over. Barely two kilometres from the Writers’ Buildings, Muslim religious leaders issued an ultimatum to the government: to deport the Bangladeshi writer from the country within a month, after which they will offer “unlimited amount” of money to anyone who beheads her for “defaming Islam and the Prophet” in her books.
“Whoever speaks against our Prophet with malicious intention should be eliminated. Protecting Taslima is equal to state terrorism. I will be the first person to shoot her. Letting her go free and air her views may lead to a carnage”
And what’s the Bangladeshi government’s response been to this, so far?
So glad you asked…:
Legal proceedings have been launched from all sides as the case of the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, attacked last week at the launch of her book in southern India, takes on a political dimension.
The author herself faces up to two years in jail if found guilty on a charge of inciting religious tensions, launched by local police at the weekend.
So, with most states and a good deal of the world’s major religions behaving like spoilt and insufferable brats, sometimes one feels that if there is a God, someone should sue His or Her ass for being an absent Parent.
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