Yet Another Poland ...?

Sandwiched

For a long time there was a phrase, a verb, balconisation - and while I am unsure now what it exactly meant, since I was either too young or younger than that when the phrase was coined and largely used, I cannot but help thinking there is need of another phrase, if humanity need to learn from history rather than make the same mistakes over and over across the boundaries of artificial sort, around the globe.

The verb should be Polandisation.

I remember meeting a couple of fellow travelers who were from Poland, when on a trip through Moscow and Warsaw, long ago. They spoke Russian and German but no English, and I spoke very little German, which made for a truly heroic - and often hilarious - attempt at being friendly across the limitations with communication. I remember a few things they said, and one of them was explaining why they spoke the two extra languages other than Polish. Their nation was usually swallowed by one neighbour or another, the two Big Brothers they had one on each side, they explained. I knew this sort of vaguely, but it was very clear when we landed at Warsaw and the snowstorm had messed up flights schedules and further connections needed to be sorted out. The officials at the airport spoke very little English and I had a lot of trouble getting attention much less help, since they naturally took care of those that spoke their three languages, which included everyone else - almost. Those were the days before, long before, glassnost and breakdown of iron curtain.

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Today when the world faces undeclared wars in every corner of the globe - funny how we keep on with old phrases when they are incorrect in light of new information, how can globe have corners? - the lesson from history of Poland is again relevant in a spot far away and rather unrelated at a superficial view. India faces a gathering of vultures, perhaps only one or two but not all small, and needs to remember Poland.

For the longest time there was a misconception that Poland was ridiculous, they had no real military and their fight against an invasion in '39 was hilariously stupid and contemptible. Nothing could be further from truth. What is true however is that most nations were then unprepared to fight the sort of aggression that certain powers with agendas of a different sort had gotten themselves ready to unleash on the world, and Poland was only the first to resist and fall.

The world, whether Europe or India or any other part, had seen aggression often enough, and usually the agenda was profit from aggression, either of the sort that loots and runs back home or the sort that stays put and exploits on and on. Either way it was a matter of time before the aggressors settled down sated and the business of the world went on as usual and most ordinary populations only watched out for their own safety by laying low, not fighting back, and paying extortion to a different or yet another one once again.

This aggression however was different and few understood it well, and its aim was a complete destruction of the world, civilisation and evolution and all the achievements of humanity until then in every field, all the factors that were not base or bestial and all that uplifted humanity above crawling beasts - no surprise few understood this well, for how can one be normal and comprehend such an agenda? Most of us assume normality or a semblance of it in the worst of the enemy facing us, and it was difficult to understand that this time was different. The enemy faced by humanity was not human, although humans to the tune of eighty million had been leashed as captive servers and they were not aware of this, so they assumed they were being normal and it was all very confusing, very deceptive.

Poland faced and fought back bravely while other nations declared war in tandem but could not come to aid soon enough, and in fact while Poland fought it was an embarrassment for the aggressors - they had most modern well equipped military and here was a nation fighting back on and on rather than falling in a few minutes as other nations had done, with really outdated equipment and no preparations at all.

And subsequently Poland faced far worse a destiny when the war had been fought and won, when decisions were made - allies did not have Poland at the table to decide as a participant but rather gave it away in subjugation to the strong and demanding ally who had fought at different times on either side of the war, even though Poland had fought through the war - when the nation was occupied there were regiments that fought from Britain, every bit as valiantly as De Gaulle's branch of Allied forces - and then it took some decades of work to free Poland and indeed all of the block behind iron curtain.

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Today it is a war of another sort, and the powers that seek to occupy and convert a culture or two are of another nature, the aggression wears another face and the onslaught is being carried out using other tactics. But basic lessons that can be learnt from Poland are very relevant. India is one of the points where the urgency of this lesson cannot be overemphasized. Which is rather frustrating - India does not learn such lessons easily, complacency being a very favourite national vice, and giving away everything an aggressor wants an old habit employed with sloth that presents itself as peace. Peace is a very real gift from the Divine and is not for the lazy cowards that would allow everyone to walk over and take the neighbours' child to throw to the wolves in the interest of saving one's own skin for now.

The world and India specifically needs to be aware, to learn, and to know the difference of the most essential sort - the humans that are the face of aggressor are not the aggressor, even though they think they are, they are merely the agents shackled in service without perhaps their own knowledge of what they are doing. Nevertheless the aggression is very real and has perhaps the same aggressor behind the scene, and by that what is meant is not the particular nation that was the face of the aggressor seventy years ago, but the real one behind. The powers it has chosen this time as a front or a face are of a different nature - perhaps not even nations, but another sort or two, wearing different uniforms and chanting different slogans than of national sort - but their aggression and intentions are no different, the agenda is destruction of all growth and hope of humanity, all progress and well being and peace and evolution, any survival of civilisation at all.

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It is definitely not the time to point fingers at who marched around that might have been the excuse for a war, who broke which building or destroyed another ancient monument whether house of worship or a tremendous statue, which might be blamed for the subsequent horrors heaped on innocent populations. If loss of a building or an empty monument or a huge statue globally understood as object of worship justifies or excuses hundreds and thousands of people being killed, the implications of such a statement would be far more universal and indeed the stupid excuses for humans much less leaders who spout such crap deserve to be explained what implications of their statements are before they are run out with a few articles of footwear out of any position they could do damage to humanity from.

Stupidity in face of aggression is dangerous, not to mention hilarious for the enemy whose work is made easy by such idiots, those that think branding the Polish army as the reason for WWII would solve all problems and save their estates from damage. While they feed neighbours' children to wolves they do not stop to reflect that they in fact are getting the wolf used to being fed at their doorstep and their own near and dear will face it one day, when the wolves will be stronger and more aggressive due to all the easy feeding and used to it, with no loyalty required. Wolves are nobody's pet dogs.

These poor excuses for humanity accidentally in positions of power that they could inflict much damage from by mouthing dangerous inanities should be made to read a few pertinent things and then made to chant over and over the very relevant lines of Donne.

Berlin, Paris, ....

This country, this nation never ceases to surprise anyone observing.

Just when you would think that the nation is at least united in grief for the dead and sorrow for the bereaved, and the good job the police and other agencies, even various media channels are doing of helping the descovery of the roots of attackers, with help of various people who are unafraid of facing the camera to tell what they saw and found, just when you think anyone of and from this much derided nation - for its poverty and its claims to a global player role nevertheless, rather than an acceptance of a poor dependent or an ex-slave haning head in shame role - must have good reason to be quietly proud of its resilence and unity in face of threat, one channel comes out with a whammy of a slap with on camera interviews of a few middle class people in the city across at the other side of the country volubly taking sides with the terrorists and the nation that is globally now not only known but even acknowledged to sponser them with various tools, chiefly ideological support and infrastructure, and channeling the necessities of terror - weapons and funds - from thoe that provide such for other purposes.

These people, not in danger of being attacked by terrorists any time soon (- although they did undergo the most horrible massacres not so long ago, which they now excuse perhaps as happening in need of breaking the nation apart before freedom, or so some of them have said to me on the internet, I don't really have proof of identity of those who did and do not really know if they were who they said) - since they have successfully killed their inherited city from being a thriving capital once to a dying one for a long time with their politics, have no need to be in solidarity with those that were murdered by terrorists and can afford to be sympathetic in media bytes with those that perpetrated the terror.

Perhaps those bytes were carefully orchestrated by the channel that aired them, being ever cautious about not seen taking sides of the people who are more victims on the whole, but the words did not seem rehearsed and if there was an orchestration it was in selection of those that would say those things, including an assertion of the poor other nation being unable to afford funds for the purpose of supporting terrorists and their exhortations of our nation's need to understand the terrorists and their reasons for the criminal acts.

Perhaps it is their ideology, in need of acting differently from the other nation that was attacked seven years ago and should not be emulated by those of a formal leftist faith in any manner including a solidarity when attacked, so if US was united after wtc then these people must instead provide an example of how some people of a nation attacked with terror can be sympathetic to terrorists instead; and, too, to the nations that support infrastructure of these attacks with all sorts of needs - poor youth trained in ideology of terrorism and little hope for lives while money flowing freely for those that are willing, for example - the whole culture, money and ideaology and weapons, everything; the sympathisers have either forgotten the massacres in their beloved city or truly believe sympathy will get them enough browny points to be safe from those attacks personally.

It is all very well for the channel to wish to air some such bytes, the reality was they found people to mouth them, even if it was clear across the country, on camera too. The channel might be goaded by the terror dons with carrots and sticks, but the people were not actors hired for the purpose - they seemed genuine enough. Then again, who knows! They were a handful, unlike the crowds marching in support of the victims and martyrs.

One cannot help comparing Berlin during the cold war where people had resilience in face of the wolf that had all but swallowed them and they lived every day with a courage difficult to imagine. Then again one might remember Paris and indeed France during the wars, occupied during the second without much of a fight, with most people unsympathetic to the occupation but unable to speak or act, some active in resistance and more collaborateurs - post war, the quiet but definite and unrelenting treatment meted out from resistance to collaborateurs is barely whispered as is the persecution of known saviours - Schindler, Wallenberg - of the persecuted of the holocaust across the border. Both were real.

France fell without a fight and made it that much difficult for the sole remaining one the allies then, the one possibility of any defence of civilisation and humanity, and Britain must be admired for the qualities that came forth in the hour of need when the nation was severely tested. They could have avoided it easily enough, and never suffered - they were really admired by those that they would not succumb to - but others would have suffered horribly, and India part of those that were thus protected when London fought on and resisted being sucked into the whorl of the end of humanity.

Poland did not give in without a fight and in fact had regiments fighting alonside the allies, were in fact part of the allies and were callously pushed aside at the talks while France was given an equal status - and Poland fought on another occupation for another half a century valiantly while France went on to join the ex-enemy to form a united Europe. Poland was helped along by US and their unrelenting media exposure, and one now comprehends why the singling out of Poland to the exclusion of other nations for such help across the iron curtain. They deserved protection no less than Czechoslovakia who was browbeaten into submission without a fight - and Hungary or Austria certainly who were half and half when it came to their own participation in holocaust but were only techically occupied, with collaboration of various sorts widespread. Any discussion gets murkier with only individuals being in the clear as guilty or innocent, and the nations or societies of all these nations not in the clear really - how many fought back, how many resisted,
what culpability as nations do they bear ....

France escaped a great many horrors, but was less than friendly with those that had rescued the nation, or so the rescuers had thought they were, with much confusion about why the resued were far less than appreciative after the rescue. For a long time people - tourists, students, whatever - visiting from UK or US, indeed most English speaking visitors, got a cold treatment in France at best, hostility thinly veiled. Germany used to be less hostile, and since the fall of Berlin wall the two swapped with France becoming friendlier and Germany perhaps now affording to be hostile at the street and commuter train levels to English speakers and other visible "foreigners".

This difference of attitudes and the changes in one matched with opposite in the other probably has more to do with the economy. France, as UK and Soviets did too, refused the Marshall Aid that was offered them as well, while Germany and Japan accepted and were affluent far sooner. Indeed the war time rationing and strained circumstances of UK citizens continued for well over a decade after the war. Another - more obvious but perhaps only equal to economy or even less than that - is the political picture; with the break up of Soviets leading to lessening of threat on eastern horizon for Germany and the unification of the nation along with its position as leader of the central European nations that are closer to (or often even are) German speaking; so a stronger Germany can afford to be more confident about themselves and its citizens, particularly youth, has really not been taught what they were supposed to be taught at school. They need to reclaim their pride and do not see what is wrong with that.

In India, it is unclear if a state that is leftist, border state and has not suffered from terror since the freedom is more comparable to a divided Germany and a Berlin before the fall of the Berlin wall, or France that did not fight and capitulated with the other - the only one unoccupied, what with Poland losing before others could defend in reality - ally left to fight alone. Perhaps it is a bit of each. Then again, comparisons go only so far, and perhaps this case is entirely its own, with their need to stay aloof and prove they are above the others who are victims of terror.

During the era of KGB terror in Soviet Union the stories and jokes told around often said more of the valiant citizens of the nation and their resolute keeping of sanity and values. One of them went - "when they came for my neighbour, I kept quiet pretending to be asleep; when they took my family, I did not protest; when they came for me there was no one to speak out" - which is not verbatim, I forget the exact words, but one gets the sense. Then again some perhaps do not mind feeding the wolf with whatever it takes, neighbours' chldren, one's own sheep and dogs, or one's own limbs if it comes to that.
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A leader of the opposition has made remarks including some disparagement of the western-style candle vigils at the sites of terror, mostly Taj even though the train station saw at least as much of a massacre, and this leader mentioned the upper class women wearing "lipstick" and thinking their candle lighting was a sufficient gesture. This leader cannot be personally reproached, he belongs to the community the media and left would give a wide berth from any accusation. So the media have instead gone for the party he belongs to and gave extensive time to a media person who disparaged his - the opposition member's - side, with a "they cannot tolerate educated women".

This famous glittarati member forgets that most of the nation has a very large educated class of women and indeed men who prefer to stay with their own culture and values, and do not see any reason to ape fashion of the west, lipstick or whatever; he also conveniently does not explain if he thought all lipstick wearing was indicative of education. He in fact is disparaging the whole nation, in his equating lipstick and westernised aped fashion in general with education and awareness. He comes across as disgustingly ill informed or thoughtless at best.

Whether he equates education and awareness of mind with a schooling of a western orientation and much expense, completely writing off the intellectual wealth and deep roots of the nation he is supposed to belong to, one does not know. This is even apart from the fact that even those that have not been able to go to a poor school are often very knowledgeable, not only in their own professions and spheres of life but far more.

This member of glitterati as many others of his like with similar schooling - one is reminded of the opening speech in Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra - need an education desperately and are not likely to get one because they have closed minds, equating all legacies and agendas of the past colonial rule with superiority of every sort.

It is easy - at least possible - to wake up those that are asleep, not those that pretend.
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Just when you would think Delhi was all about westernised upper class growing and fashion above all, one sees children of public schools - from well to do families by definition - performing a worship and invocation for the souls of the victims and martyrs, for peace and security of their brethren across a thousand miles away.

It is a statement of solidarity, unmatched, with its genuine nature rooted in their deep and true concern, and their innocence of pretensions and of any needs to pose.

If Mumbai is New York and London of India, Delhi is London and Washington D.C.; when they are together in spirit one can still hope, in spite of few others.

For that matter the statements of support are from clear across the whole nation from every small town as well, and a few bytes by a few poseurs to the contrary merely act as so much red pepper in a much needed medicine for a wound. It stings, but perhaps those that put it there had a knife pointed to their throats. It is not difficult to guess who held the knives.

Foundation When On Brink

It has been going on for a while now, with explosions in markets and trains and buses and busy places in India becoming perhaps less common than another nation not so far only in terms of per capita frequency.

With the long siege of what was perceived as a landmark and the sixty hour battle waged by police, then all forces together with commandos arriving to much applause from all bystanders - people in various stages of trauma, with worry about their near and dear, and about the nation - and spontaneous cries of Bharatmaataa Ki Jay and Ganapatibaappaa Morayaa (the former much recognised by the media explicityly, the latter quite clear and yet ignored as if that would make it impossible to hear) - these were genuine scenes.

People have been patient, and now it is a consistent mood of anger, a just wrath slowly rising to boil. The much patient nation at mercy of various groups who would attempt a domination or terrorising or a takeover, dealing with all these idiotic attempts with the infinite patience of a mother who sometimes just might give a whack or let out an admonishing shout, is now obviously running out of patience for the moment.

At that it is again something to be said for the people, who do not take up the media and others for a spanking they deserve for calling this the worst only because now it is the rich and elite and much valued "foreign" visitors targeted rather than the usual poor and middle class who get much less media coverage with much more deaths. Unless the media can give it a different angle, which is when it is endlessly pursued while other "incidents" are deliberately glossed over.

But no, people have been united with solidarity irrespecive of who was hit, and ignored the media bias, and taken it as an assault on the nation to be dealth with as one nation. They have not asked why the media wrote off the other blasts and assaults when they were not against rich, at any rate they have not been holding that as a reason to say "this was not our problem" as in fact the media and the rich have tacitly - in fact even explicitly - said about the earlier assaults that affected the not so rich.

Sometimes one wonders if the media realises they do not deserve the great people of the nation that they let down so callously so regularly without a thought. And then there are the politicians who are at the moment in power in most states. Supposedly those that belong to the people, at least in name - they stick those labels and think it is enough - they have lost touch with people, with reality, with meanings of words. With what they call themselves for that matter.

And the people are united in just wrath, as a nation, with a solidarity most people of the affluent would-be western sort do not expect only because they wear blinkers of their would be western attitudes. The people are seething, and not boiling over yet but that is not due to any help from the media bytes by any of the usual - the rich and the famous, the politicians or the media, or the glitterati of any sort. Few have said anything people could perceive as what being with them would be. AB said something all too human, no pretension, no special reminder of status, his usual way. Few others. It is the people as one nation that is very clearly perceptible now. In anger, and support of the affected, in laudatory response to the saviour forces of the nation, in grief for the dead, in reverence for the heroes.

It meanwhile has been - extremely unwisely - helped along to higher temperatures by the politician who was seen spurned in his media political exercise by the grieving father of an only son, the young major who lost his life battling the terrorists and saving lives of others.

The father did not wish a drama, a facade, belittling the reality of his loss - and the politician, not accustomed to being refused entry to a citizen's home since he is a chief minister now, gave shockingly disparaging comments about the father of the much revered martyr. He certainly chose a moment to commit political suicide, to say the least. For someone supposedly leftist it was far more callous a few bytes than one would expect from a feudal lord that he acted as if he was, which is perhaps what he has become accustomed to be treated as.

For the last few days the nation is on the brink of chucking all politicians out, and especially the ones at the moment in power in the affeted state as well as the other stupid ones on the side. The heroes saving lives were from police and the military and special forces. The country and the people have been close to a brink they have not perceived, of becoming a military rule if only there were one person who took over and showed what was needed for the hour.

Fortunately this is India, and it is not so easy here. Democracy, people's fundamental rights and powers are not bestowed by anyone either of colonial rule or subsequent. They are deep rooted in the very soul of India. It is not about formality of it, it is about the truth of the matter.

When there was a threat to this it was not the leftists or the westernised elite or any of the much voluble but the mainstream people, the silent populace of India that very effectively used what little weapons they did have - and threw it out, in recent memory and in older times. For those who belong to the nation it is a matter of well deserved pride, rather than looking elsewhere for approval.

The foundation is ancient and firm rooted, and the nation has survived being on the brink and not toppling over into a dictatorship by choice. That it has been so, even when faced with threat from outside and military and police the only defence, is a matter of gratitude indeed. To the nation, and the Creators of the nation.