Media and the Legacy of Guilt and Pride

Something that I saw on TV forced me out of my blogging apathy. So, let me write something first up in the morning.

Did we already agree that our electronic media is er.. fairly stupid. CNN-IBN, the more flamboyant and "experimental", has also grown to be the more stupid of the news channels. That they orchestrate biased opinions is already known. They also seem to know a lot of history, and the nature of guilt and pride.

I saw the first half of Germany vs Ecuador last evening. Thus far it has been a great worldcup finals for the Germans especially with Klose delivering at every ocassion and Ballack and others consistently feeding the strikers. Evidently, the home crowd is ecstatic and is holding its hopes high. However, according to CNN-IBN, it's much more than that. These victories (particularly the stunning 3-0 victory over Ecuador) have finally given the Germans something to be proud about. From now on, it's "cool to be a German"! This worldcup finals success has effectively absolved the Germans of their "collective guilt"! So, the German peoples, generation after generation, have been carrying a "collective guilt" because one particular regime and one particular dictator had disgraced them about 70 years ago. If you happen to be a German woman, and give birth to a child, you better induce that sense of guilt in your child. It's better you do it, before the rest of the world does it. Whatever be your child's individual achievements, s/he has to be guilty and apologetic (unless, of course, the child grows up to score a goal in the worldcup finals).

I am not too keen about things like "pride" "guilt" "patriotism" etc.. I am not a judge on what should people be proud about and what they should be guilty about. But when we think of Germany, do we only think of the holocaust? Don't we think of their cars? Of their physicists? We don't forget history. In fact, we need to learn from history. That does not necessarily amount to carrying a historical guilt. At the least, we don't have the right to "assign" guilt to someone just because that person, due to some random cosmic causal chain, happens to share a broad identity with some historical bad guy. (I am curious if the CNN-IBN guys are aware of the "big picture" of consistency in thought and expression. Their own comprehensive, albeit biased, coverage on reservations talked about not carrying the historical guilt, among other things. So then...). Also, why just Germany? Why not Britain that had committed atrocities in India and Africa. What about the US? Or is the retribution achieved, thanks to 9/11? Well, the world moves on. Guilt cannot have a place in the scheme of things if we have to do well. And guilt about something that was unrelated to me and on which I didn't have the least bit of control? Ridiculous.
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From whatever bit of our family history we have managed to gather, we have learnt that our ancestors were highwaymen (or probably they used to come on horses with arms and mug people) from Maharashtra. I cannot vouch about the authenticity of the story, but I find it kind of cool; I want to have it that way. Once when some of those valiant horsemen came to loot some nondescript villages in the present Belgaum district, North Karnataka, the Desai (a local ruler) of the Desagati (his small "kingdom") to which those vilaages belonged, allegedly talked them out of their business, gave them some lands in one of the villages, and requested them to lead a normal zamindari life. Since I am not a mugger, you can rest assured that my ancestors agreed to that deal and made do with the new business. Latter generations lead an honest and respectable life even under severe conditions. The recent generations have flourished. Many of them successful engineers, doctors and teachers; my uncle is an acclaimed writer, my father writes as well; culturally active; fairly well known in our part of the world; and so on. Thus, we have effectively removed all stains on our family that our ancestors had left due to the sins they had committed. And I am playing my part as well. You see, I am one of the very few computer science PhD students in India. So, that's a huge contribution to this guilt removal process. Heh.
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Since we don't have a world class football team, but do have a cricket team, we can surely fancy a chance. If we want to stop carrying the collective guilt of Ayodhya, or Godhra, or Gujarat, our cricket team should win the 2007 worldcup. I am resting all my hopes on that. At that moment when India wins the worldcup, I'll resile to a guilt free, legacy free, proud life.

"Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake."

(As I was writing this, CNN-IBN was showing a program called "Kiss N Tell" discussing stuff like what kind of a kiss is good; the "social etiquettes of kissing"; the basis is the recent kissing incident involving a Mika dude and a Rakhi Sawant girl. One of the dudes that they ask an opinion for says, "A smooch is OK...". Sigh! Watching "news" in the morning considered harmful.)