Thursday, November 27, 2008
Mumbai
What does one say about the attacks in Mumbai? Emitting the sort of pious condemnations required of politicians is worthless and attempting to understand the context is futile. Furthermore, the attackers seem to belong to a previously unknown faction. So one cannot even make sage judgments about Al Qaeda strategy - the Deccan Mujahideen may be unconnected. Then there is the strangely chaotic, almost random nature of the DM's tactics. This is, in short, a curiously and frustratingly opaque event - at least for the moment.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
spare a thought for The Sun headline writers now that it's called Mumbai.
ReplyDeleteA guy who does a lot of contract work for me was caught up in the fighting last night, his brother got hit and has now lost the bottom half of his arm.
ReplyDeleteIve stayed in the Taj a few times, the first time was Feb/march 2001, I remember watching the tv news in the lobby showing the Taliban blow up the Buddhas of Bamyan. I remember what a fellow guest said to me while watching, he was an Indian business man, "one day they will try to blow up you as well, they hate us but they also hate the west" his words came to mind immediately as I watched the second plane fly in the TTC tower.
Bryan, you are falling into the western view of seeing QA as some sort of structure or design like we have in say a western bank or business.
A Islamic Mullah is a leader in prayer, in Islam there is only you and god, no one in between. AQ or "the Base" are just that leaders by example.
I'm on the case so it may not remain opaque! Hope you have recovered.
ReplyDeleteWell, as an Indian, I would just tell you not to generalize it to an us vs them. Even if you are generous to include us into your "us".
ReplyDeleteSuprisingly, Deepak Chopra had some sensible things to say here.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/26/king.chopra.mumbai/index.html