If You Must Point, Make Sure your Nails are Long and Shapely

An extremely cute person sent me the following story about India's intent to share evidence with Pakistan on the recent bomb blasts on Mumbai trains:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3815302a12,00.html

For those pressed for time, the story is headlined "India to share Mumbai bombs evidence with Pakistan", and says that India has strong evidence linking Pakistan to the Mumbai train explosions and will present this evidence to Pakistan.

Why are we doing this?

It does not come as a surprise to me that Pakistan is involved in terrorism. But presenting Pakistan with hard evidence of their own shittiness will serve very little purpose as long as the United States continues to be Pakistan's sugar daddy. It is a waste of time. What India should do is articulately present said evidence to the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD in the distant hope that at least some countries are embarrassed into distancing themselves from Pakistan. It is a distant hope, but it is at least better than presenting some sort of evidence to Pakistan in the even fonder hope that we will embarrass Pakistan.

I would like to stress the fact that we need to present the evidence articulately because as with most other things, international diplomacy is very much about good form. Also, it so happens that this evidence needs to be presented to the Western world primarily, for no other reason than the fact that the Western world pulls more than a few strings, and that a lot of those strings are attached to Pakistan.

But the attention span of the Western world is about two minutes when it comes to matters involving third world rabble such as India and Pakistan (unless of course the matter involves caste wars, religious decapitations, incineration of widows, or cows walking the streets) A few hundred Indians who ended up dead when their train went boom don't bother the average American or European much.

This is where the good form comes in. Style and drama are as important as content when presenting a case. Put a pretty face on the screen, for chrissakes, and have her describe the horror. Hire a bloody Miss India if need be. Those people must be good for something besides mouthing inanities about "franship" and "world peace" and selling two-rupee shampoo satchels. Recruit them and press them into service for a good cause. Since the Western world's attention span goes up dramatically in proportion to the amount of cleavage presented on-screen, that should be an attention-getter.

We talk loudly about globalization. Why not globalize a case against terrorism?

Yes, it should be targetted to a global audience, not a subcontinental one. And it should preferably be done by a well-dressed, well-spoken diplomat; not by a Natwar Singh clone. 

No frothing at the mouth, no wild-eyed accusations; just damning evidence presented with a certain flair. Have you seen Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu in action? He is a former Prime Minister who later served as Israel's Foreign Minister under Ariel Sharon. He was, and still remains, an articulate and sharp spokesman who lays out a case and pulls no punches. That is the sort of person we need. This link: http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/video/, contains an interview with Mr. Netanyahu. It is about fifteen minutes long, but I think you should watch it. What Mr. Netanyahu says at the end of the interview about "perfect victims always being perfectly moral" is strikingly true. You may not agree in the entirety with what he is saying (or even at all), but just note how well he says it. Unfortunately, given the general shallowness of this world that we live in, that counts for a lot. The Indian government needs to understand this.


Postscript: Here's a late thought. We have a thriving, mammoth movie industry that can be lucid at times. Movies like Monsoon Wedding, Bend it Like Beckham, and Fire seemed to get some international play. So why can't we leverage that and increase awareness of terrorism through Bollywood? Where are the Deepa Mehtas and Gurinder Chadas? If a movie about some random Indian wedding is worth making, then so is a movie on Pakistani terrorism. If a Monsoon Wedding's time has come, surely a Bombay Mayhem is overdue.