{ முகநூல் கருத்துக்கள்}{ட்விட்டர் கருத்துக்கள்}

On the day the former President of Iraq, Saddam Hussain, was hanged in Baghdad, there were widespread protests in many parts of the World - especially in the Muslim (largely Sunni) communities. In Kayalpatnam, most shops were closed and posters condemning the hanging were pasted across the walls of the town. Buses were stopped, posters were pasted and then allowed to proceed.

If one stands back and ponders over, one can sense there is something wrong in all this. Whose death are we mourning here? Saddam Hussain? A brutal dictator? A man who was responsible for two major wars that took the life of millions? A ruler who brutalised his own citizens?

It is not that people who defend Saddam are unaware of these facts. They would shot back - when thrown these questions - so what? Look what the United States had done. They backed Saddam's Iraq during its 8-year war with Iran. The US armed Saddam, they were with him when he used the chemical weapons. About Kuwait invasion of 1990? Saddam was only protecting his economy - threatened soon after the war with Iran had ended in 1988. And they would ask, what about the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq? Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), they would query. They do have a point, don't they?

So, you see, it is not black and white when it comes to Saddam. It is a lot more gray. Gray? True, but why then our reaction is not gray, not neutral? Why do we have to call Saddam a great leader, a great warrior and so on?

It indeed is frustrating and a source of immense anger - to see a person like Saddam demonised, but at the same time leaders like George Bush and many others (who have caused deaths of far greater number of people) - treated softly and even praised for their rule.

Harry Truman, the US President during the closing years of the Second World War: He ordered the dropping of two nuclear bombs over two Japanese cities - a bomb each on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Was he ever brought to justice? Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford: Men who presided over the Vietnam War, the bloody war that took the lives of hundreds and thousands of innocent Vietnamese, saw the use of chemical weapons like 'Agent Orange'. In fact the crime list of many world leaders - including that of the so-called cultured, advanced western countries - would fill a library and more. To quote Noam Chomsky, a linguist by profession, but more popular for his incisive analysis of the US foreign policy: If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

In popular perceptions (especially in western societies, but also in other societies), people like Saddam are easily affixed blames (correctly so) and people like Reagan and Bush are eulogised. The reasons are not difficult to understand. The world public discourse is greatly controlled by the western media (and their aping cousins in other societies) - through TV, Internet, Print and Entertainment avenues (like Hollywood). This is sad, but a reality nevertheless.

In our anger over the actions of countries like the US, however, we shouldn't hurrily lose our balance and start defending people like Saddam. The advent of mediums like Internet has increasingly started bringing the truth to many homes. Many have started realising that leaders like Saddam, Putin, Sharon, Bush and Blair belong to the same club. Our efforts must be directed at righting the imbalances that exist in disseminating the whole news and correct informatiom and bringing to light the impact geo-political games of many rich and well-armed countries are having on the world. It will be a long and arduous road, but the one that must be walked.