tHE nEW wORLD oRDER

Vishal Khanna, NC

Return of the No-No Boy

He dressed as a woman and covered his face and walked calmly out the service entrance. It was hot outside, as it had been for centuries. The sun was still the warlord watching from above and counting the debts we all owed.

But the air was free and possibility was everywhere and he was walking his path of destiny. His associate was waiting outside and they began their journey. They traveled by car, by foot, by train toward the only commodity with any true meaning.

When Subhas Chandra Bose escaped from house arrest in early 1941 and fled Occupied India to Germany, he was not a traitor. He was a revolutionary hero fighting the imperialist empire of Great Britain.
The 1940's, a decade recently idealized by the Spielberg media machine, may have been a simpler time for Americans. Right versus wrong. Good versus evil. Allied versus Axis. But for people like Bose, head of the Indian National Army and the true hero of Indian independence, that time was not so cut and dry.

It was cut and paste and do whatever you can by any means necessary to win freedom from your conquerors.

Britain, without consulting any native leaders, declared India a warring state in late 1939. Bose did the same two years later when he asked Hitler for support in his battle against the British imperialists.

In 1943, Hitler sent Bose by U-Boat to Japan, where he met Hirohito and received a commission of 40,000 troops. Indian troops led by Indian generals. When Bose's armies occupied Coxtown on the Indian-Burmese border, the troops fell to their knees and kissed the ground.

Freedom is the only commodity with any true meaning.

In a simpler time, in America, we were at war with Germany, Italy, Japan. In a simpler time, in America, Japanese Americans were locked up, incarcerated, interned just because they were Japanese American. The only way to avoid these internment camps was to enlist in the Army, to prove your patriotism.

German Americans and Italian Americans were not incarcerated. Being white was proof enough of patriotism.
The term No-No Boy originated in the West during WWII. The nickname referred to interned Japanese Americans who protested their incarceration by refusing allegiance to the U.S. and, at the same time, not disavowing their allegiance to the Emperor.

Subhas Bose was the first No-No Boy of the East. Britain was wrong in its colonization of India. Bose had no choice but to seek the aid of the Axis powers in his fight for freedom. He did not support the mass killings by the Emperor's army in Mongolia nor the concentration camps in Eastern Europe.

Bose was not Allied. Not Axis. He did what was necessary for the freedom of his people.

This is not an academic discussion and this is not a simple time, as our leaders would like us to believe. The solution is not binary. Today, in this complex time, people from South Asia and the Middle East are looked upon with suspicion in the U.S. Under her breath she said 'Is he a terrorist?' Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus have been and continue to be attacked, accosted, harassed and killed in this country.

The bloodthirst for revenge has fueled a government which believes it has the right, the mandate, to slaughter both innocent and guilty people in Afghanistan. 3,000 people were killed in America which means 30,000 will be killed in the name of revenge.

Our leaders would have us believe that the September 11th terrorist attack and the U.S. attack on Afghanistan are a closed loop. That they exist in a vacuum. They want a nation of amnesiacs with no sense of history.

But understanding our place in history today is essential toward understanding what we should do tomorrow. We did not simply appear the morning of September 11th, 2001. George W. Bush would have us believe that we are hated because we are an economically stable democracy. He would have us forget, or never learn, that U.S. foreign policy has directly led to the creation of a predominantly non-democratic, classist Middle East ruled by dictators, monarchs and religious zealots.

But here we are. The people of America. Within imperialism in this very complex time, in our place in history. Are we justified in our post-911 actions? Will the future see our leaders as war criminals? Will we the people be looked upon as complacent participants in genocide, much like we portray the Germans of the 1930's and '40's?

Only if we lose the war, which most likely won't happen.