May.08 : Before I knew what “USSR” stood for or indeed where it was, I was given a misleading and derisory description of Communism by a teacher and taken with the rest of my class to the school gates to join a throng of the hoi polloi and wave to the passing Nikita Khrushchev who was a guest of the Indian government of the time and had done our town the honour of passing through it.
Very many of the crowd that lined the pavement waiting for the cavalcade held little red flags with sickles and hammers to wave at the impossibly luxurious-looking black cars followed by grey Ambassadors that the touring dignitaries and their escorts were using. Following the crowd, though discouraged by our Christian teachers who expressed their disapproval of Communist atheism, egalitarian doctrines of Mr K himself and of the Indian government for not being British, we joined in the chant of “Hindi-Russia bhai bhai!” which we could hear approaching as a wave of sound from further down the route as the cars approached.
Mr K and other burly people in black suits waved from the cars beyond the lines of police stationed to keep the eager citizens from overflowing into the street.
The visit did stimulate a lot of debate about the suitability of Communism to a country such as ours and some newspapers gave voice to dissenting opinions about the evils of the Soviet system.
I don’t remember waving at Chou En Lai (these were the days before the Chinese decided to conflate the last two syllables of their names, turning Tse Tung into the surname Zedong) but I was aware that his state visit had produced the imaginative slogan “Hindi-Chini bhai bhai!” which Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru took to heart. The Chinese military assault on India — that was how we saw it in 1962 — must have made him wonder about the persuasiveness of the slogan his propagandists had popularised. Yes, brothers we were — but then so were Cain and Abel.
There were dissident opinions in the Indian press at the time. India did not uniformly welcome the visits of Mr K or Chou. There were a few publications which voiced their dissent on the grounds of the domestic reputations of either of these leaders or the autocracies they led, but there was no Nehruvian police force to knock at dawn at the doors of the editors of such opinion and carry them away to the gulags of Orissa or wherever. The Indian populace was free to wave its paper flags, scream its fraternal identity with Russians and Chinese and return to its round of scrambling for a living. In some international charade being played out by our leaders the visits had significance.
And today in Britain the present Pope Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Ratzinger, has been invited by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to a tour of Britain. The Vatican has accepted and the visit is scheduled for September.
The foreign office of Britain, having very little on its hands with the global financial crisis and its massive deficit, with the war in Afghanistan, the withdrawal from Iraq, the threat of nuclear armament by Iran and of the acquisition of dirty bombs by local terrorists, the surfacing of Al Qaeda bases in Yemen and Somalia and other such trivia, turned its corporate attention to the visit of the Pope. A small team within the foreign office was asked for its views on what activities the Pope should engage in during his state visit. It was a question seeking serious answers. The one penned or computed by one Steven Mulvain of the team, set its heart on satire.
Mulvain’s memo said that the Pope should “launch a range of Benedict Condoms, be invited to inaugurate an abortion clinic and sing a duet with the Queen to raise money for the victims of AIDS in Africa”.
Very many people in Britain believe, as I do, that the Pope’s advice or infallible transmission of God’s word to the faithful is, on the points of contraception, abortion, safe sex, homosexual relations and several other matters, mistaken or wrong-minded. That’s as may be. The Pope is reputed to allow people like myself to hold these contrary, foolish and perhaps even Satanic opinions. Sticks and stones will break his bones — after all the apostolic successor of St. Peter is avowedly human and words shouldn’t hurt him. And they wouldn’t and won’t, but the words should not, for the shame of Britain, have emanated from an official of the foreign office who was asked for his judgment on the agenda of a state visit.
The memo, written by Mr Mulvain and allegedly passed by his superior who happens to be a person of Pakistani extraction, was circulated in official circles and even, it is said, reached Downing Street as, at worst, a satirical offering.
As British citizens both these geezers are perfectly entitled to their opinions about the Pope and his stand on contraception, gay people and abortion. I have opinions about his opinions too and only a Stalinist style police, set up by the next government of Britain, can stun me into not expressing these opinions whenever and wherever I feel is appropriate, whether it be at a gala gathering of the Irish Catholic Hooligans Club or in the saloon bar of the Sock and Sadist where I spend my spare hours. But then I don’t work for the foreign office and any memos I send to 10 Downing Street would probably have me arrested and deported.
The point being that Mr Mulvain is obviously a booby with a deficient sense of humour who should take extended sick leave from the foreign office for his bad jokes. The point is not that paparazzi will be unduly offended. I am sure the rock on which the church is built has weathered many tides and will not take either Mr Mulvain’s memo or the subsequent apology from foreign secretary David Miliband as more than droppings from passing seagulls. The damage is to the mehmaan nawazi of her Maj’s kingdom.
Please note that I do not recommend a hanging and quartering of Mr Mulvain. But, to digress, I am very glad that a preacher who publicly spread derision if not hatred against gay people is to be prosecuted and perhaps sent to the Tower or equivalent. This voicing of opinions also has its limits.
Farrukh Dhondy
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/content/farrukh-dhondy
