Brave Heart Cybercitizens, This is my third 'Alternative King's Message'.

My prime obsession, 'wikileaked' into cyberspace via the NFP, is with corruption and racism in high places in Norway. Till now few have believed me, and mine has been a cry in wilderness, because the whole world is made to think that Norway is Cleaner than the Cleanest. But now I have been vindicated. For the first time (at least to my knowledge) an established news media, BBC World, has raised the question whether Sweden (Norway's Big Brother) is as clean as everybody is forced to believe.

I refer to BBC's article of 9 December, 2010, "Is Sweden as clean as it seems?". I will not discuss this article except to remark that "taking or giving bribes" is not the only definition of corruption. There are many other issues that fall under this umbrella.

As I have said many times, if Sweden, and especially Norway, appear Super Clean, it is simply because they don't allow anybody to raise this long-overdue 'BBC question'. But knowing Sweden and Norway better than BBC does, I am afraid, sooner or later BBC would be forced to regret having asked this question.

I begin this year's message with news media, first the subservient and timid Norwegian Media and then some "predictions" about the powerful World Media. I will end with corrupt India.

About two years back, half a dozen Norwegian MPs, including two former prime ministers, Gro Harlem Brundtland and Kjell Magne Bondevik, were caught red-handed stealing pension funds worth millions.

Mr. Bondevik just decided to say nothing, and not one media person had the courage to tell him that he owned an explanation to poor old pensioners whose money he had stolen.

One young courageous reporter did manage to catch Mrs. Brundtland as she was entering her house. She got very angry on the reporter, told him he was asking too many questions, and slammed the door right on his face. The poor guy was so shocked that he could not even end his report with a few closing remarks. I saw this with my own eyes on prime time news on TV2.

In a similar incident about the same time when Mrs Brundtland was caught red-handed misusing medical insurance, she started scolding the reporter who had gone to interview her.

This reminds me of an old Indian adage:

"A sure sign that you have entered a lawless land is that the first thing that catches your eye there will be a thief scolding a policeman."

About a year ago a backbencher MP was caught on tape literally vomiting her hatred of colored Norwegians. Again when asked about it, she simply said that she is not a racist and the sting operation was an illegal intrusion in her privacy. Bigwigs of Norwegian media rushed to reprimand the reporter for breaking the law and causing pain and discomfort to a MP, and from that day he disappeared from public view. I never saw him again on TV reporting anything.

To put these episodes into perspective, let me recall how Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, was videotaped demanding money for arranging meetings with Prince Charles.

When confronted with the tapes, she did not accuse the reporter of acting illegally, or try to silence him in any way. She took the blame on herself and admitted to her own poor judgement. And mind you, she was a powerful lady with a princely title, not some unknown backbencher MP whose name I have forgotten.

Similarly, when former British prime minister, Gordan Brown, was tape-recorded passing uncomplimentary remarks on one of his supporters, he did not scold the media or shut his limousine door on their faces. He too apologized publicly for his actions.

And the courage of Indian Media is legendary. They are not afraid of prime ministers, presidents, or Maharajas, and nobody, not even Empress Sonia Gandhi, dare scold them in public. And mind you again, Mrs Brundtland is no Empress!

So my first Christmas and New Year's wish is that Norwegian Media show some courage and responsibility in bringing truth to the people. Shivering at the very sight of some unknown professor of Oslo university or a faceless backbencher MP is not the way to prove that Norway has the "most democratic media" on the planet.

So much for the plight of investigative journalists in the "most open country on earth". Now I come to the plight of the old and the dying in the "richest country in the Milky Way".

Recently the state sent a directive to all health-care workers that every person in their charge - however old or sick he or she may be - must take less than five minutes to piss and less than ten minutes to finish his meals because more time than this creates an unbearable burden on the exchequer which rich Norway can ill-afford.

When I heard this prime-time news on TV2 on 29 November, 2010, I could not believe my eyes or ears. In anger I decided to do something radical - I decided to undertake the greatest experiment ever conducted in Norway - the Mother of All Norwegian Experiments. There and then I decided to clock my piss-time. I observed that from the moment I got up from my sofa to piss to the time I came back and sat down again I took exactly 4 minutes and 11 seconds. Even I, a healthy "jogger", could barely make it. How can an eighty or ninety year old lady, unable to stand on her feet without help, manage this in less than five minutes is anybody's guess.

Mrs. Norwegian Health Minister, leave these old and dying people alone. Let them piss and eat in comfort and dignity. This is my second Christmas and New Year's wish. Mrs. Minister, you yourself know that some of these old pensioners had to be taken to hospital in starving conditions because they got so nervous by the 10 minutes limit on their meal times that they refused to eat at all. Anne-Grete Strom-Erichsen, have you lost both your mind and heart? What is happening to your Petro-dollars when dying people are not even allowed to piss and eat in peace and privacy without Big Brother clocking their piss-time?

Now I come to my "predictions".

I begin with the World Media.

Since the advent of TV in the 1950s and especially the internet in the 1990s, the World Media (Newspaper Groups, TV Channels, Internet Twitters etc) has become a force to reckon with. It has acquired the power to make or break people and their careers. Sometimes it even has the power to make or break nations. In other words, it has acquired powers which previously only nation-states had. What is this pointing to? It is pointing to the gradual emergence of the concept of "Abstract States" - powerful states with no physical land, no boundaries, no armies, and no GDP. At present this concept is still surrounded in mist and smoke like the King's ghost in Hamlet. But in the twenty-second century it will emerge in full view like a giant lighthouse towering before an approaching ship. And this will have as deep implications as the emergence of Nation States in the nineteenth century.

To prepare ourselves for this eventuality I propose that the World Media be declared a new "Abstract State", and be given full UN membership as its first "Abstract Member" rather than its 190th or so "ordinary member". This will bring all the legal, political and social issues of twenty-second century to the fore - a hundred years before their time.

As I see it, the nineteenth century was the "Century of Nation States", the twentieth century the "Century of Physics", the twenty-first century the "Century of Life Sciences", and the twenty-second century the "Century of Abstract States".

It is to ease the birth-pangs of the "Century of Abstract States" that I am floating the idea of declaring the World Media an "Abstract Nation" and giving it full UN membership. Probably in fifty years a better candidate might emerge, and by that time the need to start thinking of future "Abstract States" would become even more pressing. But the issues would remain the same.

So my third Christmas and New Year's wish is that within my lifetime a new state, a new UN member, is born - the first Abstract State on Mother Earth.

Now let me move on to my "predictions" about India.

George Bush's "crusade", his "War on Terror", is about to end exactly as the Crusades ended about 600 years ago - without a clear winner or loser. And this is bad news for India.

There is another striking resemblance between the First Crusades (1000 A.D – 1400A.D) and the present Second Crusade (2000A.D. – 2014A.D.). After the First Crusades the balance of power and prosperity shifted from the East to the West. As the Second Crusade comes to an end, the balance of power and prosperity is shifting back from the West to the East. This may be more of a coincidence rather than a correlation. So I continue with India.

After the withdrawal of the western forces from Afganistan, the battlefields won't simply melt into thin air - they will shift to the Indian soil, especially Kashmir. And in spite of being touted as an emerging super-power, India is ill-prepared for this "Post Second Crusade Era". Here is some reality check.

Many, especially in the west, regard India as that new guy on the block who would take "Bullish China" by the horn. Nothing can be further from truth.

To begin with, India is not the fifth or sixth richest nation by GDP as rumours have it, but the eleventh. India's GDP is closer to that of tiny Mexico than Giant China. In everything, except population, India is five to ten times behind China.

Today India stands at a crossroad. One sign reads “The China Way” and the other sign reads “The Swiss Banks Way”. If India wants to compete with China, it should not look outwards towards its competitor, but inwards towards Herself. Then She will discover that what She urgently needs is a Second War of Independence. The First War of Independence under Mahatama Gandhi focused on getting rid of the English. The Second War of Independence should focus on revamping the justice system by having more judges and police and better and incorruptible judges and police so that for the first time a billion people feel that justice is justice for everybody.

So my fourth Christmas and New Year’s wish is to get up one beautiful morning to read blaring newspaper headlines...

“Half a dozen corrupt Indian ministers in jail”.

Then I will know that the Second War of Indian Independence has broken out.

Finally a warning.

It is a myth that India is a military might. Since two decades I have been telling anybody who would care to listen to me that if a war broke out between India and China, the one-million-strong Indian army would collapse within one month - exactly like Saddam Hussein's one-million-strong army in the Gulf War of 1990. Even my own brother, Ravindra, who is an Air Force Officer, laughs at me, calling my "Doomsday Predictions" the result of three large whisky in one small brain. But now I have proof. And that proof is the Commonwealth Games (CWG) held in October, 2010, in New Delhi.

There is a very close connection between a war and a game, the two being connected by, well, a war-game. If you would interpret the Commonwealth Games as a war-game instead of a game, you won't laugh at me anymore - not even the generals in the Army HQ. If the same corruption and incompetence is shown during a war as was shown at the CWG, there would be no happy end. By the time you reach the "happy end stage" all your armies are gone and your generals captured by the enemy. That is the big difference. In a game you can still pull through at the last moment, as it happened at the CWG. But in war, with your armies gone and your generals under arrest, you can’t pull out a victory from any magic hat in the universe.

Some would say that there would be no major war between India and China and my "theories and dire predictions" would never be put to test. I agree with them. But remember, no war has ever been won unless it had been won as a war-game first. So dear Indian generals, take the war-games I conduct in my whisky-filled brain while sitting unemployed in my smoke-filled bedroom seriously.

India is warned.

God Bless us all, including the real King of Norway, and Me, The Imposter.

PS: Shortly before Christmas, I went to the library of mathematics department of Oslo university to borrow 2 books on Fermat's Last Theorem and Modular Forms. I thought that these were the last two books I will borrow before 2011. I got a shock when the librarian told me that these were the last 2 books I will be able to borrow before 2012, because the library would be closed, and all books put in boxes, for some repair work which would take a whole year.

I felt like throwing those books at somebody's face - anybody's face. What will I do without access to a math library for a whole year? If undemocratic, corrupt, and incompetent China can build a new city - White Horse Village - in just four years, why does super-democratic, super-honest, and super-competent Norway needs one year to repair a hundred square meters library? The answer, noble Cyberfriends, is blowing in the cold artic wind howling over Norway.

A reference: http://www.tv2nyhetene.no/innenriks/politikk/bondevik-og-brundtland-fikk-for-mye-pensjon-2499584.html

Image Courtesy of Innovation Norway - Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Bruntland at the UN delivering the report 'Our Common Future'. 1987

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites