Toothless in Tehran

(This first appeared in the Sunday Guardian)

All eyes were on Tehran this week as it hosted the 16th summit of nations belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The NAM summit is the largest collective of tyrants, misogynists, homophobes, racists, scumbags, genocidal maniacs, conmen, busybodies, sociopaths, dirty Harrys and mouth-breathers this side of the Republican National Convention.

After the end of the Second World War, the world was divided into more cliques than a high school in South Bombay. All the jocks from the rich countries banded together in 1949 to form NATO and all the countries which grew up in tough neighbourhoods decided to tolerate each other’s existence to form the Warsaw Pact in 1955. However, outside of the UN, for the countries who didn’t belong to these two groups, there was nowhere to hangout. So in 1961, Nehru, Tito, Naseer, Sukarno and Nkrumah decided to get together and form a club consisting of all Goths, geeks, dorks, pacifists, poets, emo teenagers, mama’s boys, and hippies in the world who – at least on paper pretended not to be aligned to either of the two competing fight clubs – began calling themselves the Non-Aligned Movement.

Now, in 2012, with the cold war only existing in Jason Bourne novels, FPS video games and Vladimir Putin’s worldview, the NAM summit seems to have outlived its usefulness. When it was founded, India was part of all the countries who still needed a support group because of their oppressive colonial past. Nowadays, most heads of states attending the NAM summit oppress their own people and make them suffer atrocities that are equal to or sometimes infinitely worse than what happened when they were occupied by foreign powers. Like the host Iran, where a whole generation has been imprisoned both mentally and physically; where being gay is a crime punishable by public execution. Or Zimbabwean President and Hannibal Lector’s cousin, Robert Mugabe, a man who has jailed/killed/maimed more than half the population of his country and has led it to an economic apocalypse wherein the Zimbabwean Dollar is less valuable than the currency used in ‘Monopoly.’  

India still attends the summit mostly because of its obligation as a founding member and to prove to other countries that we’re totally not in the tank for America, even though in reality we totally are. We like to tout our non-aligned credentials, but we’re not really non-aligned anymore, are we? We’re part of the G20. We’re part of the ‘countries who can have nuclear weapons for some reason while the rest of the world cannot’ club. We pledge billions of dollars for funds to bailout financially irresponsible European countries. We’re like that guy who gets promoted to senior management but still shows up at the bar frequented by all the factory workers to prove to himself that he’s still the working class hero from every Springsteen song even though everybody else at the bar resents his presence.

We’re able to tread this thin line because we avoid taking a stand on important international issues for as long as we can. Most of the time we don’t want to say or do anything because we fear that anything we say or do will be used against us with regards to Kashmir. We can always be counted upon in the international arena to muddle the waters. We didn’t even vote against the falling Gaddafi regime, even though Gaddafi hated us and it was obvious to everyone that he was on his way out. Our stand on Syria is to ask both sides to lay down their weapons and talk. Basically, what we’re saying to all the people in Syria being massacred by their government is to stop defending themselves and try to talk to the guy trying to stamp them into oblivion. Because that always works out so well!

Our foreign policy is like that guy in a ‘modern’ Hindi movie who loves the girl who wears skirts and smokes and believes in casual sex but still ends up marrying the girl who dresses conservatively and knows how to cook because she reminds him of his Mom. The ‘social media outreach’ of our Ministry of External Affairs consists of getting our diplomats to tweet the links to every article they read on the Internet. Most of the time we only hear from the ministry when they hold a press conference to denounce the latest Times Now news report of some Chinese cat breaching the sanctity of the India-China border. And they do it with the smoothness of a battered woman denying spousal abuse “Ha ha, nothing happened. Everything is cool. The black eye? Well, it was nothing. I just slipped and fell into a fist. . . I mean from the stairs. Yeah. I fell from the stairs and broke my eye. What makes you think otherwise?”

But, hey, there’s nothing another fruitless bilateral Singh-Zardari meeting won’t fix!

The G20 lowdown

Sadly, the last international cocktail party before money becomes obsolete and we are back to using the barter system, called the G20 has now come to an end. While all the spouses chatted about the latest episode of Gossip Girl, the heads of state got down to business. In the end, everyone was happy and they decided to do the whole thing again.

Meanwhile, continuing our quest to tell you things no one else does  we bring to you the winners, whiners and losers of the summit. 

As the white house spokesperson would have you believe, America is a winner. Because it got to show off it's shiny new President to the world. (Look, he speaks English. Not just Texas English, but English English. People were actually cheering him. When was the last time that happened?) Although America was eager to start telling everyone what they need to do, not everyone was ready to listen. Still, it got some of it's "edge" back.

The Obamas are the biggest winners of the summit. It was supposed to be the first coming out party for America's sweethearts. And everyone and their tart of an aunt were enamoured by them. Michelle got more buzz than a contestant on the British version of Big Brother. And in Britain, it doesn't get big than big brother.  Everyone wanted to be her BFF. Even the queen. And as expected, Barack got to play messiah. For real, this time. Although as far as gift giving is concerned, I think someone needs lessons from Oprah.

The Queen finally won something other than contempt and disgust from her subjects.It would have been considered a successful visit if Prince Philip didn't say something obscene and racist. As luck would have it, not only did he STFU, the queen showed some human emotion. Someone finally touched her and (a) She didn't burst into flames (b) It didn't secretly launch Nuclear weapons on all of Britain's enemies. Even Prince Charles was a happy camper because whenever he stood next to Barack Obama, his ears did not feel out of place.

Gordon Brown scored some runs too. Not only did some of the Obama magic rub of on him, Mr Brown was able to justify the $75 million he spent for organising the summit. When they came up with the final agreement, it didn't look like a complete waste of time like the UN always does. Although, there was this awkward moment when the Saudi king tried to buy his wife. Other than that, it was a good summit for Brownie.

Nicolas Sarkozy & Angela Merkel won a hypothetical tag team match against well, hypothetical opponents. To think, just a little more than six decades ago these two countries wanted to kill each other. And now, they joined together and took on the might of the "Anglo-Saxon's". (Their words, not mine). Finally, the French stood up for something other than cheese and wine. Also, until now, people just thought of him as a horny cradle rocker (not that there is anything wrong with that). Now, Sarkozy has put his name on the map for something other than doing Carla Bruni. The press conference Sarkozy & Merkel held before the summit was for the benefit of their collective domestic audiences and for driving their respective translators crazy. I mean have you tried translating German to French? It's like going from "Yippe-ki-yay, MotherF*cker" to "Hakuna Mattata". Angela Merkel simply won because no one tried to give her a backrub.

China was so eager to win, it had a child labourer make it a trophy. The West was trying to seduce China because it's the only country in the world whose got money right now. In fact, no one really wanted to piss China off so when they talked about tax havens, they tiptoed around Macau and Hong Kong. In fact, China is a lot like a new, shiny iPhone.  It might look nice from the outside and have lots of third-party applications, but what it really wants to do is take over the world. Hey, don't take my word for it.

Unlike the Georgian invasion, Russia didn't do that well. All it's new President had to do is look a little less evil ,despotic and psychotic than the others. Sadly, that was not to be.

Manmohan Singh's trip, as usual, was in the middle. He had a sort of blink-and-you-miss appearance. None of the Indian news channels were even covering his visit. except of course DD "news". Although, Mr Singh got what he came for. And he also got an Obama verbal fistbump. As for our first lady, Mrs Gursharan Kaur, she was overheard sharing with the French First Lady Carla Bruni her secret butter chicken recipe.

Europe seemed to come out of the dark shadows too. The Grand Old Continent, once home to the most greedy and laziest people in the world, had dropped off from everybody's radar. Everyone had sort off forgotten about Europe ever since India and China started making money. The only people who cared were those, young, pesky travellers who want to see the whole of Europe with $30 in their pocket and a huge-ass backpack on their backs which they carry around even when they go to drink a cup of coffee. Now, the G20 has put Europe back on the map. In fact, even Barack Obama has promised that America will start making out with all the European countries again. Except of course, the British. Because frankly, they need to start brushing their teeth first.

Finally, another unexpected winner was the crowd of protestors. Thanks to the G20 they had a very productive few days. Otherwise they would have been stuck home watching new episodes of Eastenders and drinking home-brewed beer Or even worse, they would have been sitting in front of their computer and writing a blog. Who knows what kind of crap they would have come up with!

World leaders hold summit to formally blame George Bush for the current economic crisis

The heads of government of the (technically mathematically inaccurately) named Group of 20, aka G-20, are scheduled to meet in London, starting tomorrow, to try find a way out of the current global clusterfuck. On the agenda are possible solutions for the economic crisis, discussion of a possibility of a global stimulus package and some juicy gossip about German Chancellor Angela Merkel's love life.

A banquet was held by the Queen today to formally welcome all the heads of state.

"Basically we are all here to convince the world that the current economic crisis is George Bush's fault. I blame Bush for everything." said Russian President Dmirty Medvedev. "Even when my children catch a cold. Or when Putin gets drunk, puts on a dress and starts singing I will survive in Russian. Oh, Lenin. I really shouldn't have said anything. I am so dead." He then was seen getting down on his knees and making a phone call.


The facade of camaraderie was absent the summit this time around. French President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to walk out when he saw that the Italian Prime Minister was continuously eyeing his wife. "Hey Berlusconi, stop lookeeeng at my wife or I weeel break youur arms." He then chased the Italian Prime minister through the lush green Buckingham Palace gardens all the while shouting, what one can only hope, nice things about Mr Berlusconi's mother. Both of them were then stopped by current US President and part-time Messiah, Barack Obama and given a sermon about how "Thou shall not covet your neighbors wife". "It's the same sermon I gave to Bill Clinton last week", Mr Obama told reports later on.

Meanwhile Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was spotted sipping some Gaterorade and playing chess with the Chinese President. "Madam told me not to say too much. It's good advice, I tell you. Very good advice. I usually bite off more than I can chew. Just yesterday, I had some butter chicken and I still feel a little gassy. Well, what can you do. Old age is old age. ha. hA. HA". When Mr Singh got up to refill his glass, the Chinese President repositioned the pawns on the chessboard to his advantage. No one knows if Mr Singh noticed the change when he came back.

The Argentinian President Ms. Cristina Kirchner, was in heated discussions with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown about who is a better football player, Lionel Messi or David Beckham. After hours of going back and fourth, the only thing both of them agreed upon was that Victoria Beckham has the aura of a slut.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was seen feeling left out, sipping his mojito alone, which brought back memories of his own senior prom. He spoke to us with a heavy heart while trying to hold back the tears in his eyes. "It's hard sometimes, you know. We barely get noticed. People only call on us when they want us to watch their kids or to attend a funeral. It's just not fair. Why does everyone do that? Is it because we're a little gay?"