Shall we kiss?

Shilpa Shetti seems to have a knack of getting herself into the spotlight. Previously, she was involved in the infamous ‘big brother’ fiasco; the latest incident involves Richard Gere (the guy from the movie, shall we dance) when he kissed her in public during an Aids Awareness event.

Now I have done my share of Aids awareness, never did anyone have the urge to kiss a female participant. I don’t know what Gere was trying to communicate through the kiss though; perhaps ‘guys, you totally can’t get Aids like this! Allow me to demonstrate!.. smooch.. ’

Obviously the incident is something that perhaps shouldn’t have happened, but if there’s anyone who could top the insanity of the moment, its got to be the local nationalist boys.. yes. Bring out your bazooka’s brothers our culture’s on fire!.

God save, shiv sena!

On this topic, India uncut pointed me to an interesting post in churumuri :

“If fleetingly kissing a woman in public and with the avowedly socially conscious intention of driving home an obvious message against a scourge like AIDS is such an unpardonable affront to Indian ‘culture’, then what is the lurid act of urinating in the full glare of the public, even on busy roads, that most Indian men do, which results in the rather pathetic scene of the women in the vicinity lowering their heads and hurrying past the cheap spectacle with the man standing with his legs spread at a convenient angle?
So this is part of the great Indian culture we shout from the roof tops about, is it? Or is it enshrined somewhere in the inside pages of our voluminous scriptures?
What of the sexual harassment that goes on in crowded buses and trains where perverts thrust their pelvises into the backsides of hapless women clinging desperately on to every available piece of support inside on their way to a hard day’s work? This doesn’t activate the ‘activists’? ……
.. Richard Gere kisses Shilpa Shetty and India is outraged. How much more morally bogus and dubious and counterfeit can we get.
That reminds me of the tag line of India: 5,000 years of history and culture. Or is it culture and history? " [Link]

I don’t know if I agree with everything in the post, but the fake cultural protectionism goes well beyond the territorial borders of India.

Youth, Culture and Globalization

An increasingly globalized, volatile and a growth-oriented world present its citizens numerous challenges – be it in economic, social, environmental and indeed cultural spheres.

As the global economy steams ahead in full speed, geographical borders are becoming less and less significant as people move around, migrating into cities and countries in search of better opportunities and better lives.

Business corporations in both the East and the West are interchanging knowledge and capital in a mutually beneficial exercise. To succeed in this increasingly border-less world one needs to go beyond the familiar and the uniform and embrace the unfamiliar and the diverse, one must tolerate and accept different customs, behaviors, languages, attitudes and values. In other words, one must embrace multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism, however, isn’t simply just good business, but rather something that contributes a great deal in transforming modern day conflicts in the world and indeed here, in Sri Lanka. Roots of most conflicts or at least lack of progress in resolving them, has a lot to do with lack of understanding and lack of space for a different cultures and identities, which leads to marginalization and discontent which sometimes results in violent aggression and cycles of hatred. It is clear then, that multiculturalism is no longer simply a nicety but rather, a dire necessity in the times we live in.

Read the rest of the post in the BB Blog