Sunday, September 25, 2011

Tale of two chauvinists

Tale of two chauvinists - Mumbai Mirror

"Banerjee issued a statement that got some press, criticising Ontario province’s liberal government for giving small tax credits to companies that hire new immigrants. Banerjee added that the Canadian federal government’s immigration policies had resulted in “poor-qualified newcomers” to arrive in the country.

By “poor-qualified” immigrants the France-born, Canada-raised Banerjee obviously was referring to people who arrive from economically depressed, sometimes war-torn parts of the world, people who do not have doctoral degrees and MBAs, and they end up working as janitors and restaurant workers.

Banerjee claims to speak on behalf of all of Canada’s Hindus and sometimes even the smartest section of that country’s media falls for that lie, which is a shame.

Then last week the Canada-born and a hugely successful stand-up comic Russell Peters made a trip to India to promote his film Speedy Singhs. As has been reported extensively in India, Peters took the opportunity to criticise Bollywood (although he claims not to have seen a single popular Indian film) and many people associated with the industry from Aishwarya Rai to Aamir Khan! Peters has made a career with irreverent humour, but there is a thin line between what is funny and what is irresponsible. And Peters crossed that line many times during his trip to India."

No comments:

Post a Comment