WP: “Trudeau's India trip is a total disaster”

[lego 44,165]

How did Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the world’s favorite liberal mascot — a feminist man, with movie-star good looks, a 50 percent female cabinet and a political lexicon that has replaced “mankind” with “peoplekind” (making millions swoon) — end up looking silly, diminished and desperate on his trip to India this week?

Trudeau’s eight-day India expedition has been an absolute fiasco.

Hours before meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his journey hit a dead end when the Canadian high commissioner invited a Sikh extremist named Jaspal Atwal (who has been convicted of attempted murder and was previously affiliated with a terrorist group) to a dinner to honor Trudeau in Delhi. Atwal was found guilty of trying to kill an Indian minister in 1986; he was also blamed for an assault on Ujjal Dosanjh, the former premier of British Columbia.

By the time Atwal’s invitation was rescinded — Trudeau called it “unfortunate” — Atwal had already posed for photographs with Trudeau’s wife, Sophie, in Mumbai, as well as with other members of his entourage.

“It’s a disaster,” Vishnu Prakash, former Indian high commissioner to Canada, told me. “I am convinced Trudeau was blindsided. Whoever drew up the list screwed up and dealt him a fait accompli. But it is also symbolic of how Khalistanis have penetrated the system.”

Since Trudeau won the election in 2015, the 1980s have returned to haunt Indo-Canada ties. Sikh secessionists who supported a separate country (Khalistan) unleashed a bloodbath in the state of Punjab in the ’80s. Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, sent the army to purge the Golden Temple (the holiest place of worship for Sikhs) of militants who were hiding inside. She was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards, followed by anti-Sikh riots in which more than 3,000 were killed. In 1985, the Air India jumbo jet “Kanishka” flying from Montreal to Delhi was blown up by Sikh terrorists, leaving 329 people dead.

Knowing all of this, Trudeau still attended a Khalsa parade in May, where many of these militants were feted. So, his India trip was already mired in tensions when the Atwal snafu broke. Then, Canadian media released more photographs showing an apparent familiarity between Atwal and Trudeau back home. Nearly half a million Sikhs live in Canada and account for 1.4 percent of the population. Trudeau was such a favorite among them that he is jokingly called Justin Singh. Now he has competition. Jagmeet Singh, who recently took over the reins of Canada’s New Democratic Party, is considered left of Trudeau’s left. He even refused to condemn the terrorist who blew up the Air India plane.

“Trudeau’s India trip from the outset was playing to a diaspora gallery back home, one in which he has been studiously ambiguous on the Khalistani ties of some of his Liberal Party’s Sikh Canadian supporters,” Vivek Dehejia, a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, told me. “But for those who are lukewarm on Trudeau, this will reconfirm their impression that the rock star image hides feet of clay, and that he has been undone by his own cleverness in trying to massage the diaspora vote back home yet appear statesman-like here in India. That facade has crumbled.”

Given the seriousness and the sensitivities at stake, it was infuriating to watch Trudeau sashaying out, doing the Bhangra dance, at the same Canadian reception this week that was at the heart of the storm. You could feel the collective groan of Indians: Please. Stop. Enough Already.

I confess, from afar, I used to be a Trudeau fan-girl. But after this trip, I’ve changed my mind. Trudeau has come across as flighty and facetious. His orchestrated dance moves and multiple costume changes in heavily embroidered kurtas and sherwanis make him look more like an actor on a movie set or a guest at a wedding than a politician who is here to talk business. Suddenly, all that charisma and cuteness seem constructed, manufactured and, above all, not serious.

“He seems more much more convinced of his own rock-star status than we ever were,” said one official in the Indian government who preferred to remain anonymous.

...

read the rest here

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/02/22/trudeaus-india-trip-is-a-total-disaster-and-he-has-himself-to-blame/?utm_term=.2daf3cb3334c&__twitter_impression=true

 

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning TV journalist and anchor with more than two decades of reporting experience. She is the author of “This Unquiet Land: Stories from India’s Fault Lines.” Dutt is based in New Delhi.

 

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What do you all think?  

 

[lego 44,165]

@OBEY

 

[lego 44,165]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

You’ll hate me for saying this but issa needs to be said (i’m ready for your stones )

But Trudeau is only PM because his dad (a great man and leader ) was also PM in the 70s and 80s.

Same goes for almost all new models (Bella Hadid, Brooklyn Beckham, Hailey Baldwin, Kendall Jenner etc).

We are truly living in the age of nepotism.

Nowadays you can’t get a job anymore unless your parents got you the interview. It’s really sad what this world has become 

And that’s all I got to say about that 

 

[lego 44,165]

2 minutes ago, Lord Temptation said:

That’s all I got to say about that 

 

Ok, but that’s not exactly the topic

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

2 minutes ago, lego said:

 

Ok, but that’s not exactly the topic

I know but I’m just trying to give context

His India trip was a laughing stock but that’s what we’ve come to expect 

Trudeau Jnr ain’t got nuttin’ on Papa

[The Surrealist 27,470]

20 minutes ago, lego said:

I am convinced Trudeau was blindsided.

Yet the article's title is worded like it is Trudeau's fault.

22 minutes ago, lego said:

I used to be a Trudeau fan-girl.

Idolizing people and having affection for political leading figures is dangerous. He is a prime minister, not a popstar.

[lego 44,165]

4 minutes ago, The Surrealist said:

Idolizing people and having affection for political leading figures is dangerous. He is a prime minister, not a popstar.

 

Those are the words of journalist, Barkha Dutt. Kinda irrelevant to the topic. 

 

[The Surrealist 27,470]

Just now, lego said:

 

Those are the words of journalist, Barkha Dutt. Kinda irrelevant to the topic. 

 

I know, I was talking about the article. 

The author was clearly idolizing Trudeau to the point she got disappointed in him when he didn't met her expectations on being perfect.

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

8 minutes ago, The Surrealist said:

Yet the article's title is worded like it is Trudeau's fault.

Idolizing people and having affection for political leading figures is dangerous. He is a prime minister, not a popstar.

I think idolising politicians is more foolish than dangerous. You are really setting yourself up for disappointment 

[Lona Delery 7,227]

21 minutes ago, Lord Temptation said:

You’ll hate me for saying this but issa needs to be said (i’m ready for your stones )

But Trudeau is only PM because his dad (a great man and leader ) was also PM in the 70s and 80s.

Same goes for almost all new models (Bella Hadid, Brooklyn Beckham, Hailey Baldwin, Kendall Jenner etc).

We are truly living in the age of nepotism.

Nowadays you can’t get a job anymore unless your parents got you the interview. It’s really sad what this world has become 

And that’s all I got to say about that 

 

it has always been like that dont be overdramatic

[The Surrealist 27,470]

1 minute ago, Lona Delery said:

it has always been like that dont be overdramatic

Definitely. However it has become more acceptable by society, when nepotism was frowned upon in the past.

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

1 hour ago, Lona Delery said:

it has always been like that dont be overdramatic

Sis I already know. But social media is making it 10,000 times worse. I’m not even dramatic about it, i’m literally just making an observation that things have regressed a lot in the last 20 years.

George W Bush wouldn’t have been President in 2000-2008 if it weren’t for his Dad also being President in 1988-1992. Hillary Clinton might run again in 2020. We had Arnold Swarznegggar as Governor of California. The list goes on and it will keep getting bigger.

Basically unless you have rich or famous connections don’t even bother trying to do anything - someone who does will always get the job

[Sizzily 14,571]

"Peoplekind" I'm only surprised it too this long for people to roll their eyes at him. Liberals are late on that I c.

[PsychicGuru 1,592]

He’s incredibly unprofessional.