Remember the time?

Make yourself at home

Remember the time in history when the first merchant ship landed in Surat and the year 1509 when Lopez de Sequeira landed on our shores with gifts and praises. The locals bent over backwards, as the local culture dictates, to please the guests and make them comfortable and feel welcome. The guests, fondly referred to as 'Benggali Putih', did not fulfil their part of the bargain of being a gracious visitor but instead became their masters. Life, as the locals knew it, was never the same.

Here comes trouble!

Fast forward 5 centuries later, the whole country is excited that the most powerful man on the world with the official authority to annihilate the whole world with a press of a button decided to grace his presence in this land. Media has gone bonkers hailing the visit as the next best thing since 1966 when his predecessor came here to signal to the Eastern Block that we were proxies of the Uncle Sam. So, keep out!

And it applies to others too!

So, why the honour? Is it because Big Brother wants to ensure his little one is doing alright? Is it like how we have to visit our loved one every so often to show that we do care about them?
Is his visit going to straight our dismal human rights' record, our achievement in topping human trafficking list, poor media freedom and the mushrooming of state sanctioned ultraist groups? Dream on.
In the immortalised words of his predecessor known for his clandestine activities in the cloak room than the oval office per se, "It's all about the economy, stupid"!
The poster boy has arrived to exude his charm or twist arm the leaders to sign at the dotted lines of the TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement). We have reached a crossroads where the leaders would have to decide whether to enrich corporate America, to safeguard its citizens or benefit (enrich) themselves via spillover effect of the deal.