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00:00in the West or in places like Australia.
00:04And the biggest critics of Israel,
00:08the most prominent critics of Israel,
00:11are on the other side of the color line.
00:14And I think race itself has emerged
00:18as a very crucial marker of identity.
00:23It's certainly been claimed by any number of people
00:26in the West today
00:28as a badge of identity.
00:32And I think the defense of Israel
00:35is seen as a defense of white Western civilization.
00:39So, you know, this question never really goes away.
00:43It can seem out of sight,
00:47it can go out of sight for some time,
00:50but it reappears.
00:52And so what Du Bois called
00:56the central problem of the 20th century
01:00has reemerged as a central problem of the 21st century.
01:06Right.
01:09You also talk about how Israel is sort of a window
01:13to a future of a bankrupt and exhausted world.
01:17It's quite scary when I try to visualize such a future,
01:21especially for our children.
01:25As someone who has been to Israel,
01:29who writes about it,
01:31who writes about complex historical and political issues,
01:35do you think there is any hope in this bankrupt world?
01:39Can we ever witness an equilibrium of world morality as you write?
01:45Well, I think, you know,
01:47I wouldn't want to offer any kind of false hope or consolation.
01:53But I do find hope,
01:56at least, you know, in small quantities,
02:00in amongst young people
02:04who are shocked and outraged
02:08by what, not only by what the Israelis are doing,
02:12but the way they're being supported by their own governments
02:16in Europe and America.
02:19I think many of these young people
02:22who haven't received any kind of great education,
02:27historical education of any kind,
02:30they're simply scandalized and horrified
02:33by the killing of children.
02:36And they ask themselves,
02:38why should children be killed in this way?
02:41Why should thousands of children be destroyed in this way?
02:47And I don't think there are any satisfactory answers to that question.
02:51No matter how much history you invoke,
02:53no matter how much you talk about the Holocaust,
02:55there is simply no way to justify
02:58the killing of tens of thousands of children.
03:02And I feel that those simple questions
03:05that the young people are asking today
03:08offer some kind of a way out of this, you know,
03:14poisonous mess that we found ourselves in,
03:17where people are flouting every,
03:22every basic rule and norm of ordinary morality
03:30to justify extreme violence.
03:33I think a simple reaction to that,
03:37that young people are manifesting today,
03:39holds more hope for me
03:42than all the great major institutions
03:46and legacy periodicals of the world today.
03:54To conclude this, I have a question for you.
03:58As an Indian writer, someone who is from India,
04:01how do you see India's role in politics,
04:06particularly in relation to the West
04:08and other non-Western powers?
04:12And, you know...
04:31...that have claimed that position.
04:33It's smaller countries like Brazil or Malaysia
04:36or Indonesia or, you know, South Africa
04:40that have been far more prominent
04:42on this issue in particular.
04:44Even China has been far more prominent.
04:48So India has missed an opportunity
04:51to reclaim some of the prestige,
04:56the moral prestige it once enjoyed across the world.