How About Self-Immolation?

Two days ago, there was a huge kerfuffle in the UK over a group of Big Brother UK's contestants racially vilifying one of the other contestant in the BBUK house. The target of these abuse was directed at a Bollywood actress named Shilpa Shetty (a tasty dish who allegedly can't cook):

The details of the verbal salvo was chronicled here.

I won't comment on the nature of this argument because everyone have their opinion on this stupid show and the unfortunate incidents, so I wouldn't be saying anything that hasn't been said before.

What I would like to comment about is the ensuing fallout from this BBUK show. The Prime Minister of UK, Tony Blair, is dragged into apologising about something he have no clue about. The country's unwitting diplomats to India have to condemn something they haven't seen before and have zero control over. Silliest of all was this protest in India:

"In India, Shetty's treatment was front page news, prompting about 25 people, most of them men, to march down a street in the eastern Indian city of Patna chanting "Down with Big Brother." The protesters burnt an effigy representing the program's producers before being dispersed by police."

I wonder what would possess a man, or 25 of them for that matter, to think:

"Damn! I am angry about this. I am pissed off about this. I am absolutely filthy about this... this injustice... this malice. You know what I am gonna do? Do you, Huh?

"I'm gonna dig out my fifth grade paper mache kit, craft me a man-size doll of the producers (who lives halfway across the world, whom I never met before and dunno what their faces looks like), lug the bloody thing to a public place and... and... and... set it on FIRE...

"That's right baby, I am gonna call up Apu... and maybe his cousin Jepal... and we gonna be toasting some producer's arse tonight... Feel the heat you racialist producers, YEAH!"

So 25 of these silly sausages congregate on the streets of Patna (in a city of 1.2 Million other people who, I assume, are largely amused by this spectacle). Then they do some angry sounding chanting, like a bunch of rabid pom-pom-wielding cheerleaders and roast some cheap-arsed blow-up doll.

Fantastic... a country that has gone from the great master of peaceful protest to a bunch of sadistic girls torturing their dollies. If they want to protest with fire in the future, perhaps they could consider Thích Quang Đuc's method. A damn sight more emotive I reckon.

Jepal: "What are we doing here again?"
Apu: "Dunno, he just told me to bring some kerosene,
I was hoping for a BBQ really..."