Peace is the Answer, but what is the Question?

or

Let them eat Macfoods

The worldwide peace movement is saying that war is not the solution. But what is the question for Iraq? Maybe, what do you want, good people of the land of Sinbad the Sailor?

A tiny rural peace organisation, Not In our Name of Samford, a village in Queensland, which is a sort of flat thing in Australia, is looking for suggestions. They are inviting people from all over the world to put forward proposals for ways forward.

The president of the group said: "The world peace movement now has considerable collective political power and with it, a responsibility to come up with a solution to the Iraq crisis. We have told the cowboys what we don’t want. What is it that we do want? What do the Iraqi people want?" Addressing the four billion people who seem to be bored with the long-running Hollywood soapie, Bang Bang You’re Dead, he asked "What can you folk offer? Please put on your thinking caps and let’s get a world-wide debate going. We can surely out-think the foreign affairs departments and think tanks of the willing-to- be-killing. Any half-educated stromatolite could do that."

Not In our Name is a curious organisation. All members of the group are presidents. Whoever you are talking to is the president. It’s honorary president is the French Macfood hoodlum Asterix. He will be shortly be told.

Another president said: "People do crazy things when they are pushed into corners. I think each side has got itself stuck in a hot dunny and needs to find a few loose planks before getting asphyxiated. Some way forward or back, some face saving. Think about it. If we all put our heads together on this one maybe we’ll find an answer. We are supposed to be a thinking ape. Let’s put it to the test. There’s got to be something more intelligent than beating each other with depleted uranium rods."

Burke and Wills and Gena, who have very long ears, said to tell George that if that poodle comes into their paddock again, they’ll stamp on him. Also, he can’t keep his pet wallaby here. A man who refused to say whether he was a president or not said: " Drop your six-gun George, we’ve got you surrounded. Go inside and do your homework."
What do you think?

Someone, perhaps the president, remarked, "It is very difficult to know what the Iraqi people want. Maybe they should be asked? Perhaps Mr Hussein will agree to a UN supervised multiple-question referendum. Then if the people want it, proper elections can be held, to be closely supervised by the UN, in perhaps five years, or next week. If not, let them eat Macfoods. In exchange, Mr Hussein, can be the first cab off the rank for the new UN-sponsored Retirement Plan for Un-elected Leaders (UNUNLED. Or, his choice, he can stand for election if he wants. He may be as popular as he says he is, but who knows?

"Meanwhile, a generously funded Amnesty International" a woman who was definitely the president went on "puts in an inspection team with all the finesse and old world charm of Hansie Blix and his hoteliers, but aimed at sniffing out any faint lingering traces of discourtesy and rudeness. The Iraqi government," she said, "is now the world expert on handling and observing and learning to live with teams of impolite tourists. It’s what they do best, soon they will be offering MBA courses on-line. Let them do lots more."

The group has proposed a kind of hybrid recovery scheme, from somewhere between South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Process and the Marshall Plan. They argue that the sanctions of the past ten years are very similar to the punitive Versailles treaty after World War 1, which starved the Germany people, gave Adolf his big chance, and gave us World War 2 and all those lovely Stukas and Spitfires. "The Marshal Plan, after that second round, put Germany on its feet again. The Germans are now such fine folk no-one would dream of going to war with them, and they don’t seem to dream of lebensraum anymore either," the president said. There is to be no retribution, if Mr H. signs up for the plan. And a long holiday in one of Australia’s charming Pacific resorts for uninvited would-be citizens, or maybe St Helena, as a compensation prize, if he doesn’t. Where he can reminisce with his old friend George, and take George’s poodle and his wallaby for walks on their leads. They will be there for breaking the rules for fighting in the playground.

The Samford Plan suggests Iraqi oil could go, pro rata and for a guaranteed hundred years, at market prices and slowly, to those who chipped in aid before the elections. With the aid to be repaid in oil, all to be overseen jointly by the UN Oil Inspectorate and the government of Iraq. "Maybe," said a man who said he was a monarchist and was suspected by the others of using the royal plural "We don’t believe any of that, and should start again and ask the leaders of other societies if they have a better idea.
The group said they had sent an email to Mr Hussein, to ask him, as a fellow president, for his views, but the CIA had blocked it. They felt that, since the CIA had invented the Internet anyway, that was fair enough. So they were now sending a postman via Japan. They heard someone had lost a missile thereabouts, and told him to see if he could spot it, to take it along to Mr Hussein, as someone had previously sent him ones of the wrong size. It would probably just get rusty, lying on the bottom of the Sea of Japan, and would make a nice peace offering, the group felt.

The letter said, except for the bits they forgot to put in, "How about continued weapons inspections, UN presence. Aid. Negotiations between UN, the Coalition of the Willing to be Killing and Iraq. Demolition of the new dams in Turkey, to improve the water-skiing and let the Tigris and Euphrates do their traditional thing, with Turkey to be compensated for in oil, over fifty years. Maybe a negotiated settlement that rewards all sides." Stuff like that.

Denise and Peter Ravenscroft. Closeburn, 28.2.2003
Contact Not in Our Name Samford:  nathydro@hotmail.com  raven@samford.net or  wordcomber@hotmail.net Reprint freely, copyleft