أرشيفي يُنعش ذاكرتي!
من كتاب ( معاركي ضد الطغاة والمتطرفين)
A dialogue between an Arab leader and a donkey
Oslo, 25 June 2005
Gaining access to the palace court is an adventure that involves stepping into another world, and if the intruding visitor is a donkey, then the chance that he’ll find himself even near to any of the streets leading to the palace is very slim. Our donkey therefore decided to wait for the head of state in his home, and did indeed manage to infiltrate the inner sanctum without raising the suspicion of any security guards. He let himself into the leader’s office and awaited his auspicious return.
It was approaching eleven o’clock at night when, after dinner and watching the evening news on the television, the leader entered his office, carrying a pile of newspapers, reports and assorted papers. He was greatly surprised, but before he could raise his voice to call for his bodyguards to remove the animal from his office, the ass looked at him meekly and spoke to him with the humility that the leader was used to seeing in the eyes of those who surround him.
The donkey: Sir, would you please be so kind as to listen to me before your private guard ejects me? I have an interesting proposal that benefits us all regardless of our political persuasion.
Calm began to return to the leader, who sat down on a comfortable chair after firmly closing the office door.
The leader: Speak then, but I don’t really have time for this. Tell me what you have for me, although I very much doubt that a donkey like you could have a proposal that would be of the slightest interest to me.
The donkey: I want to work with you as your special advisor, a role in which I would far excel all your other advisors and office managers, past and present.
The leader: Ha, ha! So he’s not just a donkey, but a crazy, idiotic one too! Why on earth would I replace the men that I have moulded with my bare hands from the very abyss of slavery? OK, so not a single one of them can push a single piece of paper around my office without needing to go and have a rest down in the café with the pensioners, where he sits ruminating about how pleased I am with him. But I have my men from the palace in every nook and cranny, from the editor-in-chief of the major state newspapers, to the deputies of most ministries, and they’re a darn sight more obedient than I imagine you are. I also expect they’re more able than you to withstand my constant abuse of them. They delight in their humiliation, arching their backs as they trot along behind me, begging me for forgiveness and longing for a nod and maybe a half a smile from me, if only one of disdain.
The donkey: But, Mr. Leader, they’ll be up there in the ranks of the first movement to successfully overthrow you; they'll sell you to the highest bidder. They’ll spit on your hands if the new leader tells them to. But me, I will do no more than obey the whip and endure in silence the pain and my starving belly.
The leader: I do not deny that you have qualities which fully meet the requirements for those who serve me, but the palace advisers have become a focus of power, and sometimes even I barely know what they’re up to - I'm happy with this. They are suitably obsequious and they protect me, so I tyrannise them and protect them in turn. I have to play a delicate balancing act of tyrant, autocrat, dictator and life-long ruler.
At this point, the donkey’s eyes revealed a look of grief and sorrow, and for the first time the leader’s heart softened towards this creature silently beseeching him.
The leader: Would you agree to be minister of agriculture, irrigation and water resources?
The donkey: I’m sorry, dear Sir, but I can’t compete with your man in the ministry. He’s your shadow in the government, and no matter how your tongue abuses him, he is always there for you, to eat for you, drink for you, and take poison for you. You’ve kept him at your side because he’s more obedient and tolerant than I could ever be.
The leader: What would you say to chairman of the board of our national airline? There you’ve got opportunities galore for theft and looting, not to mention the hefty commissions you can take on aircraft purchases. The coffers are open and there are plenty of hidden stashes the auditors don’t know about.
The donkey: It is true that a position like that doesn’t really require any particular skills or qualities, but surely if I could do it, then so could any of your family or one of your advisors and assistants? Won’t they all be after their slice of the national airline cake? After all, the budget is in the hundreds of millions and just one commission is enough to live a life of eternal luxury. But anyway - personally, as a donkey, I believe that I would be best suited to a higher position than this. I want to be closer to the second in command of the state. But don’t worry, Mr. Leader, I am ambitious and would aim for an even higher position, eventually.
The leader: But you can’t be an Arab head of state! Not even if the U.S. intelligence services installed you in the palace by force.
The donkey: But this is downright injustice and discrimination! It’s nothing more than sheer ignorance of the nature of the difference between me and the holder of the highest office of the state.
An Arab leader, generally speaking, in all but a rare few exceptional cases, does not read, and if he does read then he doesn’t understand what he’s reading. He is less intelligent than most of those around him, and what he manages to do in a month I can do in less than a day.
An Arab leader does not need to think; there are those who think for him. He does not even write his own speeches, and if he does have to speak on television, the montage editing always manages to turn his incoherent nonsense into ingenious eloquence, his vacuous silence into ponderous meditation, and his idiotic waffling is transformed conveniently into the witty banter of an unassuming leader.
The leader: But no one can be a philosopher, a novelist, an awe-inspiring leader and a matchless military mind. As for me, though, I can speak on any topic and engage in discussion of matters of which I have not the slightest smattering of knowledge. I boldly wade in and fashion my argument into an intellectual revolution the like of which has never before been seen on earth!
The donkey: You mean, Mr. Leader, that if I took office and met with the senior analysts, journalists, financiers, businessmen and security advisors, that they wouldn’t fall over themselves to admire my intelligence?
The leader: I did not say that, and you are certainly free to stand for election as you are, in your capacity as a donkey. I’m sure you'll find crowds holding your picture aloft and you’ll be amazed by the wonderful, gushing editorial piece in the state newspaper by the editor himself. It’ll bring a tear to your eye to read him waxing lyrical about how we have waited too long for such a just and wise ruler as this donkey, who we should stand behind for the sake of our children's future and independence of our homeland.
The donkey: You could make me Secretary General of the ruling national party? You’ll always find me at your disposal, ready to swallow your insults and take your endless blows to the back of the head day and night!
The leader: I’m afraid this position is always reserved for the most obedient of all my servants. He must be superlative in every way: the cruellest towards my opponents, the deftest when it comes to fraud, the basest with respect to morals, and the weakest in terms of conscience.
The donkey: I would be perfect, though, at manipulating the media. I’d appoint the requisite idiots in television and turn a blind eye to all forms of corruption. I’d fill our TV screens with all kinds of intellectually, culturally and linguistically backward nonsense and collaborate with the sycophants and hypocrites in the press. And, of course, I wouldn’t forget to guarantee the prerequisite incompetency in the Arabic language for any new recruits.
The leader: My dear donkey, I am sorry, but this is not something to be messed with. This is a huge polishing machine working constantly to spruce up the leader’s appearance: the minute I look a little pale or people seem to have forgotten about me for an hour or so, the mass machine kicks into action. The media needs to remind our citizens that their sovereign leader is there to obey.
Did you know that on the television in another Arab state, any viewer, when he calls up to request a song, always dedicates the first song of the programme to their dear leader, before they get on with the real dedications to their parents and loved ones and friends? My one stipulation for this post is that whoever occupies it is both intelligent and stupid at the same time.
The media in our country is the first line of defence of our tyranny. It’s our key means of exercising political prostitution and of protecting the palace from anyone attempting to surround the radio and television centre and announce their victory.
The donkey: How about you make me the speech writer, then, for your official and national engagements?
The leader: I do not deny that any ass can write a speech for a leader to give, which the next morning the state paper headlines will turn into something from the philosophical womb of Spinoza, the political genius of Churchill and the rhetoric of the poet Mustafa Sadeeq al-Rafe’ie. But my speech writer knows my mind inside out, he can read my thoughts before my tongue has even attempted to articulate them, and he closely follows the emotional response in the naïve hearts and minds of the people. He manages to tiptoe around reason and logic, history and truth, while somehow making my speeches sound like a veritable encyclopaedia of factual morsels.
But what if I recruited you as a scriptwriter for TV drama? Generally speaking, with the exception of a few rare gems, it’s a profession that any old donkey can master who wants to reach out to the hearts of fools. Those mulish screenwriters don’t half bray about having to watch the rubbish, though, regardless of how popular they are!
The donkey: Mr. Leader, it seems that you care little for my competencies and my superior abilities. I am looking for a much more significant position in which I can dedicate myself to consolidating the infrastructure for your continued dominion over the necks of your subjects. The Director of Public Security would be a more appropriate role for me!
The leader: This position in particular is entirely unsuitable for you. You may be silent as you carry out my orders to the letter, but your good, gentle heart will not be able to endure the reports piling up daily on your desk before you refer them on to me, whether it’s torture in prisons and detention centres, or the abuse, rape and bitter humiliation of citizens. Since I took power, I have read things that would shake the seven heavens. It would make a grown man weep to learn of the behaviour of the men responsible for my security and protection, but still, it hasn’t moved me to a shred of pity or mercy, not even for those condemned to ceaseless torture, whether it’s members of the opposition, rioters, or just scapegoats. It’s all part of teaching my subjects to submit themselves to the principles of slavery, serfdom, subservience and fear of me.
How could I replace the security chief of my land with an ass like you, who might one day feel pity for a citizen, or request that the torturers soften their approach or respond to the most basic humanitarian needs and requirements?
I am looking for sadism in its deepest, most brutal and savage forms. And you, my dear donkey, would not last in this position for any longer than a month or two.
The donkey: This, too, is a gross injustice, Mr. Leader. I am confident in my ability to serve your interests to the exclusion of those around you. Give me a military rank and enough medals to weigh down my shoulders, and you’ll hear nothing but fighting talk from me, harping on about our wars and victories. I’ll promise Israel, America and the whole world that all hell will break lose over our national territory if any one of those hostile forces dares to approach our pure, blessed land.
The leader: Who says we don’t already have plenty of men at the highest rank, who can draw up military plans for an occupation of Russia, America and China in two weeks if I asked them to?
The donkey: Alright, then, why not take me on as the author of one of the editorial columns that fill the official newspapers that the state fritters away all that money on? You know, the ones the auditors can’t get anywhere near, which make losses in the millions, and which no one reads, not even the half-illiterate.
The leader: Well, I may think seriously about appointing you as the editor-in-chief of the paper that is so close to my way of thinking that it could almost be issued by our very own Palace media office. Our subjects despise it, but it does the trick of polishing me up for their admiration and reminding them who’s the boss. This kind of writer needs to be slightly less intelligent than the readers, and the words he churns out need to err on the side of unintelligibility. In between every three or four paragraphs there should be snippets of my wise decrees.
And you will have great privileges: the ministers will want to get close to you, and senior figures will invite you to their children’s weddings, where the hot food is brought in by private jet from Maxim’s of Paris. The American ambassador will pop in to see you and explore routes for improving bilateral relations between the two countries.
You could even set up a workshop for young writers and journalists, and buy up the poor things’ intellectual property, adding your name and your signature at the end like a real writer. Why not have a little profile picture at the top of the articles where it looks like you’re really thinking deeply?
The donkey: Hmmm… What about making me the heir to the throne and to your rule and your wisdom? I guarantee that your subjects will never impeach you! I’ll bury the history of the crimes and abuses carried out by your family and all your men.
The leader: Do you think that this position you’ve dreamed of for so long would ever go to someone outside of my venerable family? We share the spoils of the state just as the thieves share Ali Baba’s cave. Any one of us is free to plunder a bank to the very last penny and can get into cahoots with any businessman without a single word being uttered.
Would you believe, my dear donkey, that the brother of one of my friends, one of the other Arab leaders, gets a 51% share in all the major commercial ventures going on in his country, even if a project doesn’t go ahead!
And would you believe this? There was an immigrant who spent a quarter of a century living in Canada and then returned to his Arab homeland to live out the rest of his life. So he invests heavily in a wonderful project, and then, just before getting the final approval after three years of fatigue and exhaustion and bureaucracy, out of the blue he gets a telephone call from none other than the son of the head of state, in person, in the flesh, demanding a fifty per cent share in return for the final approval!
Even if you could guarantee for the next fifty years not to bring up my history, or my abuses and crimes against my people, I cannot imagine a single day when this country will be ruled by a leader with a surname of any other than that of my honourable family.
The donkey: This means that the only option remaining to me is to establish what appears on the surface to be an opposition movement, but which collaborates secretly with your regime. It will give the impression in public of being opposed to you, thereby earning the legitimacy of a plurality of opinions and doctrines. Meanwhile, through the presence of an opposition force, the regime gains popular legitimacy across the Arab world and internationally.
The leader: I don’t think that our people will fall for that game. And I doubt that your donkey attributes would apply to this job; you need deceit, cunning, and patience. Like a double agent, you need to play equally against two opponents.
The donkey: But I can’t leave the palace now without you appointing me to some important post or other! I can’t go back to my family and friends among the donkeys and tell them that I failed to convince you.
I am willing to accept a key cultural position, overseeing the censorship of the film industry, publishing, television and the press. I’ll wander around book fairs after banning dozens of books on the grounds of threats to the regime, putting arbitrary red lines all over everything in any way associated with culture, printing and publishing, without any reasonable explanation. I’ll delight in torturing publishers who while away weeks on end waiting for my approval to release books that have already been printed and packaged ready for shipping at the publisher’s expense.
Culture in our country has nothing to do with the knowledge, reason or logic. And so, it appears that the leader decided to appoint the donkey to one of the most important state posts for which most people would presume that intelligence is the only prerequisite. But the great leader knew full well that no one in the state would dare to point at the owner of this high office and mention the fact that he’s a donkey.
So the cogs of the state printing presses turned, preparing to disseminate this breaking news, to drop the bombshell. People’s expectations would be high after hearing that a donkey had been appointed to this esteemed and sensitive role with all the sovereignty it commands over the welfare of the country and the future of its children.
Mohammad Abdelmaguid
Taeralshmal
Journalist
محمد عبد المجيد
طائر الشمال
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