Maybe imposing these few restrictions was a mistake, but would lifting them now help anyone? Remember we are dealing with a man who has not learned to accept he doesn’t control the world – something most of us discovered when we were about three years old. So he behaves like the manipulative 13-year-old whom most teachers have met and dread. You can’t talk sense to such a problem child. He’ll twist everything and argue till the other side is too tired to continue. So don’t argue. Tell him what he must do and stand firm on that.
If our First Shopper was suddenly allowed to spend our wealth in London or Paris, her old man would only claim he had won and make more demands. Though I can’t understand why he should be so inconsistent. What is so terrible about being barred from buying imperialist luxuries from imperialist shops? Aren’t the shops in his friends’ countries good enough? What could a good anti-imperialist want from London or Paris that s/he can’t buy in Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai? Why give your money to the imperialists?
Maybe we remember it’s our money and we don’t want it going to the imperialists, so some of us here support the ban. Maybe the imperialists don’t want the First Shopper behaving in Oxford Street or the Champs Elysee the way she did in Hong Kong. That means she and her old man will have to change their ways if they want to be accepted. We might support that idea too.
Of course, there are a few other considerations here. Maybe he’s really complaining that he can’t buy imperialist weapons. If you ran a gun shop and someone shouted insults at you, maybe even tried to get a crowd to burn your shop down, and then came in to buy a few guns and a lot of ammunition, would you sell to him? We’d all support you on that. In fact, we’d be grateful if the Israelis joined the arms embargo. None of us like to see their water canons or smell their teargas on our streets.
If he can’t get the weapons from his friends, maybe they are trying to say something he ought to hear. And what would his chum Ahmedinedjad do if he knew how pally our Old Man is with the devil in Jerusalem?
There’s our hope. The old guy seems so determined to create enemies that he hasn’t many friends left and soon he’ll have to listen to people he doesn’t like because there’s nobody else.
Welcome to the real world, mudhara. Support the ban!
Post published in: Opinions