George Bush on Asian Captive Animal welfare

[Guest guest]

In this scholarly article, the world's greatest intellectual presents

expert opinion on how to treat two legged and fourlegged animals in

the third world.

 

Azam Siddiqui

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Link:

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main16.asp?filename=hub031106Animal_farm.asp

 

EXCLUSIVE TO TEHELKA

 

Animal Farm II

 

In Which George Bush Says What He Really Means (A PLAY BY ARUNDHATI ROY)

 

CAVEAT: In this age of copyright, intellectual property, piracy and

plagiarism I want to acknowledge that this play is entirely derivative.

The ideas have all come from the public speeches and actions of the

famous poet, pacifist, flowerchild, free-thinker and social activist

George W Bush. Much of the play is based on the text of his recent

speech in the Asia Society in New York. (All money from ticket sales

should be sent directly to him.)

 

Ext. Day.

Purana Qila.

The Delhi Zoo.

 

It's spring. The neem trees have lost their leaves. The silk cotton

and the kachnaar are in full bloom. The car park is packed with Mercs

with their engines running and their air-conditioners on. Bored

uniformed chauffeurs are listening to Hindi film songs on swanky car

stereos.

 

Inside the zoo the animals' cages have been recently cleaned and smell

of phenyl. Tiny American and Indian flags flutter from the bars. There

are heavily armed US security guards with muscles and sunglasses on

top of every cage. They search the crowd and the cages for the first

sign of trouble. They seem particularly uneasy about the pangolin.

 

George Bush is standing in a bullet-proof cage and addressing a

gathering of rich industrialists, MPs and a few film stars. They all

wear lots of rings and have faded red thread wrapped around their wrists.

 

GEORGE BUSH: Hello all you lucky people! Thankyou for taking time off

your busy schedules to come and listen to the President of the United

States.

 

The Hoollock Gibbon hoots. The Orangutan doesn't even look up from his

flea-hunt. The clouded leopard paces up and down. The Slow Loris looks

surprised.)

 

I'm here today to talk about two great democracies in Asia, both of

whom I have decided to invite into my Harem. Innia… and Afghanistan –

sorry – Pakistan. Damn! I knew it had a Stan in it somewhere – but of

course Afghanistan's already in my harem, so how can I invite her in.

Heh! Heh! Innia's a democracy because the people voted for a

government that obeys me. Pakistan's a democracy because General

Musharraf has my vote. So do the bigots in Central Asia and Saudi

Arabia. Palestine's not a democracy because they voted for people I

don't like. But Innia's my favourite democracy.

 

More than five centuries ago the famous mass murderer and founder of

our nation — Christopher Columbus set out to discover Innia and proved

the world was round. Now my friend Tom Friedman says its flat.

Frankly, I don't really care what shape it is, as long as it belongs

to me and I can play with it all day long. But as you know, Chris

Columbus discovered the US instead of Innia. Fortunately there were

lots of Innians there too. With God on our side we killed them all –

40 to 60 million of them – I don't recall the actual figure, my office

will send out a statement later. But let's not quibble, what's a

little genocide between friends? The good thing is that we now have

the country to ourselves. Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. We have

more Newcooler Weapons than any of you could possibly imagine. I could

destroy the whole world in a minute if I'm in a bad mood. Heh! Heh!

Jus' kiddin'. I'm not really a moody guy. Besides…I'm on your side for

now. I mean, I'm on your side now. I'm not your enemy am I? Do I look

like that kind of guy? Have you seen Sleeping with the Enemy? I have,

and I said to Laura, the film's okay, but the question is, who gets

f*****d? Ha!

 

Looks around with that sneery triumphant look we have all come to know

and love.

 

I'm sorry Laura's not here. She's doing a photo-op with some orphans

down at Mother Treezer's. I have truly enjoyed meeting your Prime

Minister – the guy with the turban and the funny high voice. I'm

trying to get him to hand over the couple of Newcooler bombs you

peoples' have in your little cupboard, so that I can look after them

for you. Your Prime Minister is a good man – he went to Oxford didn't

he? But still… he does wear that funny turban, and when I look around

me I see all kinds of funnily dressed people, some of them even have

beards and look like Muzzlims. People who live in hot countries smell

funny and don't use deodrant. My favourite deodrant is called Freedom,

it has a lovely lemony smell. I don't think funnily dressed people

should have Newcooler weapons. So those bombs in your cupboard – I

must inist, I mean insist - on them being handed over.

 

In the US we don't keep bombs in our cupboards. Only skeletons. Our

favourite skellies have pet names. They're called Peace, Democracy and

the Free Market. Their real names are Cruise Missile, Daisy Cutter and

Bunker Buster. We like Cluster Bomb too. We call her Claire. She's

real pretty and kids like to play with her and then she explodes in

their faces and maims or kills them. That's a real hoot. But don't

tell my mom I said that. She'll make me wash my tongue with soap.

 

I'm here today because Asia is transforming very quickly, and I want

to be part of all the spiralling violence and environmental

destruction. I love that sort of stuff – as those morons in Kyoto have

no doubt been bleating about to you. I believe there isn't a single

river left in India with potable water and the water table is

plummeting. But you can have Coke instead, it's cooler and tastes

better. And you're getting those lovely gigantic malls where you can

buy anything if you have the cash. It gives me a thrill to know that

the lives of rich Innians are improving rapidly and that Innian CEOs'

salaries are beginning to match their western counterparts. That's

lovely. In the US we subsidize our CEOs. We spoil them rotten because

we love them. We love our corporate farmers too. We give them billions

of dollars of subsidies because they're really good people. They're

not like your farmers – thin and poor and suicidal. Your farmers don't

deserve subsidies because they're not good people. You should put them

on Prozac. That would bring in some more revenue to US drug companies.

 

As I was saying last week in the Asia Society, it's good to know that

rich Innians are buying air-conditioners, kitchen appliances and

washing machines made by US companies like GE, Whirlpool and

Westinghouse. Younger Indians are developing a taste for Dominos

Pizzas and revolting hamburgers. This is wonderful news because

Americans are tired of being the only people in the world with obesity

problems and a truly disgusting cuisine.

 

But all bad things have good apcess. The good apcess. (An aide leans

forward and whispers " Aspect Mr President. " ) That's what I said – the

good aspect of our terrible food is that it strengthens our resolve

and commitment in our war against Muzzlims – I beg your pardon –

against terrorists. I love Muzzlims. The good ones that is, the ones

who aren't terrorists and work in call centres. They're real nice

folks. To defeat terrorists our intelligence agencies are spying on

all of you all the time. You have no idea how much we know about you.

We have surveillance cameras and wireless devices and software we have

put into your computers so that we can watch you all the time. We know

where you go, what you buy, who you sleep with. Brig Bother is

watching you! Heh! Heh!

 

I hate terrorists because they think they have a right to kill people

too. But when I was small, my mother and my grandmother - you say

Naani in Hindi right? My mom and my naani told me that the only person

who has the right to kill people, bomb countries and use chemical and

newcooler weapons is the President of the United States. And guess who

that is!

 

Begins to whoop and hoot and startle all the animals. The zoo erupts

with alarm calls.

 

I'm very glad to be here because I love animals. I love hunting

animals, especially when they are in cages and can't bite me. Once

when I was small a bee bit me and I cried. I also love fighting wars

against countries after they have been starved and forced to disarm.

You know how clever we were about all that in Eye-raq. I love bombs

because you don't have to see who you've killed which really suits

cowards like me. But I'm a girlboy and I don't see why we're

conditioned to expect men to be brave. But you needn't worry, I'm not

here to bomb you or starve you – because Indians are starving anyway,

Ha! Ha!

 

Looks around triumphantly and looks contrite when he realizes he's

made a boo-boo.

 

Oops…that's what my granny calls a boo boo! Sorry. The reason I'm here

is that I like rich Indians. The reason I like rich Indians is that

they are obedient and brainy and that is a pretty rare combination. In

the US we consider them model immigrants. I like obedient brainy rich

Indians because they bring additional brainpower to help solve

problems and provide executives in the US with critical information

about the needs of their consumers and customers overseas. India is

important as a market for US products. It has one billion people for

us to exploit. The best part is that the Indian Government lets us

take India's own stuff - coal, bauxite, minerals, even water and

electricity and sell it back to them at huge profits. That's really fun.

 

Unfortunately out of these one billion people, most of them are poor.

I hate poor people because they have no money to buy anything. I wish

they would just disappear. I was glad to hear that tens of thousands

of Indian farmers are committing suicide. In the US we called that

irresponsible self-destructive behaviour. But if we could just speed

that up a bit, put it on a fast track trajectory, we could turn things

around real fast. But poor people make good maidservants and wage

labourers so we need to keep them going.

 

Soon we hope that US corporations will own all Indian seeds, plants,

biodiversity, essential infrastructure and even their new ideas. As I

said, Indians are quite brainy and sometimes have good ideas. We can't

afford to let them own their own ideas. We can't allow farmers to own

seeds. Everybody ought to ask us about everything. I love it when

everybody needs my permission. Dick says the key word is control.

 

One of the US corporations that we're proudest of is owned by Bill

Gates. He visits India often. He is a wonderful and generous man. He

gives the Indian government millions of dollars to fight HIV Aids. I

don't like people who have HIV Aids because they're mostly blacks and

homos. I like the companies who make Aids drugs that no one can

afford. I love that kind of dark, edgy humour. But I was talking about

Bill. In return for Bill Gates' millions the Indian government buys

hundreds of millions of dollars worth of computer technology from him.

He's so rich I'm afraid he might burst.

 

I'm quite rich too. So are my friends and my friends' friends and my

friends' friends' friends. Especially Dick Cheney. We work on our

filthy deals together. Oil, weapons – all that. Shame about what

happened to Enron. But it was good while it lasted. I love Dick

especially because he tells me what to say at press conferences. I

miss him. But I'll never go hunting with him. He might shoot me with

his illegal gun, and I don't know what I'll do when I'm dead.

 

I'm looking forward to bombing Eye-ran. We have some new weapons we

want to test. It should be fun. I hope India will send some soldiers

to help us. There are so many of you, it won't matter much if you lose

a few. And you're committing suicide in droves anyway, which is

illegal. Why not get killed legally in Eye-ran or Eye-raq? We could

arrange posthumous green cards. We'd have them laminated. But that

would be charged to their account. Think about it.

 

Thankyou for your time. `Bye now.

Jay Hind.