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No. 00267 |
April 26 - May 2, 2003 |
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Who needs peace? ... War makes us brighter!By Valentine Marc Nkwame
Some people here, had never even heard of Baghdad, but now, they can easily draw you the map of the city, including that one of Basra, plus giving you all the geographical details about Umm Qasr.... And the weather forecast for the entire Middle East. We all now have intimate knowledge of Saddam Hussein’s family tree .... Not to forget the trees he allegedly used to hang his opponents on. All of a sudden! People who couldn’t even tell which direction the United States was located, can now explain to anybody, who would care to listen, that George W. Bush, the American President, is the son of ... Eh .. George W. Bush, the ...Mh... former American president. Everybody, now knows that Koffi Annan, the United Nations (UN), Secretary General, is as toothless as the Arusha- based; UN-ICTR court .... Or Something! Even those who had never owned any world Atlas, can now tell that, Iraq borders Syria and that Syria is very much afraid of George Bush Junior. Thanks to the war, each Arushan resident is now an authority on missiles, just in case you never knew that the Scud missile was developed in Russia before being sold to Saddam Hussein ... Well, May be! However! As any class two primary pupil of Arusha would assure you, the Scud missile can easily be rendered useless by an American made patriot ... By the way, this has nothing to do with patriotism. Somehow, we have also lost interest on the Hadzabe bushmen of Yaeda Chini forests, in Mbulu district and turned to focus all our attention to the Iraq- based, Kurds. Suddenly! Each Arusha resident, from all walks life is now calling upon the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to explain where exactly were those chemical weapons, that both he and Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein was possessing. We also dismissed all our everyday problems of poor health services, police harassment, increasing crime rate, irrelevant but extremely high, local and central government taxes and embark into marching the streets, pretending to oppose a war taking place over 6,000 miles away. A certain local politician even took the pain of appearing on one of our boring Television stations to give details on the cost of each bomb, that the U.S. was dropping in the former Mesopotamia Kingdom. Oh! We suddenly also became aware that, Iraq was the former Babylonian state, in which the ill fated, Tower of Babel, was once being constructed .... before the builders struck an argument and dispersed, leaving it to crumble down, like a soggy cookie! The recent Iraq war, also gave a new lease of life, to the smitten Arumeru farmers, who discovered that, instead of lamenting about poor prices of coffee, they can engage in more profitable activities like ... Eh... Shooting down Apache helicopters. At least, an Iraq peasant was reported to have shot one during his lunch break ... Mh! Where farmers carry guns instead of "Jembes!" It is also now occurring to all of us that, the existing Criminal Acts, which were formulated by the British colonialists, many years ago are actually very much old fashioned. Instead, we feel that the law should be replaced by the American version, which was recently penned in Baghdad. The new law apparently, do not consider looting and vandalism of properties to be serious criminal cases. All gas stations in Arusha, have also discovered that, petroleum fuel prices, can be hiked Tenfold, under the weak explanations of ... Eh ... Iraq war. You would think that, the silly gas station operators were actually importing the oil directly from Saddam Hussein. That is it fellows. Just in case you happen to be wondering why the taps are still dry, power outages are on the increase and why the rains aren’t coming despite this being the heavy rains season. Blame it all on the Iraq war, George Bush, Tony Blair, Osama Bin Laden .... But precisely Arumeru farmers for not having shot down any Apache helicopter, while the Iraq war was still raging ! |
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Last modified:
April 25, 2003. Webmaster: WDJMallya |
Thanks to
the recent, Iraq- based, Gulf war. Each of us is suddenly an expert on,
International politics, Global economy, Geneva conventions and Petroleum oil
trade.