NOW that bombs are exploding from one end of the earth to the other (Beirut, London, Cairo, Kashmir, et al) I am feeling overly concerned for our desperately poor tourists who need to take a break and fly off somewhere. France has closed its EU borders, Italy will probably snatch anyone who does not speak Italian, Romania is flooded, the US is hostile turf to bearded tourists, and the UK is not only expensive, it is outright dangerous.
We are not a nation of risk takers. We like things our way. So the avenues of Paris are to be framed in our image. For a long while, when Parisians fled the city in August, that was exactly what happened. You would find more green newspapers in the cafes than any other color. Of course, I am talking the Arabic sister of this one.
Unfortunately, we are not all peaceful tourists. At least that is what is dawning on us as a brute reality. We not only want to change the composition of a street in France for example, we also want to overwhelm it literally and figuratively. In other words, we want to recreate it in our image. Granted that our image is worth reproducing, one simple question comes to mind: Why?
If we are so happy with our image, why bother leaving home and imposing it on others? Our existential nut seems solid enough; why not just sit tight inside it? Back in the 1920s, American tourists in Europe gave money a bad name. Then we arrived and dictionaries had to be re-written.
Apart from the Fitzgerald scene, Americans bought works of art, history, and culture to build their museums that are now the finest on earth considering the age of the nation. They also snatched scientists, professors, artists, and opened the doors to the downtrodden to take a chance in America.
We buy perishables and snatch nannies. The nanny part is not that bad since she might instill some education into the tender brains of the young. Alas, it was the nanny who got an education and returned home with Rolex watches and books to write.
Back to the original dilemma: Where to go and what to do till the heat subsides? Well, one option is to go south into our own land. Yes, there are mountains and the monsoon does reach there. You have flora in the shape of acacia trees and fauna in countless baboons that will eat only fast foods. Between the two, there are state of the art shopping malls that you can enjoy.
If some are still intent on colder weather, we simply have to buy a piece of Antarctica from Denmark or whoever owns it, and build our own summer retreat away from the prying eyes of London’s tabloid press. We can build it to our specifications, ship the Lebanese and Egyptian entertainers there instead of Dubai, which is hotter than hell anyway, and hire the Russians to use their Siberian experience to landscape it for us.
At the time of writing, penguins are still stupid enough to think all humans are harmless and have no visa requirements for anyone.
