Friday, August 22, 2008
No Country for Bad People
Is there a place on earth that is not a country, just a place? It must be liveable - not the Arctic or Antarctica. If not, such a no-country should be created at once. In recent days we have seen confusion about where both Pervez Musharraf and Paul 'Gary Glitter' Gadd should live. There would have been none of this fuss had we had the foresight to create No Country. Here convicted paedophiles and deposed despots could live out their natural lives. (You wouldn't want to go there in holiday, though my experience of the British abroad suggests they wouldn't notice anything particularly odd.) It may be, of course, that nationalism runs so deep in human nature that a No Country dictator would arise to forge an army of paedophiles and launch an attack on a neighbouring country on the basis of some imagined insult or threat. A horrific prospect, but not one we need fear. If this should happen, nobody would protest if we nuked No Country and started all over again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
What's wrong with leaving them in the modern purgatory of airport departure lounges ?
ReplyDeleteChacachacare?
ReplyDeleteCanada?
ReplyDeleteBradford (West Yorkshire) seems to be this place of which you speak, the natural home for paedos and deposed dictators, most of whom either wander the Bradford train/bus station or find teaching positions in a certain private school.
ReplyDeleteIf Musharraf had been as corrupt as everyone else he'd have no problem finding a refuge. As it is he has little money. Apparently his liking for Scotch also makes Saudi Arabia a problem...although according to George Tenet's autobiography when he did his farewell rounds, he and his top team consumed a lot of Scotch in prince Bandar's palace in Jeddah.
ReplyDeleteIf Musharraf had been as corrupt as everyone else he'd have no problem finding a refuge. As it is he has little money. Apparently his liking for Scotch also makes Saudi Arabia a problem...although according to George Tenet's autobiography when he did his farewell rounds, he and his top team consumed a lot of Scotch in prince Bandar's palace in Jeddah.
ReplyDeleteIf Musharraf had been as corrupt as everyone else he'd have no problem finding a refuge. As it is he has little money. Apparently his liking for Scotch also makes Saudi Arabia a problem...although according to George Tenet's autobiography when he did his farewell rounds, he and his top team consumed a lot of Scotch in prince Bandar's palace in Jeddah.
ReplyDeleteWhat I tell you three times is true...
ReplyDeleteSweden, the default destination of your average nonce. Mush arrowfat is S.Byers in bootpolish.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened to Ultima Thule?
ReplyDeleteI'd suggest the former playground of the Waffen SS, Tuscany. One couldn't wish for finer neighbours for Tony and Cherie. I'm sure Pres Pervez and Silvio could share old memories of the glory days over a glass or two of estate-bottled, fully organic castor oil. And the local uomini di rispetto could be relied on to keep the riff-raff in line.
ReplyDeleteLook here Cap, you really must come off the magic mushrooms.
ReplyDeleteYou as well Nige.
ReplyDeleteHow would this No Country be governed? Would it have an economy? Public services? McDonalds? Starbucks?
ReplyDeleteAre you sure you don't mean a human zoo or some kind of safari park instead? Not unlike a prison in many ways, but bigger, open plan, and without the many home comforts of conventional prison.
Could make for great reality tv - it has all the ingredients.
I heard that, Brit. Would that we were so intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI think Bryan has hinted at something more serious than he may have intended. You simply can't chuck it all in, flee and start over again in anonymity like you could in the past. No Wild West to disappear to, no hightailing it to France to escape scandal and debt, no "going to sea" with no contact for years. Even emmigration is a lengthy bureaucratic process in which the thrill of impulsive adventure is gone long before you even leave, and even after you do, you have to e-mail the family back home daily (or wave goodnight to them on your webcam) and deal with the tax authorities you left behind who found your forwarding address with ease. "The world is too much with us" has gone global.
Erewhon. Failing that, Siberia.
ReplyDelete"I think Bryan has hinted at something more serious than he may have intended. You simply can't chuck it all in, flee and start over again in anonymity like you could in the past."
ReplyDeleteNot strictly true, Peter. There are still plenty of places even in Europe where you can drop off the radar. They'll catch up with you eventually - it'll be the tax people most likely. But by then you'll be so far out of the loop you won't care and they'll see you as a crazy old man in a shack with a few chickens and won't care much either. I've met people like this; we probably all have. What you can't do is bunk off and expect to continue the comfy middle-class life.
It's quite easy to disappear in London.
ReplyDeleteI knew my eyesight was poor, but its those funny fuzzy letters, rather than mushrooms, magic or otherwise, that bamboozled me. What do you do all day if you are a retired autocrat? Bark orders at the bloke in the shaving mirror?
ReplyDeletePerhaps we could re-stock Guantanamo. It actually fits your definition quite nicely.
ReplyDeleteMark/Brit:
ReplyDeleteI was thinking more about the fresh start--the dream of leaving it all behind and starting anew to glorious triumph and the fulfilling of one's destiny in a new world, not cowering in fear of child support payments or the Inland Revenue in a flophouse in Warsaw.