Monday night, the Nigerian-born, Brooklyn-based writer Teju Cole took to Twitter with a satire of a Washington Post article that attempted to explain Syria and its conflicts with the United States in the form of a list.
Cole tweeted a similar list, this time treating Britain the same way that the Post's Max Fisher's list did Syria.
Nine questions about Britain you were too embarrassed to ask. (Before we begin surgical strikes on Oxford, Bath, and Hull.)
Teju Cole
@tejucole
Nine questions about Britain you were too embarrassed to ask. (Before we begin surgical strikes on Oxford, Bath, and Hull.)
/ Via1 Q. What is Britain? A. Britain is a country in Europe. Its people are called the Britons. Elizabeth II is the Queen of the Britons.
Teju Cole
@tejucole
1
Q. What is Britain?
A. Britain is a country in Europe. Its people are called the Britons. Elizabeth II is the Queen of the Britons.
/ Via2 Q. Why are the Britons selling nerve gas chemicals to Syria? A. Money, innit.
Teju Cole
@tejucole
2
Q. Why are the Britons selling nerve gas chemicals to Syria?
A. Money, innit.
/ Via3 Q. That's horrible. How did it all go so wrong in Britain? A. It's an old country with a violent past. Old habits die hard.
Teju Cole
@tejucole
3
Q. That's horrible. How did it all go so wrong in Britain?
A. It's an old country with a violent past. Old habits die hard.
/ Via4 Q. But don't Britain and the US love each other? The US sells chemical weapons too, no? What about the Geneva Convention? A. Hush, puppy.
Teju Cole
@tejucole
4
Q. But don't Britain and the US love each other? The US sells chemical weapons too, no? What about the Geneva Convention?
A. Hush, puppy.
/ Via5 Q. This is all feeling really bleak and hopeless. Can we take a music break? A. Sure. British music is great. http://t.co/qXnEZVF5CD
Teju Cole
@tejucole
5
Q. This is all feeling really bleak and hopeless. Can we take a music break?
A. Sure. British music is great. http://t.co/qXnEZVF5CD
/ Via6 Q. Why hasn't the US fixed this yet? A. It's complicated. To burn down Oxford would be sad. Do nothing, and Britain remains dangerous.
Teju Cole
@tejucole
6
Q. Why hasn't the US fixed this yet?
A. It's complicated. To burn down Oxford would be sad. Do nothing, and Britain remains dangerous.
/ Via7 Q. So why would Obama bomb the UK if it won't solve the problem? A. To wipe that smirk off Cameron's face. They won't cross us next time.
Teju Cole
@tejucole
7
Q. So why would Obama bomb the UK if it won't solve the problem?
A. To wipe that smirk off Cameron's face. They won't cross us next time.
/ Via8. Q. What's the big deal over chemical weapons? Conventional weapons sales kill millions. A. [redacted]
Teju Cole
@tejucole
8.
Q. What's the big deal over chemical weapons? Conventional weapons sales kill millions.
A. [redacted]
/ Via9 Q. So, what's the big take-away? What's going to happen? Are we going to bomb the Britons? A. LOL. No. Because. Reasons.
Teju Cole
@tejucole
9
Q. So, what's the big take-away? What's going to happen? Are we going to bomb the Britons?
A. LOL. No. Because. Reasons.
/ ViaThere's some dispute concerning Cole's claim that the United Kingdom has allowed an exporter to sell chemicals to Syria.
There's a claim now that the UK chemicals never got to Syria, perhaps "by chance." (See: http://t.co/MSnwqM77b8).
Teju Cole
@tejucole
There's a claim now that the UK chemicals never got to Syria, perhaps "by chance." (See: http://t.co/MSnwqM77b8).
/ ViaMax Fischer, the author of the original Washington Post article, did a Q&A with Teju Cole about his parody. When asked why he wrote it, Cole responded:
I'm always thinking about alternative ways to think about the news, particularly where "the Other" is concerned. My first tweet–"US considers surgical strike on UK over sale of chemical weapons to Syria, but won't seek regime change in London"–was just a straight reaction to the hypocrisy around weapons and punitive strikes (the question of who has a right to use which weapons was the chief pretext for the Iraq war). It seems to me that, without quite thinking it through, we've divided the world into two: countries we can imagine bombing and countries we can't imagine bombing...
He also elaborated on his thoughts on the difficulty in responding to Syria:
I don't like to make false equivalences. There's a serious question here about the use of chemical weapons which is related to, but distinct from, their proliferation. I understand the difference between someone gassing a town and bombing it. To the dead and mourning, the difference is relative, not absolute, but there does seem to be an ontological shift in the violence there: chemical weapons are a new level of "indiscriminate." Still, every weapon means different things is different from every other in terms of accuracy, morality, effectiveness, etc. Nuclear bombs, missiles, mines, drones, machine guns, etc, are, at heart, simply different technologies for one single awful goal: the killing of human beings, the increase of human suffering...
Cole admits there is no clear-cut answer to how to best deal with Syria:
I don't know man. I'm almost certain I'm against any US bombing there. Yet another Middle Eastern country as target practice? Just what is it with the U.S. and bombing brown people in this past decade? The people on the ground there are real human beings.
But it is also precisely the fact that the people on the ground are real human beings that one wonders if an intervention (as happened mostly positively in Mali; and failed to happen with tragic consequences in Rwanda) is what's needed. It's all too complicated for me to figure out. It's certainly painful to watch things unfold over there, hence my objection to any reading that makes it just more grist for the commentary mill.