Patriots Plaza

A spectre has haunted Jesustan ever since the tragic events of 9/11. This is well known, of course. What is not so well appreciated is that paranoia has started to become a fashion – a lifestyle, if you will – and is, thus, something that can be milked for cash.

A large apartment block is being constructed near the Federal Center South-West metro station in Washington D.C.– the first major construction project of its kind, my native scouts tell me, since 9/11. It is called the Patriots Plaza.

What virtue, you might well ask, could a mere apartment block possess to lay claim to patriotism, that most noble of Jesustani virtues? Well, most apartment manufacturers advertise beautiful views, or generous-sized kitchens, or rapid access to the city center, and so on. The builders of Patriots Plaza say that they are, instead, “committed to meeting today’s security needs”. Its manufacturers claim Patriots Plaza has engineering which ensures “progressive collapse avoidance”, a “hardened structure and façade”, a “hardened, distinct garage structure” and “expendable entryways”.

I was so flabbergasted by these pronouncements that I took the time to carry out some reconnaissance around the premises. It does not, as far as I can see, have mounts for an anti-missile system on the terrace, nor even turrets where an air-defense gun could be installed. As such, the Patriot Plaza seems less capable of self-protection than the average jihadi encampment in Peshawar. An architect I subsequently consulted told me that its design basically ensured that a bomb set off in its garage would not bring the whole building down in one go – and that if it did, there would be more than one stairwell through which you could attempt to make an exit.

Patriots Plaza needs to be understood not as a physical entity but as a cultural commodity. It offers the security of the prison: behind bars, barricaded away from the world and your fellow human beings, you are free. Residents of Patriots Plaza will, at least in their imagination, importance through their occupation of the building. You see, their choice of the building as a living premises will denote that they important enough for some fanatic in Tora Bora to want to kill them. Their life and death have meaning and significance.

9/11 has created, I believe, a perverse industry dedicated to the perpetuation of such dementia. Patriots Plaza is at one end of this demented spectrum; the enormous and ultimately futile efforts to seal the gates of Jesustan against the Barbarians, on which vast wealth is now being spent, the other. Under seige, Jesustan has shut itself off from our planet, rather than sallying forth to engage with it. Just ask any Jesustani bureaucrat - or, for that matter, graduate student - how much begging and whining is required for them to get permission to visit some allegedy dangerous part of the world these days. No one, of course, pauses to note that the per-capita incidence of homicide in Washington DC is higher than that in Jammu and Kashmir, combatants included; I jest not.

All of which forces me to ask the question: what is the Jesustani conception of freedom? The Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, a favored official ideologue in Jesustan these days, recently proposed a test: if an individual can walk into the town square, and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment or physical harm, then that person is living in a free society. All other societies, in Sharansky’s view, are fear societies. Sharansky’s book, The Case for Democracy, has been made prescribed reading for the many layers of minions who slave day and night for the Chief of the Jesustanis (a.k.a. Beloved Leader).

As tests go, Sharansky’s is a simple and accurate one. Its application gave me a vivid picture of what Jesustan has become as a consequence of 9/11. I haven’t actually tested the test, so to speak, but that is because I can find no volunteers. Not one of the Jesustanis I have discussed this scientific inquiry with you, you see, was willing to stand in front of Patriots Plaza and deliver an oration on just what a fine fellow Osama bin Laden actually was. Mind, I wouldn’t volunteer either – I’m just a traveler, after all, not a suicide-bomber.

The Garden of Eden

Jesustan, I learn, has reconstructed the Garden of Eden. A convenient two-hour drive from Dallas, Texas, you can find Barasingha and Russian boar, Giraffe and Guar, Wildebeest and White-tailed Deer, Ibex and Oryx, Aoudad and Zebra. According to an article in The Washington Post’s Sunday magazine, there are 200,000 especially-reared exotic animals spread out over 1,000-odd facilities in Texas, Maine and Florida. The exotic-animal safari park industry is believed to generate annual revenues of US$ 120 million a year.

In these Gardens of Eden, though, the lion does not cohabit with the lamb. The lion doth slay the lamb, which is the proper Jesustani way, and as it should be. You visit these zoos, you see, armed with a hunting rifle, not a camera.

Now, this may upset Ms. Maneka Gandhi, and I am sorry for that, but I cannot help but admire the sheer ingenuity of the enterprise. You no longer have to travel to darkest Africa or Asia to hunt down big game. Moreover, given the state of the third-world environment, you would be most unlikely to find such big game even if you went somewhere where the water is dodgy and the toilet paper, indignity of indignities, is rough. Then, by doing away with rapacious airline operators and blood-sucking hotel owners, the until-now elitist pursuit of big-game hunting has been rendered totally egalitarian.

Best of all, the damn animals can’t run away – or not too far, anyway.

What sense do we make of this? You see, there are two kinds of Jesustanis. There are the internationalists, who believe it is their duty to travel to exotic places, see exotic people, and shoot them. Then, there are the Jesustan Kicks Ass! types, who do not want to travel beyond Wal-Mart TM and most certainly do not want to see exotic people (although they do not mind the exotic people being shot). The internationalists believe the world is their backyard; the America-First wallahs believe their backyard is the world (there are also some Jesustanis who think their backsides are the world, but more on that subject anon).

Both visions of the world, some liberal reading this despatch is certain to bleat, are imperialist. Yes, but so what? Many Hindustanis, I learn, are only too happy to be colonised. My friend D, a.k.a. The Goddess, recently sent me news of a shoe store in New Delhi which has a voice-activated dispensing system rather than salespersons. If you call out “Black, Size 7”, for example, shoes of that colour and size will appear. If only the world, she sighed, could be rebuilt in this fashion. Well, thanks to Jesustani imperialism, it soon will be.

Me, I have no desire to live in the Garden of Eden. You see, I have a grudge:

Jithe Adam Noon Dhake Mare,
Mein Nahin Janaan Us Diware;
Bund Vich Le Le Kanak Da Daana
Mein Nahin Teri Jannat Janan

I don’t want to go to the gates
Through which Adam was cast out;
Stick that grain of wheat up your arse,
I don’t want to go to your paradise!

[Thanks to MS, the Foreign Minister of Sindh;
or Bhaluchistan; or anywhere else that will have him]