Monday, October 23, 2006

The World's Last Living War Criminal

Let's face it, international justice is a joke. We parade Saddam Hussein around every few weeks and have him interrupt people recounting this horror or that horror that his thugs perpetrated on his behalf. I don't think there are too many people out there who doubt what the end result will be. Our boy will wind up swinging from a tree after a long lengthy trial in which every bad thing that happened during his administration is hashed out and debated. If we'd tried him in The Hague instead of Baghdad, he'd rot in jail instead of in the ground and not so many lawyers and jusdeges and relatives of such people would be killed, but we would have the big show nonetheless. It seems that we have the big show because it somehow establishes the dominance of reason over power and brutality. Its a farce and everybody knows it. al Bashir and his cronies in the Sudan certainly know it. They have been operating with impunity for years now perpetrating this genocide or that and barely a finger has been lifted to stop them. Eventually, someone probably will and then they will get their own circus. Whether this circus is thrown at the ICC or by the new temporarily pro-Western government in Khartoum or at the Rekjavik Hilton is yet to be determined, but it will happen.
These circuses don't scare anyone though. No terrorist leaders or strongman butchers are out there thinking "Y'know, maybe I should stop all these mass killings and gang rapes and village burnings because someday I have to be represented by Ramsey Clark." I, however, have a solution: Tyra Banks.
What the fuck am I talking about? you ask. I am talking about the next big thing. I am talking about The World's Last Living War Criminal. We take all of the high profile terrorists and war criminals that we can find (well no more than 20) and, instead of fighting violence and demogaguery with the illusion of international justice, we put them all on a remote island with a camera crew and Tyra Banks. They will have to group up into teams and compete in challenges and every week someone will get voted off the island. Except, when someone is voted off the island, they don't get to go home and appear on the Today Show or trade recipes with Rachel Ray, they get their head chopped off on live TV (well maybe taped, we have to be civilized after all). Why you ask will this scare these people into living better lives and halting massacres instead of hasening them? Because Tyra Banks will be the host/overlord of this show. She will get to come up with all of the stupid challenges and send them Tyra Mail and go through every name at the end of the episode and say "Congratulations, Charles Taylor, you're still in the running to be the World's Last Living War Criminal. Congratulations, Donald Rumsfeld, you're still in the running to be the World's Last Living War Criminal." Then poor old al Bashir will be left having been unable to manipulate his fellow monsters into letting him remain and then chop goes his head. Tyra is the only host that would work because she can outcrazy any of the people I can think of to be on the Island. You'd get to watch a group of master manipulators who will make Ricahrd Hatch and Omarosa seem like amateurs and then you'd get to see their heads on a pike. The winner would be left alive alone with no resources on the island, but we will tell the contestants that the winner gets pardoned. No more cushy Dutch cells where the butchers can die mysterious bloodless deaths. Now, if you want to use mass murder and organized rape to solidify your power, go ahead and do so, but you better be prepared to deal with Tyra.

1 Comments:

At 10:09 AM, Blogger Diaspora Diva said...

DR-
I too have been pondering how the reality TV model could salvage international law, while the US tack the final nails in its coffins. Too good to be a coincidence, that Saddam's trial is the final evidence that victor's justice doesn't work in the age of TV? I think it suits them quite well actually that the trial is such a farce and will discourage the ICC and other such bodies.
And the greatest gift for a deposed dictator who might formerly have died in oblivion on an island is to have his own TV show, every fucking day of the week. They should rename the trial "Bitch fight", (which was your idea for a TV show I could host.)

But seriously now, your reality TV international tribunal would actually work! I was thinking -- additionally-- to accomodate deposed dictators and war criminals who are in a vegatitive state (because its so passe to just die; better to lie there for years with your brain on a plate while on life support), along the lines of "the Real World". They all reside in the same room in an assisted living home. They twitch, they drule-- you know Sharon, Castro, etc. And then just add some sadistic negligent nurse who chainsmokes and humiliates the helpless remains of these guys. Just an idea... looking forward to reading more.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home