Did you know that Salvador Dali was a huge fan of the Marx Brothers? So much so, in fact, that he wrote a script for them. It was entitled "Giraffes on Horseback Salad". Sadly it was not only never filmed, but the script itself disappeared and nobody knows very much about it.
Now, what has that got to do with Duh'bya Bush and the latest decision by his administration? Well, it struck me that a Marx Brothers-inspired Salvador Dali world might contain something as absurd as, say for instance, the Dalai Lama being categorised as a United Nations endorsed international terrorist. Y'know... something really surreal and weird and clearly not of this reality.
How disturbing is it, therefore, to wake up one morning and discover that the most powerful government in the world is being run by people who think they live in that "Giraffes on Horseback Salad" world?
A little over a week ago, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Chinese officials in beijing. Armitage, by the way, is one major-league shady character. But most of the Dubya government are, so it's hardly worth mentioning. Anyways; in what's been seen as part of a campaign to soften Chinese opinion to potential US military action in the Gulf; Armitage announced the addition of a new group to the State Department's list of global terrorist organisations.
This group is the movement for an independent Uighurstan (Uighur pronounced "wee-ger"). Uighurstan (sometimes known as East Turkestan) is a predominantly muslim area of the Western Chinese province of Sinkiang.
What is surreal about this is the fact that the movement for change in Uighurstan is a mass public campaign which is strictly non-violent (aside from clashes with the police and military at demonstrations). To the extent that it has been backed by the Dalai Lama. Further more, it is a member of the non-government organisation; UNPO (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation). This is the same group that represents the Tibetan government in exile and is endorsed by the United Nations as an international human rights organisation.
This might all seem a little abstract, but in essence it means that the US has begun to define as "terrorists" any group that opposes their current government, however despotic they may be (i mean, China!)
It also means, in the "either you're with us or against us" rhetoric of the War Against Being Scared, that the Dalai Lama and UNPO (and maybe by extension, even the UN?) fall into the harbouring and endorsing terrorism camp.
i fear even the great Groucho would have trouble finding humour amid this madness.
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