THE RETURN OF THE HAS-BEENS AND THE NEVER-WAS

 How neat! The self-styled coalition of the willing, witlessly dragging history behind them, met yesterday in the Azores, with tough talk all around, accompanied by bonhomie backslapping. Forget setting the community of man back before World War I! These four “leaders” representing Portugal, Spain, England, and, oh yes, their former colonized territory, America, give intimations of rolling us back to the 1500s and the Age of Discovery.

Shades of Dias and Da Gama and Cortes and Pizarro… they made shades of the Aztecs and Incas, all in the name of religion and gold.

Intimations of Cabot and Drake and Frobisher… the advance guard of British imperialistic global real estate adventure. And pity again poor Ireland, given to the British courtesy of the Vatican in 1155… the onset of 800 years of subjugation, persecution, and starvation. (The Papal bull was later deemed to be a forgery… nothing new there!)

And here we go round again, this time in the name of “liberation and peace.”

Such pathetic immoral madness!


James Ryan
Istanbul, Turkey
17 March 2003