Settling Afghanistan
Whoa. Dog fighting, eh? That sure got everybody's attention. But I like how one Amir Mohammed, who has been a regular at the dog fights in Afghanistan for some 30 years, said, "It is our culture. Fridays are holidays. There are no parks, no picnics. We want to have a good time."
Sure, sure. And we want you to have a good time, too, Amir Mohammed. Just... at dog SHOWS, not dog FIGHTS. See, while we understand it's YOUR culture, it's OUR war and, to be fair to us and frank with you, we're waging it BECAUSE we don't like your culture.
You know, I hate to say it (mostly because it's a movie cliche I doubt you'll recognize, anyway, Amir Mohammed) but I think what we have here is "a failure to communicate".
So, here's my solution.
I think we, Canada, should start up permanent settlements in Afghanistan. Permanent CANADIAN settlements called "CultureVilles" (bilingual, you'll notice, or not) - so that you, AFGHANISTAN, can learn a little more about OUR culture and what WE like, and, more importantly, what we don't like because we consider ourselves to be a much more evolved culture. No offence, eh. But seriously, this really isn't going to work for us - this dog fighting thing. We put people in jail for that kind of day off over here.
Of course, we used to put people in jail for opening their stores on Sundays, too, until we made it pretty much mandatory that they stay open 24/7. Until "Family Day" came along this year and everybody was told to "shut her down" for the day. You get used to it. We sort of have a preoccupation with shopping vs not shopping.
Anyway, my reason for the "CultureVilles" is that we also have a knack for relocating people to areas we think will better meet their needs - and ours. Now, normally the people we relocate are Indian/Inuit people, but I don't think that would work so well in this case on account of they're having trouble finding their footing with regards to our culture, too, so Sooey was thinking maybe a good idea would be to relocate some of the really big time supporters of the War on Terror to your neck of the woods. You know, to teach you a thing or two about how we like to do things so there aren't any more surprises like... dog fights every Friday.
That's really gotta go if we're going to feel like we're getting anywhere with this Afghanistan mission, Amir Mohammed. Really. We have people here who would go to war against you just for that, nevermind the rest of your culture. NDPers, even (although not me - I'm down with dog fighting, myself - yup - down with dog fighting and up with peace).
So yeah. We've got a bunch of Conservative types who could probably make the transition to permanent settlements in Afghanistan without too much trouble. And I think, Amir Mohammed, you'd find a fair degree in common with them politically, too - especially with regards to women's rights, although not so much with animals unless, maybe, you set the dogs free after the fights and hunted them down for sport. That might be a good compromise.
In any case, I think it would be good to nip these more glaring cultural differences in the bud and have a group of Canadians living and working on permanent settlements in your country until everybody has a better understanding of why we're bothering with this war.
Because I really think somebody forgot to fill you in, Amir Mohammed. This isn't about you and what you want. This is about us and what we want for you.
