An Irishman's Diary Kevin Myers

The Green Party's Middle East Crisis Committee met at Newgrange

The Green Party's Middle East Crisis Committee met at Newgrange. In accordance with Green principles, they took off all their clothes, daubed themselves in woad and formed a circle, their finger tips touching.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, they hummed, communicating with the ancient pagan gods of Meath. The party secretary then danced an ecological dance, which was both nude and totally holistic, and this was followed by a large group hug.

After they had engaged in the ancient Green ritual of bottom-sniffing, they sat down. The first item on the agenda was the fascist imperialist war against the peace-loving regime of Saddam Hussein. And then they heard, in a shocked silence, how the American and British nazis were now putting out the oil-fires in the Middle East.

"Oil naturally burns," announced the Green science expert. "This is one of its primary characteristics. It's what it wants to do. So what is going on in Iraq is a crime on many levels. Firstly, to deprive Iraqi oil of the right to burn is a major affront to its civil liberties. One can even call it murder. When oil burns it takes in oxygen. The consumption of oxygen is one of the definitions of life. To prevent oil from doing this is the equivalent of depriving a whale or a porpoise of the right to breathe. It's just as cruel."

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A sigh of horror passed through the assembly of Greens. Some stifled sobs could be heard.

"That's right. Minerals have rights too, you know," agreed the Green secretary. "It's long overdue for people to recognise that. Why should there be one set of values for oil, and another one for diamonds? Diamonds are elevated and treated with respect. No one would dream of confiscating their natural right to glitter. Yet here are the fascist Americans imposing their will, and preventing oil from indulging its natural right to combust, to oxygenate, to respire, to burn, or, if you like, to live."

"What we are dealing with is mineralism at its most naked, most sectarian, most discriminatory," continued the green science expert, quivering with unclothed anger, and also with cold. "Sand is let lie around on the beach or the desert. Soil is allowed to be a growth medium for plants, iron naturally oxygenates into rust, and even oxygen is allowed to oxygenate to make ozone. But not oil, not poor oil, in its own place, the place it loves most, its homeland of Iraq."

"Exactly!" cried a Green TD, raising her nose which had been companionably sniffing a neighbour's bottom. "This is mineralism at its most brutal and violent. And what will happen to this oil, exiled from the land it loves so well? It will be sent off to toil in the carburettors and central heating units of the world oppressor, unpaid, with no holidays, no home life, and not even any sex. Yet despite its humble status, Iraqi oil powers the US economy. It is exactly the same as the slaves being sent over from Africa in slavers of old."

"No, it is worse," cried Ocean, the daughter of hippies. "Far, far worse. In slaves-ships, they were at sea, in the open air, and they could breathe freely, and they could commune with dolphins. When they got to America, they could sing songs in the fields. But the fate of Iraqi oil is to be imprisoned in the dark dungeon of these evil oil-wells, the creation of American technology, when it is quite clear this oil yearns to be free, to burn in glorious flame, in the skies of its native land." She suppressed a small sob. "Poor oil. Poor, poor oil."

"I have a dream that one day on sand dunes of Iraq, light oils and heavy oils will be able to burn together on the sands near Basra," declared one man emotionally. "I have a dream!"

"Hallelujah!" cried a voice.

"That's right!" cried another.

"Hear him," shouted a third.

"I have a dream that one day, Iraqi oils will be allowed to burn on their own native lands, and the children of oil-burners, and the children of oil-cappers, will watch the fires burning together, hand in hand. I have a dream!" There was an enthusiastic round of applause. "Well spoken, brother," said another Green. "Our duty now is to insist that the Government demand that the Allies cease to cap those wells, full of ancient oils trapped for millennia under the rocks, and now, finally yearning to be free, and be burnt in their own native air!"

"But it's not just a question of the natural right of oil to take in oxygen in its own place," wept a Green weather expert. "It's ecologically sound for it to be burnt there. Burning oil creates large clouds of smoke, which obscure the sun, and thereby lowers the temperature of the desert. This in turn will cause clouds of moisture to form, and these will soon acquire sufficient mass to result in precipitation. The rainfall will cause the desert to bloom, and within a couple of years, Iraq will be feeding the world."

"But only if the fascist-imperialist well-cappers are prevented from putting the fires out," exclaimed a Green, "and Saddam Hussein's attempts to bring freedom to the oils of Iraq are successful." Saddam was then nominated the Green of the Year, and having struck that blow for freedom, they all went home well satisfied, which is the standard Green condition.