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Of Freedom Fries and Prophetic Pastries
The Battle for Gastronomic Mindshare
February 16, 2006
(VizReport) Just when you thought that international politics couldn't get any more bizarre, it not only surpasses the former mark, but does so by a miraculous mile.
When the French government refused to follow the United States into Iraq in 2003, a strong--or at least vocal--percentage of the American citizenry was indignant about France's poor appetite for war. Many saw it as an inherent weakness of the caractère français; after all, hadn't they folded early during the last two World Wars? Others viewed it as the sort of snobbery for which the French are famous throughout the world -- a sort of unmitigated Gaul, if you will.
Most people would have rebuked them briefly, perhaps with a good-natured joke, before letting them off the hook. You know... "How many soldiers does it take to defend France?" Answer: "No one knows. It's never been tried before."
However, in order to keep the level of scorn and indignation elevated, two men took it upon themselves to crusade for appropriate retribution.
Meet Bob Ney and Walt Jones, both Republican congressmen, from Ohio and North Carolina, respectively. They announced, on March 11th of that year, that french fries and french toast would no longer be served in the restaurants operated by the U.S. Congress. As committee chairman for House Administration, Bob Ney didn't need to call a vote on the matter. And so, throughout all the cafeterias of Congress, people were then required to order "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" instead.
The French were beside themselves with... well, I suppose it would have to be classified as "bemusement".
In this tit-for-tat world, no one plays the game with more passion than the government of Iran. If George Bush says "all options are on the table," then you know that you need only wait minutes until the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nezhad, feels compelled to echo the sentiment -- usually verbatim.
When a Danish newspaper printed caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, the Iranian leader wasted no time in declaring that he would sponsor an international competition for cartoons pertaining to the Holocaust.
If you've been off-planet for a couple of generations, you can be excused for not realising that the German Nazi party engineered the murder of about six million Jewish Europeans during the Second World War. (Oh yes, there was a second one, despite the hype you might have heard before you left about the War to End All Wars.) Unfortunately, the government of Iran can't draw upon that excuse because many Iranians were, in fact, on-planet at the time.
So, taking a page from Bob & Walt's book, the government of Iran has decided that danishes will no longer be available. But, not wishing to cause more internal strife by removing the tasty pastries altogether, they have simply changed the name of the baked treat to something more suitable.
So, if you're in Teheran with a hankering for danish, you're going to have to bite your tongue, walk into the nearest bakery and order up a dozen Roses of the Prophet Mohammed.
Poor tongue. First promised a treat, then bitten and tripped over.
Cheers,
Viz
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