Some Little Ironies.

The video to which I referred in an earlier post showed a group of young North Korean children playing a piece for multiple guitars in concert. Most of the comments, largely from Americans judging by the spelling and syntax, were either unashamedly acidic (‘they only play well because they know if they don’t they’re gonna get beaten to death’) or patronising. An example of the latter came from a man who asked why these kids couldn’t be brought to America to develop their skills. (The implication being that only in a civilised country like America can creative skills be encouraged to flourish. The thousands of years of high creative tradition in East Asia seemingly slip by unnoticed.)

‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘but then they’d be immigrants, and doesn’t this man know that the Gospel According to St Donald contains a ninth Beatitude?

Cursed are they who are not born in the Promised Land of America, or follow not the only proper religion, for never shall they be allowed to enter (unless, of course, they can provide some pecuniary benefit.)

The commenter’s oversight seemed all the more remarkable when you consider that Donald’s attitude actually makes perfect sense. I mean, America has no tradition of taking in immigrants, does it?

(At which point I hear D Trump Jr – if he has sufficient grey cells to get the irony, that is, which I’m tempted to doubt – intoning solemnly ‘Ah, but we didn’t come here with violent intent.’ I think the natives might disagree.)

But, you know what? I was reading the news from North Carolina this morning and had a thought. If somebody asked me the question: ‘Which two countries in the world would you most not want to live in?’ it would be difficult to answer because there are lots of countries I wouldn’t want to live in, but very high up the list would be America and Syria. Ironic, isn’t it?