Monday 25 February 2013

Pants on Fire!


When I was in Taiwan I visited the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, a structure worthy of a Chinese Emperor, there to see mementos of the late Generalissimo, including his car.  When I was in Tunisia I visited the Habib Bourgiba Mausoleum in Monastir, there to see mementos of the country’s first president, including his silk summer suit. 
How would you choose to be remembered, what object or personal belonging might best represent your life?  Perhaps a car, or a suit or some other item that would reflect on your dignity or your humility?  Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former president of Yemen, is memorialising his own thirty three year rule in a new museum created in his honour.  And what do you think he has chosen as the central and most personal exhibit, the thing he wants people to remember him by?  This is a man less ordinary.  He does not want anything as ordinary as a car or a suit.  He has chosen, rather, a pair of his scorched underpants.  Yes it’s true – Ali, Ali,  Pants on Fire! 
His singed white pants, along with a pair of torn trousers, is the central display in the new museum, set up in a wing of the Saleh Mosque in Sanaa, the capital.  The torn and burnt clothing is a reminder of the bomb blast that almost killed the ex-president during the 2011 rising against his autocratic rule.  Although not yet open to the public, the news of Ali Saleh’s risible narcissism has spread. 
Although still a powerful figure in Yemeni politics, he is seemingly wholly unaware just how ridiculous this makes him look, a clear comment on the blind and humourless vanity of certain politicians.  Or perhaps it’s just Arab autocrats that are at fault here.  Can you imagine Hitler, Stalin or Mao expecting the masses to be in awe of their burnt smalls? No?  I certainly can't.  
I expect you have already booked your flight to Sanaa, keen to pay your own respects to the Ali Saleh legacy.  You will be pleased to know that the museum holds a further 2000 exhibits, gifts from foreign dignitaries.  There is a Christmas card from Princess Anne that you might want to see.  Just look for the section marked “Spain, Portugal and Hungari” [sic].  I’m not sure if this means that the said card was sent from Spain, Portugal or Hungari, or if some other bizarre logic is at work.  Perhaps the curators think that Britain is located somewhere alongside Spain, Portugal or Hungari. 
Meanwhile Hamza al-Shargabi, a Yemeni blogger now based in New York, has set up a page on Facebook, “We are all going to see Ali Saleh pants on fire.”  I can’t wait.  


6 comments:

  1. Like the lightweight sarcasm. Britain can be easily located "somewhere alongside Spain, Portugal or Hungari", as I know someone here would wonder how long it takes to drive to Romania (from here - North Carolina!), and believe Europe was certainly located in Poland!

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    1. Yun Yi, there is a German girl I know from university, who went to stay for a time with a family in Minnesota when she was an undergraduate. I should stress that these were people of German descent. Anyway, she was asked if Hitler was still alive and if Germany is in Europe!

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  2. When looking at the bizare antics of leaders of underdeveloped, developing and banana republic nations. The depth of corruption, narcissism and ineptitude that is so prevalent in these places one has to compare that with those of our current crop of leaders in our developed nations. Close inspection tells us that we have no reason to be smug as what appears to be at first glance to be a more sophisticated and intelligent approach to matters political, social and economic are not that way at all. Day after day scandals and crises involving politicians, public sector organisations and corporate sections of industry and commerce are emerging that eclipses the worst of the banana republics shenanigans. The only sophistication that the developed nations have is the ability to put a different spin on it to make it not look like they are acting as badly as those that we decry in the third world.

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    1. All very true, Antisthenes. I just wait for the day when Tony Blair or David Cameron put their own pants on display!

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  3. Hot Pants were all the rage in the early 70s. But only for young ladies.

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