The silent coup

Hushed and unrushed

You know what? The monkey returned. You remember the beautiful monkey I talked about last week and suggested that he should be invited to head our next caretaker government? Well, he came back and pretty miffed he was.

I was still surfacing early last Sunday when I heard a chattering coming from my bedroom window. “Mean fellow,” the chatterer was saying in umbrage. “He throws the lives of others into a tailspin and then goes to sleep. Who does he think he is, the fat slob?” Though I had heard that last barb before, I was so intrigued that I opened my eyes to behold the same monkey sitting regally on my windowsill. He was positively shirty.

“What have you against me?” he demanded. “You have made my life miserable with your article today. All sorts of human sycophants, job seekers and wannabes have inundated my jungle bearing useless gifts. Your priorities are all wonky. I’ll tell you what? Get a parrot instead to become your prime minister – that would be great.” He was in high dudgeon.

“Our politics are full of parrots,” I said weakly. “All they do is talk, talk, talk.”

“Squawk, actually,” said Maverick. “I take great offence at your calling human parrots ‘The Chattering Class’. ‘Squawking Class’, more like. We are not nuts like you. You make bombs to save you and you end up saving the bombs. Save you against whom, pray? Other humans? Oh you stupid naked apes. You discover nuclear fusion and instead of using it for good you use it for bad. Now if you do discover the Higgs Boson ‘God Particle’ I can bet you will start making black holes that will eat up the world. You are baldies and try and hide it with wigs and hair transplants. Comical creatures. ‘Never trust a man in a wig or a hair transplant,’ my old Pappy used to say. His name was ‘Wise One’. Mine is Maverick.”

Maverick wouldn’t stop. He had to get it off his chest. All thoughts of making a fortune here with a talking monkey evaporated.

“One human tried to climb my tree bearing a cake and fell halfway. We had to save the idiot from wild boars. No wonder you are in such a mess. No wonder the whole world is in such a mess. It is you who are at the point of extinction with your amazing stupidity, not my kind. You make great discoveries but use them for making killing machines. Your best brains go into making killing machines. Stupid.” He had a point there. “We have been here much longer than you humans and we will be here much longer than you,” he said optimistically.

“Another insult is your claim to have descended from us. Stupid Darwin. You are mutants, an experiment gone wrong, just like in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Arthur C Clarke had it right. Great movie. Watch it. You are all destructive and in trying to destroy others you actually end up destroying yourselves. America is a case in point. I’ve had it with your kind. Sort out your own problems. You made them.” He made to leave.

“No, wait,” I said, jumping out of bed. “Listen, Maverick. It will only be for a short while – three months.”

“Knowing your Supreme Court it will be more like three years. No, Sir, it’s your problem. I was not made to lead man. I was made to save my kind from mankind.”

“Look,” I said. “If a collection of owls can be called ‘parliament’ and a collection of baboons ‘senate’, why not a ‘government of monkeys?”

I saw him smile for the first time. “The other day your prime minister gave the impression in a speech that the wolf is at the door. The wolf has ruled you many times. He will rule you again. You are a yoyo between wolves and parrots. It’s the wolves’ turn now. Forget me. I’m not mad. You will hail me as prime minister one day and start spanking me the next. You guys are crazy. Go see a shrink. Or should I send you mine?

“Your world is about to collapse and you go ape, if I might use the expression, over a naked girl on a magazine cover? Why, if one of our girls shaved her body and started prancing around, we would die laughing.” Maverick broke into laughter.

“The chances of your pet master America starting a war against you and Iran are growing by the day. I don’t know if it will, I don’t know which will come first. They are preparing while you are caught up in a reverie of irrelevance. How can you be sure they didn’t send their silly drone into Iran in the first place and let them take it down so as to create the justification for an attack? The question that is begging to be asked is never asked: what was a US drone doing in Iranian airspace in the first place? Have you forgotten Iraq and how they fabricated evidence against it? They fear not a nuclear but a cyber attack from Iran, which could drive America back into the Stone Age – something they threatened you with.

“Do you know that last Thursday America’s Senate passed a bill that formally puts the Pentagon in pre-eminence. It is a constitutional coup. The bill, S 1867, is the ‘National Defense Authorization Act’ (NDAA). It passed by 93 votes in favour and only seven against, so it has near-total bipartisan support. This should tell you something about these people and what you have been in bed with virtually since your birth. The bill gives them the power to detain any American citizen to indefinite military detention without charge or trial. What else is a coup? You should learn about these coups: best way to keep your politicians and judiciary in check. Now the Pentagon will be running the show while the White House and Congress will be obedient window dressing. And the old concentration camps used for penning in Japanese during World War II have been made ready for people of your ilk.

“The bill also enacts strict new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and any entities that do business with it. The cat is out of the bag. It’s Iran, my friend, that’s their prime concern, not you, for they need another war to take them out of recession and also get hold of their oil and protect shipping lanes. You only come into the picture because of your nuclear weapons. You could be caught in the middle of another maelstrom before the first has abated. Sure, in the end America will also destroy itself, but you will have been destroyed first. When a behemoth falls he crushes those near him. You are under him. And you’re worried about a naked girl? Wake up, my human friend. The very survival of your tribe is at stake.” Having said that, Maverick scampered off before I could stop him.

“Who were you talking to?” my wife asked, waking up. “A monkey,” I replied, deadpan. “A monkey? Which monkey? What monkey? You should see a shrink.”

Perhaps I should. It probably comes from thinking too much. But I know I was talking to a monkey. I hope he comes back one day. I have a feeling he will.

The writer is a political analyst. He can be contacted at [email protected]