After Forty Years!

A satire

Forty years ago, as the US launched its air bombardments of Vietnam, a forty two year old man and his one-year old son fled to the nearby jungles. Last week they were “found” by a farmer. Today, the man is eighty two years old and his son is forty one. They

survived in the trees by eating wild fruits and vegetables. Both looked very run down.

According to local authorities, Huwan Tun and his son had last been seen forty years ago and had fled to the jungles after all other members of their family had been killed by the air strikes. They were found when a farmer had gone to the forest to fetch some burning wood and noticed the two. A reporter for the local publication Koohong spoke with Huwan Tun.

Reporter: Hello Hu, how are you?

Huwan Tun (looking suspiciously around): I am fine. Ever since I came down the tree, I feel I am going to fall. I felt safer up there.

Reporter: What made you flee to the jungles?

Huwan Tun: My nephew Negwin was in our house when the imperialist Americans began bombarding the town and neighboring area. Our house was destroyed and my wife was killed. I told my nephew we needed to go to the jungle outside the town, but he refused to come. So I decided to go to go with my one-year old son. Do you know where my nephew is?

Reporter: Your nephew Negwin Tun is a very famous man now. He owns the best Vietnamese food store in California and …

Huwan Tun: California? That famous American state? So we eventually succeeded in capturing America? The US is run by Vietnam now?

Reporter: Not really but almost all dry-cleaning businesses and many restaurants in America are in the hands of the Vietnamese.

Huwan Tun: You mean Negwin Tun is now serving the imperialists in America? Why did he not go to the Soviet Union to help our communist comrades?

Reporter: It is now twenty years that the Soviet Union has collapsed. If Vietnamese go to Russia today, the Mafia there will kill them in a week.

Huwan Tun: Why don’t they get help from our Chinese comrades? Who is the leader of the Chinese communist party today?

Reporter: The Chinese government is now capitalist. The communist party is there but the economy of the country is capitalist.

Huwan Tun, laughing: What a joke! Communist party and capitalist economy? The Czechoslovakian communists are probably laughing at the Chinese then!

Reporter: I don’t think so because there are no communists in Czechoslovakia today and NATO even has a base there.

Huwan Tun: The next thing you will tell me is that only Fidel Castro has remained in his job! Had he been alive, he would have been a hundred and twenty years old!

Reporter: Incidentally yes; only Fidel Castro remains alive today, even though he has been in hospital for the last five years.

Huwan Tun: So who are in the anti-imperialist camp today then? Who is fighting the Americans?

Reporter: More than anybody else the Iranian government.

Huwan Tun: Stop kidding. You mean the Shah of Iran has become a communist?

Reporter: Look, communism is dead and the Shah of Iran was deposed many years ago. Iran is now run by an Islamic religious government.

Huwan Tun: Nonsense! If the Iranian regime is religious, why would it be enemies with the United States? They should be against the communists.

Reporter: Look Hu, many things changed while you were in the jungles. In fact, those who used to be communists and those who have become Muslim have joined hands against America.

Huwan Tun: Ha, ha ha! If what you are saying is true, then Iran, Cuba, Russia and China are allies. How funny!

Reporter: You know, you are right on this one!

Huwan Tun: If Iran is now anti-imperialist, it must have good relations with the communists in Iraq. These two used to be enemies in the past.

Reporter: They are not exactly friends today either. There was a time when on US encouragement Iraq attacked Iran. After that, with some Iranian encouragement the US attacked Iraq. Today, Iraq is in the hands of the US military. I know this sounds a little confusing. You should take some rest.

The reporter takes out a photograph of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and shows it to Hu: Look, this is Ahmadinejad. He was president of Iran until last week. He is the biggest fighter against imperialism.

Huwan Tun, looking at the photograph closely: You mean he is the successor to the Shah? He is the head of Iran? He looks like a tramp. I am certain that he must have been with us for a long time but was probably hiding in some other forest.

Reporter: In fact he used to fight a lot with America, more than other Muslims.

Huwan Tun: You know, I am thinking of that young revolutionary Libyan. The one who lived simply in the desert, the one we said will bring down America. What happened to him? Where was he when America attacked Iraq?

Reporter: Ghaddafi too was against America until the day people, on encouragement from the US, stabbed and killed him.

Huwan Tun: So there is nobody in this world now who is against America except …

Reporter: That is not true. There are many who oppose Americans, such as al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah, …

Huwan Tun: I don’t understand these words. What are you talking about?

Reporter: These are Arabic terms.

Huwan Tun: So Arab communists are now fighting with America?

Reporter: Look, you are now driving me crazy. During the time you were in the jungles, communists left. Only Mugabe in Africa and Castro in Cuba remain. The most socialist country in the world today is Sweden.

Huwan Tun, looking shocked: Are you pulling my leg? Sweden has become socialist? The next thing you will tell me is that the new German leader is a woman and the American president is a black man. Ha, ha ha!

Reporter: Exactly. Ms Angela Merkel is the leader of Germany and Barak Hussein Obama is the president of the US and he is black!

Huwan Tun: Who? Barak Hussein?

Reporter, showing Hu a photo of Obama: Look at this; I am not joking.

Huwan Tun: So the only country that has remained communist and is fighting America is Vietnam?

Reporter, looking around: Hu, watch what you say. If someone one talks about Ho Chi Minh he will be arrested on charges of being a communist and sent to prison. There are no communists left. Anyone who is rich in Vietnam or in China is selling something to the US and has relations with the American embassy. If you too write your memoirs, an American publisher will buy them from you, publish them and then you will be in heaven too.

Huwan Tun, looking perplexed: I want to return to the jungle. I think there is no point in living after the defeat of Vietnam from the US.

Huwan Tun turns to the jungle and as he walks towards it repeats these words to himself: America defeated general Giap, Russia is in the hands of the Mafia, China is now capitalist, the American president is a black man, Germany is run by a woman, and Muslims have united with former communists against America. This idiot thinks I have gone mad in the jungle!