PARODY

For those of you who can't figure out what the hell I'm talking about in this week's entry (or can't figure it out any better than previous articles), the following is a parody of an "Open Letter" someone from the So-Called Somerville Divestment Project (SC-SDP) blanketed cyberspace with recently. You can read the original here .

An Open Letter to the Somerville Aldermen

Dear Aldermen,

Martin Luther King went to prison dozens of times in his battle against racial injustice. Nelson Mandella spent half his life behind bars in protest against the Apartheid. Christ died for our sins. Six million Jews perished during the Holocaust (or so they say). Twenty-six billion Palestinians have been killed under an unending rain of Israeli atom bombs dropped on their villages since 1948.

Yet none of these people, none of these groups have suffered so much as a papercut when compared to what has been inflicted on I, the grand, exulted leader of the global divestment crusade! (Whoops!, I mean WE, the citizens of Somerville united for divestment. And also Hilda from Medford. Oh, and Marty from Brighton. And those 45 kids we recruited from MIT. Sorry, have I left anyone out?)

While other victims of repression may have had to suffer torture, dispossession and mass murder, we of the Middle East Justice Network… I mean (what are we calling ourselves these days), oh yeah, the Somerville Divestment Project, had to endure Alderman Roache calling us rude, and forcing us to wait our turn at the last Alderman's meeting, rather than letting us push to the head of the line. Good God, has anyone in history suffered as much as we?

Just think about it. These are the same alderman we met with for months behind closed doors, convincing them to put their power (because they have all the power), squarely behind our cause and turn our political pet peeves into the law of the land. And how did they thank us for almost getting them onto al Jazeera? By actually informing the citizens of Somerville about what we were doing! Talk about gratitude.

Well now that those ingrates have refused to use their power exclusively for our benefit, I say it's time to speak truth to power. Let the people decide! While we may have treated the citizens of Somerville as a bunch of contemptuous morons last year, living in perpetual fear that they would find out what we were up to and inform their aldermen that the world did not consist exclusively of Israeli F-16's firing on Palestinian kiddie pools, it's time to bury the hatchet. You are forgiven (so long as you do what you're told).

As you ponder your obligations, you "the people" of Somerville, consider the vast array of powerful forces arraigned against us.

First there are the city and state political leaders who dared to have an opinion that was not aligned with our own. Some of them, like Congressman Mike "Mike" Capuano actually went so far as to make a statement asking the city he led for years to not do what we told them was their only option. Doesn't he realize that the first amendment only applies to our getting a table at ArtBeat, not to public officials making statements regarding affairs of state?

And then we get to Somerville's Mayor Joe "Israel" Curtatonski. Whaddup with him?! Before we came on the scene, he had never heard of the Middle East. And now, thanks to us, he has actually gone there. Witnessed with his own eyes that the image of Israel we've been trying to paint for over a year bears no resemblance to reality. And, worse, he's actually telling people about it! How can we continue to describe Israel as a godforsaken hellhole where every Palestinian is hiding under his bed from bulldozers with the Mayor actually spending time with Arab citizens of the Zionist Entity who are mayors of their own towns? How can we continue to convince that Israel is a racist, apartheid state and nothing more when he's using his experience there to help solve the city of Somerville's problems?

And worse of all, this same "mayor" walks right by our tables, refusing to take our literature. Even refusing to try the cookies Hilda made with the nuts in them. Sure she's from Medford, but boy can that girl bake.

Remember our enemies are everywhere. Fanatical Zionists follow me wherever I go, even going so far as to show up when we collect signatures to tell people there is another side to the story. The Jewish press called the school I teach at to try to get me fired, without knowing that my two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Kvetching mean that I and all of my descendents have been awarded tenure until the end of time. And I'm pretty sure the fat kid who sits in the third row of my 11 AM potions class has been keeping an eye on me for "They Who Cannot be Named" (i.e., the Zionazis).

Well these satanic forces cannot keep us from fighting, from winning, or failing that, from singing. In fact, I think my rendition of the African National Congress Fight Song at the last Alderman's meeting really shows off my vocal range. Certainly Ahmed (an SDP member from Kuwait who's here at MIT on a scholarship, paid for by money Kuwait earned by selling oil to Apartheid South Africa) thought I could even go professional (with some training).

Yet now is not the time to engage in such frivolous pursuits. There is injustice to make just. Homosexuals are being hung in Iran. Women are being stoned to death in Saudi Arabia. Arab militias are laying waste to whole villages of black Africans in Sudan. Two million Arabs have been killed in the last two decades in Arab-on-Arab warfare and violence. And this mountain of corpses is distracting us from the real issue at hand. How to join the hundreds of other groups around the world, empowered by billions in oil revenue, thousands of millions of tiny voices in the wilderness leading the battle to condemn the Jewish state for every crime, real or imagined.

Our work has just begun. Not until Somerville has embraced our position will we go away (and start campaigning in Madison Wisconsin), leaving you poor saps to clear the wreckage we've caused in your (whoops! I mean, our) city.

Courage.

Finally, I'd like to state that I find Eddie, the guy who works the night shift at the Davis Square Dunkin Donuts, to be a fine, understanding professional. Keep pouring Eddie.