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Sunday
Independent column for AUGUST 6th The
Wise One, representing Galaxy #@573#8, stepped from his time-machine
and transformed himself into an Earthling.
"I've
digested everything recorded on every computer on your planet, every
movie ever made, every book registered with the Library of the US
Congress - but there's one thing I cannot understand," he
confessed to a learned gathering of humans.
"Wassat?"
they asked.
"Why
do you voluntarily manufacture and use those little cylindrical
things when you know how dangerous they are?"
"Well",
explained the chain-smoking professor," they are not as
dangerous as the authorities claim. We've lived with them from the
16th century - and humanity has thrived. For many of us it is a way
of life. It is a choice we make - and it is our fundamental right to
make such a choice."
"Even
if it is life-threatening?" The Wise One tried to look puzzled.
It was an unfamiliar experience for him.
"Some
of us feel we cannot survive without it," said the professor,
pulling on his cigarette.
"Well,"
explained an activist of the Non-Smoking lobby, "we believe we
have a right to live and breathe in public places without these
people imposing their dangerous indulgences on the majority."
"The
majority?"
"Yes.
For three-and-a-half centuries the custom expanded from a small
enclave of devotees to a commercially-driven global habit. But, in
only ten years we have driven it back until it has become socially
unacceptable - and it is possible today even to pass laws prohibiting
it in public."
"Interesting,"
said the Wise One. "I've found little literature on how you
accomplished this turn-around. How did you do it?"
"We
created lobbies. We stood up and publicly objected. We gradually made
it socially unacceptable for people to produce them in public. It's
legally banned now on some aircraft. And in cinemas, and in many
offices and public places. The seemingly intractable compulsion has
been stemmed. The illogicality of it has been exposed. The opposition
is waning; the custom is dying," enthused the "Anti"
lobbyist.
"Is
this true?" the Wise One asked the professor.
He
nodded assent gloomily.
"How
civilised!" smiled the Wise One. He found that expression
comfortable, and continued easily: "How civilised of you to
persuade your fellow-being by reason; by understanding and
compromise; by peer pressure. So much better than leaping into law
with a 'Thou Shall Not' ban."
The
Wise One put on the awkward, puzzled look again, and asked:
"But
why don't I see this on the computerised information I've digested?
It's not reflected in any of the press of the last two decades. And
it's most certainly not portrayed in your movies."
"Oh
yes it is!" they chorussed.
The
"Anti" lobbyist spoke for them all: "In the 1950s it
was hardly possible for a stage or screen star to demonstrate any
emotion without lighting a cigarette. In the 1960s and 1970s even
teenager heroes were portrayed as tough, sophisticated smokers. In
the Eighties love scenes were portrayed through glowing cigarette
ends."
"And
now?" the Wise One could not help himself prompting.
"And
today we have explicit sex on screen - but no smoking!"
"Smoking?
Smoking? What do you think I was referring to when I spoke of those
'cylindrical things'?" quizzed the inter-terrestial visitor. "Do
you really think I was so ignorant as to refer to cigarettes?"
"Condoms?"
asked an Anti-Abortion Lobbyist anxiously.
"No,
no. Please. Let me invite you all into my time machine, and we'll
start this discussion again from the fourth paragraph. Read it
again, but for 'little cylindrical things', read bullets. . . Now
what do you think?"
"This
is preposterous," said the Anti-smoking lobbyist.
"It
doesn't make sense," said the Anti-Abortion lobbyist.
"Oh
yes it does!" said the professor, dramatically throwing his
cigarette box away (It didn't fool the Wise One. He knew it was
empty).
"I
get it!" said the Government's new RDP man. "You're saying
that we should start mobilising the population to demand a ban on
guns."
"I'm
saying that every Earthling should think through for himself or
herself this global 1990s obsession with violence - and take some
civilised action."
"How?"
"In
the same way you 'turned around' the global obsession with tobacco.
But
right here, in your marvellously new little nation - which I was
instructed by the entire Galaxy to visit - right here, you can begin
to make gun carriers socially unacceptable by using logic and
civilised peer pressure. We're in the centre of Johannesburg aren't
we? Well, why doesn't the Gauteng Government, and the Metropolitan
Government declare all there premises gun-free zones'? Why don't all
the corporate offices and Carlton Centre and adjacent properties
declare themselves gun-free zones?"
"What
about citizens who carry guns to prevent hijacking and mugging?"
"I'm
delighted you asked that. They are entitled to a sense of protection
and security, even if it could be falsely based. You must help them,
not ban guns! You must ask them please to put their guns in readily
available safes when they enter gun-free zones. You can demand that
youths playing with bullets in the street in your part of Soweto do
it in some other area which has not been declared 'gun-free'."
"O
Wise One, let me tell you there are a helluva lot of snags."
"Too
right cobber" (Is that the correct regional expression?) But so
it was with anti-smoking. All I'm suggesting, before you all get
blown away, is that you - and especially your entertainment industry
- start a new campaign. . . An Anti-Smoking-Gun campaign." |
