In a bid to encourage foreign direct investment directly from foreigners raring to invest, the leadership of the Republic of Cliftonia recently took the momentous decision of declaring 2019 as ‘The Year of the Foreign Corporate Vlogging Influencer.’ To make the most of this decision, the government cast its net far and wide and assembled an array of highly qualified (mostly Caucasian) babydolls of dubious credibility known for peddling their wares as lovers of Cliftonia, its defenders and the special kind of economics they practice. 

The emergence of these corporate vloggers — showcasing the unrealised potential of our majestic republic as capitalism’s next El Dorado — has had an immediate impact on the state of our nation’s economy. Venture capitalists with suitcases stuffed with cash are thronging Cliftonian embassies around the world desperate for visas so that they can make their way to our shores and sign containersful of Memorandums of Misunderstanding with their Cliftonian counterparts. In order to ease their travel burden, the government has done away with almost all visa requirements for affluent investors dying to encroach upon our native land.

“We are determined to revolutionise FDI in our country. To quote our founding father Pedro Cliftovar: ‘The business of Cliftonia is encroachment.’ We believe our commercial borders are open to all who have the means to purchase the law for themselves. We believe in economic Darwinism and are committed to globalising the heck out of this country,” said Jimmy Jirga, Minister of State for Foreign Indirect Investment, ExtraCurricular Activities, and Brunch. 

The government of the Republic of Cliftonia has a new visa policy

“Even though our administration believes in tolerance and is known for its ‘encroach and let encroach’ policy, our wise leadership has identified a few foreign individuals who it will not, under any circumstances, allow to benefit from our liberal on-arrival visa policies. These are people who are known globally as fake influencers… people with skewed values and morals… individuals who have the potential to infect our society with their irrational, immoral, unfair, unrealistic, odious, evil, life-threateningly dangerous beliefs. People such as the pretender-de-jour Anand Giridhardas, who haughtily opines: ‘In an age defined by a chasm between those who have power and those who don’t, elites have spread the idea that people must be helped, but only in market-friendly ways that do not upset fundamental power equations. The society should be changed in ways that do not change the underlying economic system that has allowed the winners to win and fostered many of the problems they seek to solve. The broad fidelity to this law helps make sense of what we observe all around: the powerful fighting to “change the world” in ways that essentially keep it the same, and “giving back” in ways that sustain an indefensible distribution of influence, resources and tools.’ 

“What utter rot! Visa denied!

“And that perpetual damsel in distress, Arundhati Roy who blasphemes: ‘So somebody who wants to invest in a dam or build a steel plant or buy a bauxite mine is not considered a security hazard, whereas a scholar who might wish to participate in a seminar about, say, displacement or communalism, or rising malnutrition in a globalised economy, is. Foreign terrorists with bad intentions have probably guessed by now that they are better off wearing Prada suits and pretending they want to buy a mine than wearing old corduroys and saying they want to attend a seminar. (Some would argue that mine buyers in Prada suits are the real terrorists.)’ 

How can any sane soul put Hazrat Prada and the word terrorist in the same sentence? How? Visa denied!

“How can any sane soul put Hazrat Prada and the word terrorist in the same sentence? How? Visa denied!

“And that malicious pseudo-linguist Chomsky, who writes: ‘They (corporations) were created early in this century with their present powers, they come from the same intellectual roots as the other modern forms of totalitarianism — namely Stalinism and Fascism — and they have no more legitimacy than they do.’ 

“You are an illegitimate old Noamster! Visa denied!

“And that disgraceful commie calling herself an American, that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who says: ‘When we talk about the word “socialism”, I think what it really means is just democratic participation in our economic dignity and our economic, social and racial dignity. It is about direct representation and people actually having power and stake over their economic and social wellness, at the end of the day.’ 

“No thank you missy! We don’t need your red Bronxy filth polluting our pure Cliftonian waters! Visa denied!

“And the worst of them all, that delusional George Monbiot whose menacing utterance — ‘If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire’ — if taken seriously would, God forbid, put every respectable Cliftonian industrialist, CEO and investment banker out of commission for good… and then where would we be as a nation? Go to hell, George! Visa denied!”

Farid Alvie was born.
He currently lives.
He tweets @faridalvie

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 28th, 2019