My Fellow Cliftonians,
It gives me great pleasure, and an enormous amount of gas, to wish you and your loved ones a deliriously optimistic new year, filled with great adventures for me and my brood of anti-status quo revolutionaries.

Please convey the warmest wishes of goodwill and brotherhood from my dachshund, CornerPlot Tiger, to your respective pets. May 2022 bring them great wealth, and even greater annual bonuses.

I am very pleased to share with you the excellent news that, this year, as with previous years, my dynamic government — led outstandingly by my humble self — has devised a number of plans that are likely to keep my attention for at least 10 minutes.

Many of these plans have been in the works for well over two days and are, therefore, a result of extensive thinking undertaken on the many long-standing problems faced by my ego. Every member of my exemplary kitchen cabinet — that comprises former naukri-pesha multimillionaire mazdoors — is determined to make this year count (for themselves).

As the new year commences, the premier of the Republic of Cliftonia unveils his mind-blowing National Security Policy

They have submitted a number of significant proposals — some of which even make sense — to help alleviate their suffering. I assure you that I will personally evaluate each and every one of them with the same scrutiny I have always employed while receiving foreign funds for my party.

The goal I’ve set for myself this year was the consequence of a eureka moment that I had during a nap I took, following an intense barbecue lunch.

Drenched by insane meat sweats, I envisioned a Divinely inspired campaign that saw a deadly, fighting force of 10,000 porcupines and hedgehogs, placed strategically along our borders as well as outside the homes of liberal-fascists.

As you might have seen on National Geographic, porcupines can be a deadly adversary even for a macho, warrior-like, handsome and honest tiger. When I saw how the quills of the porcupine stopped the ferocious cat in its tracks, I was gobsmacked with admiration.

It was at that very moment that I decided that the Cliftonian armed forces must make the most of the thousands of porcupines and hedgehogs among them, and set an example to the world. But mostly to the West because, let’s be honest, it’s only the West that truly matters. I say this not because the West is mostly beautifully Caucasian, but also because I know it better than it knows itself.

The second stage of my plan sees our commando porcupines being equipped, with help from our Chinese-assisted Cliftonia Ordnance Research Laboratory and Factory Retail Outlet, with custom-designed laser quills.

These will be implanted on the more robust members of the porcupine battalions and which will, when the enemy is within range, shoot out Star Wars-like beams that will decimate the adversary while making Star Wars-like ‘Pew! Pew!’ sounds.

Once these warrior forces have been in service for some time, and have gathered sufficient first-hand, ground experience, we will move on to the third and final stage of my brilliant plan. This entails an advance from laser-guided porcupines to nuclearly armed hedgehogs, culminating in the piece de resistance of this out-of-the-box, out-of-the-mind proposal: The first-strike nuclear hedgehog!

This is exactly the kind of idea which none of the governments of the past had the vision or the ability to devise, undertake and execute successfully. Just this morning, when I visited him to offer my daily morning salaams, I presented this plan to Gen GHQ, the chief of the holy Cliftonian armed forces.

We both went through the proposal with a fine tooth comb (then with a coarse tooth comb and, finally, with a hairbrush), and could not find a single flaw. We decided that I would lead the initial stage of scouring the porcupine and hedgehog community for potential candidates, gathering and assembling the best of them into smart, well-trained units.

Once done, after 25 years (for that is how long the general said this process is likely to take), I am to hand over the command of the prickly brigade to the revered chief, who will make the final inspection and, then, appropriately nuclearise the hedgehogs.

These new 25th generation warriors will not only be a ground-breaking addition to the arsenal of hi-tech weapons belonging to the motherland, but will also become a great source of revenue for the Cliftonian state. We both sat with our Casio calculators to do the numbers and found that our new ‘warrior pricks’ are certain to become a $30-40 billion-a-year industry!

This is only the first of many such incredible plans my government has in store for you, my dear countrymen. From nuclear hedgehogs to setting up gated communities (featuring only corner plots) on Mars, remember to always dream big.

In fact, for myself, I even plan to visit the planet Earth someday!

God bless Cliftonia! National Icon & Hope, Nazir Jr.
Premier and Saviour-Select, Republic of Cliftonia

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

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 23rd, 2022