Sunday, August 28, 2011

21st Day: Are you on the List?!

Are you on the List?! 


Today Ma'an News Agency published "The List". It's now sexy to be on the list.

Had it not been done before numerous times, I'd probably have just imitated the commercial line in hopes of attracting more states into recognizing Palestine as the UN's 194th state.

In a very [imaginary] successful PR campaign, Salam Fayyad (whose been given the nickname of "Scissor-fingers" by Journalist [friend of mine] for his super flowless ability to cut ribbons of practically anything that requires the presence of the PA to anything that requires "cutting ribbons", even imaginary ribbons such as launching Websites and blogs...etc.) would go around the World's nations that recognize the Palestinian Authority's right to a statehood distributing a card with a secret code: 194.

UN headquarters in NYC will be filmed from all different angles, at night, during the day, and music "Not on the Guest List"  by (Daft Punk) Marcos dos Santos would play in the background on that day. UN officials will be attempting to recognize a Palestinian statehood on September 20th, some of them even try to jump off the walls at the UN headquarters JUST to be on the Guest List.

But oh, wait. that was already done.
The Palestinian-run national satelite television has been running a different ad to appeal to Palestinians though. The ad starts with a puzzle that shows the UN flag, with one puzzle missing numbered [GASP!] the number 194. The future Palestinian State. The music playing in the background is "Mawtini" (My Homeland) (Please see yesterday's post to hear the song) which is Palestine's original national Anthem which was replaced by Fatah's Fida'i (My Struggle* or A [Guerella] Fighter/ Revolutionary**) in a classic case of admitting that the current official anthem rings no bells with Palestinians.

On November 15th in 1988, Yasser Arafat had declared a Palestinian State. The UN General assembly resolution to acknowledge the declaration for independence was passed. Furthermore, a decision to replace the PLO with "Palestine" in the United Nations System was suggested. "One hundred and four states voted for this resolution, forty-four abstained, and two – the United States and Israel – voted against. By mid-December, 75 states had recognized Palestine, rising to 89 states by February 1989." On September 20th of 2011 same thing happened, and the PLO, some 20+ years later proved that the World hasn't changed much or that history does repeat itself.

On a serious note. Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian president and bad-ass, miraculously came up with an exact count of those who recognize the state of Palestine in what seemed like a "In yo' FACE!" move. Abbas had undoubtedly provided and accurate estimate of the number of human beings who recognize the state of Palestine if one could not imagine what a startling number three-quarters (3/4) of the World is. "Their total population is over 5.2 billion people, equaling 75 percent of the world's people." Ma'an, or Abbas guessed, not taking into consideration the fact that population numbers in this matter play absolutely no weight on government decisions.

The List can be viewed here. Of course very cleverly, Ma'an decided to list the names of countries one on top of the other in yet another "in yo' FACE!" moments. Yes, Ma'an, the "List" certainly looks big that I have to scroll down your page forever [trying to catch an interesting country to plan a trip to or see if I've ever heard of it before] and with a line space between each name and the other, the list look ginormous! 

I did however place the list inside an Excel Sheet. These are 115 countries. What countries we missing here, Ma'an
So, people of the World, are you on the list?

* Rings a bell?!
** Revolutionary: According to Wikipedia. You know the revolution is over when all's left of revolutionaries is their national anthem titled "Revolutionary".

For the sake of getting more traffic into my blog I've decided to copy "the List". Without any further delay:

Afghanistan Albania Algeria Angola Argentina Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Belarus Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cape Verde Central Africa Chad Chile China Comoros Congo Costa Rica Ivory Coast Cuba Cyprus Czech Djibouti Dominicans Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Ethiopia Equatorial Guinea Gabon Gambia Georgia Ghana Guinea Guinea Bissau French Guiana Honduras Hungary India Indonesia Iran Iraq Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya North Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Mali Malta Mauritania Malaysia Mauritius Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Namibia Nepal Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Oman Pakistan Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda São Tomé and Príncipe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Slovakia Somalia South Africa Sri Lanka Sudan Surinam Swaziland Syria Tajikistan Tanzania Togo Tunisia East Timor Turkey Turkmenistan Uganda Ukraine Arab Emirates Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe