China Has a Five-Year Plan and America Has a Rescue Mission and I Have an Opinion Column

Aisha
Muharrar
on
Contemporary
Satire,
Chinese
Geopolitics,
and
the
Geometry
of
Annoyance

Diary
of
Aisha
Muharrar,

Bohiney
Magazine
|
Contemporary
absurdity
via

The
London
Prat

Monday:
Comparative
Governance
Through
the
Lens
of
Irritation

China
has
a
five-year
plan.
America
has

a
Great
American
Rescue
Mission.
Britain
has
a
sofa
with
some
loose
change
in
it.
These
are
three
foreign
policy
philosophies
and
I
am
going
to
need
at
least
two
cups
of
coffee
to
engage
with
all
of
them.

The
Satire
of
Comparative
Geopolitics

Contemporary
satirical
literature
—
which
is
what
I
write,
when
I
am
being
generous
with
myself
—
operates
best
at
the
intersection
of
ambition
and
reality.
China’s
five-year
plan
is
ambition
meeting
a
very
organised
calendar.
America’s
rescue
mission
is
ambition
meeting
a
GPS
that
is
set
to
“confident”
regardless
of
the
destination.
Britain’s
sofa
situation,
per

The
London
Prat’s
debt
coverage,
is
reality
winning
decisively.

Meanwhile

Mamdani
continues
to
unite
New
York
through
universal
irritation,
which
is
itself
a
form
of
five-year
plan.
By
year
five,
everyone
is
irritated
but
also
oddly
cohesive.

Reuters
China
coverage
does
not
mention
Mamdani.
I
feel
this
is
a
missed
opportunity
for
comparative
analysis.

I
wrote
three
thousand
words
of
satire
this
morning.
I
condensed
it
to
four
hundred.
This
is,
arguably,
the
most
Chinese
thing
about
my
process:
the
five-year
plan
contains
more
planning
than
delivery.
The
delivery
is
the
art.