The ISIS World's Fair

Aaaaannnd I'm back.  Thanks for your patience.

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You would never believe this, but there are still World's Fairs.  Of course, you have to recall that there were such things as World's Fairs in the first place, since there has not been one in the USA since 1984, when there was supposedly one in New Orleans.  I'm pretty sure that I didn't know about that one while it was going on, so I'm to be forgiven for not knowing that it was the last.

There have been four in the last five years, in South Korea, Turkey, Italy and Kazakhstan (that one as we speak).  I missed the email and any mention of them in the news, of which there was presumably none, at least in the media I see and hear.  I was, however, surprised to discover that there is pretty much one every year, somewhere.  I am happy to refer to Kazakhstan as "somewhere", as I intend no disrespect to any of the host countries.

I attended Expo '67, which you may infer properly was a World's Fair held in 1967.  That one was in Montreal, Canada, and was the first time I had gone to Canada.  Strangely, amid the rides and exhibits and all, I left with the still-there impression that people from different countries can be really, really different from us.  Except the Canadians, who by comparison might as well be us.

I'm not talking race; I'm talking culture.  We are a pretty strait-laced, Puritanical people even now, while the French a big exhibitor there -- well, let's say they do things differently.  Their morals are decidedly different.

But to tell you the truth, none of that is relevant.  I digress a lot.

The good old Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, otherwise known as "ISIS", is getting kicked around a lot, now that our Administration has made it a bit more obvious that we are not putting up with any crap from them (or North Korea or Cuba).  Recruiting is down, and their leaders are getting killed at a sunny rate.

In short, they need help.

What they need most of all is a makeover.  You see, the ideal of the Islamism they fight for is to take us back to the 7th Century or so (those pre-Middle Ages centuries run together a bit).  They want a world caliphate, run by them, of course, wherein life exists as it did then, in the prophet Mohammed's day.

We assume that when that happens, they will get rid of their cell phones and stop tweeting.  Mohammed, after all, did not tweet his message to his followers.  In fact, with technology to be set back 1300 years or so, they will have to figure out how to get their message across after the caliphate is established, since we won't have TV or radio, no Internet, no smart phones.  No newspapers either, I guess.

But they will have some nifty 7th-Century technology, and I'm really interested in how they're going to do that.  So I have a great idea for them to let us know about it.

"Expo '18: The ISIS World's Fair"

What do you think?  They can have it in Syria or maybe some part of Iraq that they haven't evacuated yet, if they can assume that they'll still have control of it by next year.

They can invite every country on earth to have an exhibit of the way they will operate under the worldwide caliphate.  Perhaps the Burkina Fasoites can display the animals that will be their beasts of burden under the new world order.  Syria can display its weapons of war in those days when firearms are banned, as not having been really invented and perfected then.

The ISISists themselves can have a big recruiting booth and an information desk where we can all learn about their peaceful philosophy and beautiful religion.   And some weapons displays, too, as they ratchet their armaments back to the year 788 and we can see spears and trebuchets and battle-rams.

Tickets can be all-events.  Caveats on the tickets might include "Non-refundable.  If you ask for a refund, we will kill you.  If you don't attend every exhibit, we will kill you.  If you can't recite ten pages of the Koran, we will kill you.  If we don't like you, we will kill you.  And we might kill you anyway."

Admittedly, attendance might be down, since with a ban on all technology after the year 700, travel may take a long time.  In fact, it will be hard to tell anyone it is even happening.  So maybe 2018 is a bit optimistic, given that you'd have to expect that the grand most-high caliph has to approve any country's submission of the plans for its exhibits.  That communication may really take a long time.

Ooh, ooh -- rides.  There have to be rides, especially since we can't expect cotton candy.  Camel rides will be a big thing; they can be sponsored by Libya.  The Indians can bring elephants, and the Australians -- well, you can't really ride a kangaroo, so they'll have to try something else.  Maybe just an exhibit with a petting zoo.

So hey, these are just some ideas, but ISIS needs an image upgrade, and they might as well show their faces to the world as a bit higher on the cuddliness spectrum.  Maybe a World's Fair is just what they need.

If they haven't been wiped out by then.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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