A modest proposal for easing our conscience
I have it on good authority that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled. Infant flesh is in season throughout the year and if let to suckle plentifully, so as to render them plump, a child will make two dishes at a dinner party or, if the family dines alone, can be made to last over several sittings — the hindquarters making a first rate substitute for the Sunday lamb roast. I recognise that this food may prove somewhat dear, but a good fat child can be stretched to make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, and the more craft minded among us may flay the carcass, whose skin, when dressed, will make admirable kid gloves, handbags and boots. It is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice as bordering on cruelty. I confess that this may be the strongest objection against this project, but my intentions, I insist, are honourable. After years of offering idle, visionary thoughts, and almost despairing of success, I realised that we could employ such a commodity to ease our nation's conscience. Are we not now in election mode? And aren't we still bothered by the festering presence of prodigious numbers of East Timorese children in the arms of their mothers — infants, who despite themselves, are a burden to both their parents and their country, Indonesia? That these people continue to propagate, shames us all. Despite the present deplorable state of their land and our government's sternness in ignoring their excessive demands, they turn their backs on the public good and persist in proclaiming their presence to our general consternation and great distress. I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have no personal interest in promoting this necessary task, having no motive other than to resolve, once and for all, this issue that has perturbed us these last 20 years. Oppressed by the mere existence of these people who contribute
nothing to the welfare of those who are forced to listen to their lamentations, I submit that a change in policy is in order. Farmed carefully, succulent infants, value added by imaginative processing, are sure to establish a ready consumer acceptance just so long as we do not glut the market with too hasty a harvest. The advancement of trade is sure to follow as we relieve our nearby archipelago of its unwanted progeny. In time the problem that now bares down upon us is sure to fade when the quantity of available livestock shrinks as mothers, now so fecund, pass beyond their child bearing years. While many may not want to partake of flesh so generated, great custom is sure to follow for those restaurateurs who pride themselves on their knowledge of the culinary arts, and, with a skilful cook, oblige their guests by contriving to make it as expensive as they please. Such exotic fare will, no doubt, appeal to the more refined members of the business classes as they fork their way through a delicious repast — an act demanding little trouble (and affording much pleasure), but which has something solid and real to contribute towards ridding us of the ongoing embarrassment caused us by the unfortunate tragedy of East Timor.
Dave Riley [Freely adapted from Jonathan Swift's 1729 satire concerning the poor of Ireland.]