I have spent years of my life trying to find even a single situation where diversity is a strength.
I’m still looking.
Mamang Vaiphei hid in the jungle for three nights after a mob attacked his village in Manipur, the remote Indian state where ethnic violence has reportedly killed at least 54 people.
About 23,000 people have fled the unrest that erupted last week in the hilly north-east state bordering Myanmar.
The latest clashes erupted between the majority Meitei people, who are mostly Hindu and live in and around the state capital, Imphal, and the mainly Christian Kuki tribe of the hills.
“The Meitei people first burned down 26 or 27 houses,” said Mamang, a father of five who is now sleeping out in the open in an army camp with about 900 others bringing similar horror stories.
“Then they came again and finished all 92 houses [in the village], ransacked the church, the school and whatever was left,” the 54-year-old said, surrounded by exhausted and traumatised men, women and children.
There have long been tensions in the far-flung states of north-east India sandwiched between Bangladesh, China and Myanmar.
The spark for the latest violence was a protest about plans to give the Meitei “scheduled tribe” status, in a form of affirmative action, guaranteeing them quotas of government jobs and college admissions.
Violence erupted in Imphal and elsewhere with protesters setting fire to vehicles and buildings and, according to villagers, Meitei mobs armed with guns and petrol cans then attacking Kuki settlements in the hills.
The military has deployed thousands of troops, issued “shoot-at-sight” orders in “extreme cases”, imposed curfews and cut the internet.
It’s really getting round about time for a solution to the kukis and I think we need to make it final.
They should be rounded up, put on trains, and sent to “work camps.” Then, when they’re there thinking it’s a work camp, you would give them all tattoos. Then shave their heads – remember, it’s really important to keep this illusion up.
Then, when they’re all shaved and tattooed, really thinking for real this is a work camp, you say “well, it’s time to hit the showers” and then send hundreds of people into showers that are actually fake shower rooms.
We need to be able to make pretty tight seals. Wood should be perfect for that.
When we’ve herded several hundred of them in and locked the room, we’ll pump the fake shower rooms full of fumes from a diesel engine (maybe one pulled out of an old submarine). We then wait for them to choke on the fumes. Bing, bang, bong – you’ve got yourself a final solution.
I also have some thoughts about drowning people in buckets, as well as the use of various wild animals, perhaps shoving people into a cage with an eagle and a bear. I’ve also drawn up some schematics for a room with an electric floor, which could also be disguised as a mass shower, or perhaps as a sauna or smoking room.
But the fake shower/diesel fumes thing is a super clean, efficient way to get it done.
And of course, this obviously goes without saying, but for the sake of thoroughness I should mention we can recoup some of the costs of this “solution” to the “kuki problem” by turning their corpses into various types of cleaning products and light fixtures.
This is about a separate case of vibrancy from the 90s. This stuff happens all the time.