8 steps to create a new president

1.There must be money that can be invested in politics, especially after the decline of the country’s internal resources, the economic recession, increased unemployment, high prices and the growing popularity of the extreme right and the radical left.

2. A candidate with a deep sense of nationalism must be chosen to fight in the international arena in order to protect the interests of his country’s companies. These companies are seeking the remaining wealth in the countries of unrest and war and are working to obtain the largest share in the reconstruction projects in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Algeria, etc.

3.There must be a new media that is fast and superficial, that completely steers clear of depth. This is because what is required is to portray the presidential figure in a manner suiting the taste of the public that has no time to think, research and compare. Therefore, what is required is to please the lazy mind-set of all the age and social groups, of all ethnicities. This explains westerners voting for a racist candidate.

4.There must be interests that combine money and media to create a lobby based on promoting the image of the candidate and presenting it as if it were a chocolate bar. This eliminates the mystery of why some newspapers, owned by big businessmen, back some of the candidates.

5.There needs to be a new audience that interacts with the new media, draws information from it, and takes the bait easily. This began since former US President Barack Obama was elected in 2007 and was successful in the current French presidential elections in presenting the personality of the candidate Emmanuel Macron.

6.There needs to be indifference towards the major global issues and they need to stick to issues that do not bind anyone, such as global warming, pollution, natural disasters and the fight against famine. This does not require effective programmes in order to provide relief to Africa, whose children die everyday only because of a lack of milk. It only requires raising slogans and pushing it back to the UN, who then chases major countries like a hungry dog to obtain aid for Africa without any response other than air-conditioned conferences.

Even the former US President, Barack Obama, who comes from a Kenyan family, did not change this rule, after having vowed during his first term to fight poverty and disease in Africa. However, he left the White House accompanied by a public relations firm that would organise lectures worth millions while he water-skied and played golf in California with the richest people in the world.

7.He must not stop promising to protect Israel’s security and to enhance its superiority in the region militarily, economically and politically. He must consider these as a basic set of criteria for the countries in the Arab world and to pressure them to establish normal relations with the occupying state without addressing the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

If he must address this, then he must sum it up as the need to work to resume negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in order to give the Palestinians autonomy so that they can face the terrorism that is growing from within their youth. He may show special generosity to help the Palestinian Authority to strengthen its security agencies.

8.He must declare his involvement in the war against Daesh and terrorism. This means, first and foremost, sending naval fleets loaded with aircraft in order to hit populated cities, such as Mosul and Raqqa, with missiles fired from warships that have soldiers on board who spend their time fishing in the Mediterranean Sea.

After following all of these steps, we will have created a new president ready to appear before television cameras with a big smile. He will be surrounded by a group of masked killers and professional thieves, and then it wouldn’t matter if the president were called Francois or Mary.

The rest of the accessories can be added by referring back to George Orwell’s novel “1984”.

First published in Arabic by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, 28 April 2017

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.