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The Great Pastry Crisis
Deeply disturbing news arrives from Sudan. President Bashir has ordered a boycott of all things Danish in response to those cartoons of the prophet Mohammed being republished in newspapers over there. I suspect the Danish bacon industry will be unconcerned. But wait. What about the pastries served at Ozone, possibly the best coffeeshop in the East of Africa?
Turn up here any time past two o'clock and the place is full of aid workers (and yes visiting journalists) tucking into a coffee and a Danish.
Having tried his best to thwart the work of charities in Darfur itself, President Bashir may have stumbled upon the best way to bring the whole aid enterprise crashing to its knees. Morale will crumble within days. And it may not be entirely accidental. Aid workers still talk in despairing tones of the Great Tonic Water Crisis when the government allegedly blocked imports of Schweppes leaving expats wondering what to do with the illicit gin they had managed to source from around Khartoum. Say what you like about Bashir, sometimes you have to admire him.
2 Comments
| March 3, 2008 7:12 AM
| Reply
That's good to hear. But I don't think I'm ever going to come back to Sudan. I read somewhere that writing about Darfur makes no difference.... Actually, pretty keen to come back soon now that we have peace(ish) in Kenya. I'll buy you a Danish
What do you think?
Rob Crilly in Jerusalem
Rob Crilly is a freelance journalist based in Jerusalem writing for The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Mail. He spent...
Rob you'll be pleased to know that Bashir's ban is working about as well as the last one they did two years ago when the cartoons were first published. Not very. Ozone still full of Danih-gobbling aid workers..
Nice blog by the way - How come you never sent it to before? When are you next in Khartoum??