Instead of resting up after her grueling but nonetheless lucrative 8,000km trek from the Syrian-Turkish border, Little Amal, an 11ft papier-mâché woke monster designed by British and South African activists, decided to make a surprise appearance at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow on Tuesday to promote 'Gender Day'. From the doe-eyed, seal-like responses of Our Leaders, I take it this is what we used to call (pre-Marvel and Covid, that is) A Big Deal.
I can't help noticing, though, that for a puppet specifically designed to raise awareness about the plight of migrant children she suspiciously seems to represent all things to all people. Just take a look at her Twitter feed. Climate activism? She's got it covered. LGBT rights? She's on it. Systemic racism? Oh, you better believe she's fighting that battle, too, mister. Strange then how tight-lipped she appears to be on the conflict in Syria, which is, after all, her whole raison d'être. You'd think she'd mention having to leave the country due to both a sustained aerial bombing campaign by western coalition forces and the brutal occupation of townships by western-backed 'moderate' rebel groups (in this instance, of course, 'moderate' is an euphemism for fundamentalists who obligingly only cut people's heads off when the cameras aren't rolling), but so far we haven't heard a peep out of her about that. Perhaps the puppeteer's got a frog in his throat, or sprained his Tweeting finger?
Either way, that's all academic since we know that the majority of migrants who formed the 2015 refugee crisis were North African and Middle Eastern men. I'm guessing the people behind our cage-bellied friend are aware of this, which is why we have Little Amal and not Little Ahmed. I mean, let's face it: a bearded fat man in a vest holding a copy of the Qur'an in one hand and a kebab scoop in the other isn't likely to win as much sympathy from the public at large. And it certainly wouldn't have commanded the same level of shameless, empty virtue signalling we saw when Little Amal poked her head into the conference hall yesterday. But the smiles, applause and snapping lights aren't enough to conceal the grotesque irony of the situation: that the west has taken a crisis of its own making and turned it into nothing more than Disneyesque street theatre.
