A "Short Science Fiction Story"... ;)

[soviet]

A SHORT NON-SCIENCE FICTION STORY
An old, sick man visits a small, but important foreign country. The sick old
man is a VIP - he is not only a head of one of the most important religions
on his planet, but also an absolute ruler of yet another small, but important
country. The country he visits has one of the planet's best security
services, but for his visit about 22,000 additional police and soldiers have
been assigned to guard him. One can ask why? After all, our man is a very
religious person, and his religion (at least in theory) preaches peace,
charity, poverty and non-violence. For a stranger it is thus a very strange
indeed, that other priests, praying to basically the same God, and
recognising the same set of ancient books as their holy scriptures curse him
using a ritual, which is even older than the religion, our man is the leader
(it should be not forgotten that the religion, our man is the head, claims to
last for at least 2,000 full circles of his planet around its sun).
All this would be very mysterious indeed, so I will finally release some
clues: our old, sick man is also known as a Roman-Catholic Bishop of Rome,
otherwise known as a pope or `holy father'. The planet in question is, of
course, called Earth, and the countries involved are Israel and Vatican. The
moral is that, most likely, no science fiction author could imagine such a
strange story where the person who pretends to be the `most loved person on
the Earth' is obviously also the `most hated person on the Earth' (otherwise
no such massive security would be required every time he leaves Vatican),
where priests of two very similar religions, with the same roots, curse
themselves, where in some countries where the majority of population are the
followers of a religion established by a Jewish family, the most effective
way to offend a native is to call him or her a Jew (this country is, by the
way, a native country of the pope). So again: the reality proves to be much
more interesting than fiction - no wonder that Stanisław Lem, the leading
European science fiction writer, decided 10 years ago to abandon this genre.
P.s. I based this story on articles about the papal visit in Israel published
by The Australian on 22 March 2000 on page 10. Those articles are, in turn,
based on reports by Reuters.

[Gość: Kagan]

soviet napisał:

> A SHORT NON-SCIENCE FICTION STORY
> An old, sick man visits a small, but important foreign country. The sick old
> man is a VIP - he is not only a head of one of the most important religions
> on his planet, but also an absolute ruler of yet another small, but important
> country. The country he visits has one of the planet's best security
> services, but for his visit about 22,000 additional police and soldiers have
> been assigned to guard him. One can ask why? After all, our man is a very
> religious person, and his religion (at least in theory) preaches peace,
> charity, poverty and non-violence. For a stranger it is thus a very strange
> indeed, that other priests, praying to basically the same God, and
> recognising the same set of ancient books as their holy scriptures curse him
> using a ritual, which is even older than the religion, our man is the leader
> (it should be not forgotten that the religion, our man is the head, claims to
> last for at least 2,000 full circles of his planet around its sun).
> All this would be very mysterious indeed, so I will finally release some
> clues: our old, sick man is also known as a Roman-Catholic Bishop of Rome,
> otherwise known as a pope or `holy father'. The planet in question is, of
> course, called Earth, and the countries involved are Israel and Vatican. The
> moral is that, most likely, no science fiction author could imagine such a
> strange story where the person who pretends to be the `most loved person on
> the Earth' is obviously also the `most hated person on the Earth' (otherwise
> no such massive security would be required every time he leaves Vatican),
> where priests of two very similar religions, with the same roots, curse
> themselves, where in some countries where the majority of population are the
> followers of a religion established by a Jewish family, the most effective
> way to offend a native is to call him or her a Jew (this country is, by the
> way, a native country of the pope). So again: the reality proves to be much
> more interesting than fiction - no wonder that Stanisław Lem, the leading
> European science fiction writer, decided 10 years ago to abandon this genre.
> P.s. I based this story on articles about the papal visit in Israel published
> by The Australian on 22 March 2000 on page 10. Those articles are, in turn,
> based on reports by Reuters.
>