"The Enemy and How I Helped to Fight it" - Text of the English Translation - Version 7

I woke up in the morning, and went to the post. It was a bright day at the beginning of spring. When I walked down the road that leads to the post, I enjoyed the lively green of the field, before the summer shows its marks. Flowers bloomed there in the colours of white, yellow and violet, and I could hear the squeak of the birds that resided on the trees and woke up before morning. Drops of dew shined on the shrubs and flowers, and the ground was still moist from the rain that had fallen there, a day before. The sun just began to shine and in the sky there was a war between the light‐blue shade brought by the sun and the dark red of the night.

In my opinion, it was a perfect day to launch missiles at the Enemy’s soldiers. However, that was not what I intended to do that day.

As I came near the post, I saw from afar that two of my comrades were oiling one of the mortars that belonged to my post. They were so busy, that they did not notice me, until they heard me tell them “Good Morning.”.

“Good morning, the Member of the Organisation.”, they replied while turning to see me. “How’s it going?” added one of them.

“Top of the world. I’m going to quit today.”

“Really? That’s a shame! ‘We’ll miss you, bro’, like they say.”

“Likewise. But we’ve got to move on.”

And so I walked away from them, opened the door that lead to the office of the post’s commander, and went in. The commander sat by the table, and read a pamphlet that he held in his hand. It was probably one of the many reports and tutorials that he received. After I entered, he placed the pamphlet on the table, turned to look at me and said: “Good morning, the Member! Look, I read a couple of papers now, and they explain that we should initiate a transfer of…”

“Good morning to you too, Sir.”, I interrupted him. “Excuse me for interrupting you, but I don’t think it’s relevant anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because I came here to file my resignation.”

“No way! Just ten minutes ago, the other Member of the Organisation resigned as well.”

“Really?”, I asked him.

“Yes. He is now bidding the other members farewell.”

“Why did he resign?”

“This and that. Said something that he couldn’t take all this stress any longer, and that he wishes to find a stable job and raise a family. He also noted that ‘it was fun to serve in the Organisation, but it’s time to move on’.  ”

“Okay.”

“Yes, but as they say: when it rains it pours. Well, just sign here, and I’ll take care of all the other paperwork.”

After I started filling it, I said to him: “About the salary you paid me…”

“Forget it!”, the commander said and continued, “During your service in the Organisation, you’ve done a great service to your people and your country. You have earned your pay, even if not honestly, and we thank you that you have joined our ranks, in the first place. I just hope that during your civil life, you will continue to maintain the spirit of the organisation and its philosophy.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.” I told him hastily while I signed it. Then I rose up and we shook hands. I thought a little about what the commander just said, and then recalled something, and sat down again. “Look, it may no longer be so relevant…”, I said to him “…but I’ve been a member of the Organisation for two years, and nobody ever told me what the philosophy of the Organisation was. What is it, really?”

“Ah… the philosophy? I am surprised that it hadn’t been presented to you yet. In any case, I’d be happy to enlighten you, the ex‐Member of the Organisation. Now, how should I start? Oh, I know. So here goes:

The philosophy of the Organisation is very simple: our goal is to fight the Enemy with all our power. It is a holy war of our people against that criminal nation, and even though the well being of our people and its future are not at stake, it’s a war of the utmost importance. At least according to what we are told all the time, or that we keep telling each other.

We must sacrifice everything in order to achieve this purpose by our struggle with the Enemy, even the lives of the members of our people, which for their interest we are acting in the first place. And we have indeed done it successfully. When I look back I realise one thing: we have been doing it and we are still doing it, despite all the difficulties. True – we had some difficult times. But they were nothing compared to the almost impossible times, which we usually have to operate in.

However, since we began fighting the Enemy, we’ve noticed the existence of a major obstacle that hinders us. Actually it’s not a physical obstacle but a metaphysical and abstract term, and, as such, is supposed to be of no significance. Yet, the popularity of this term made dealing with it an inevitable fact. My friend, even if we had accepted a very mild interpretation of it, we would have found ourselves bounded by all sorts of invisible and impractical rules; we would have been in infinite conflicts and on top of all, the ambition of our soldiers to fight would have declined enormously. This term is ‘Morality’.

Therefore, we have decided to accept the philosophical equation ‘Morality = no morality’.”

“Wait a second!” I interrupted him, “Are you referring to the assumption that the ends justify the means?”

“Yes! Yes!” said the commander excitedly. “To that precisely. In any case, accepting this equation places us in a dilemma. The reason for that is that it’s a complete contradiction of Aristotle’s famous treatise ‘Organum’ which states, among other things, that:

1. A is A.

2. A is not not‐A.

Thus, we fully deny the Organum, or at least don’t view it as indispensable.”

“In that case, it is excellent.”, I said to him. “I read the Organum of Aristotle and although it is a very interesting document in the field of pure logic, I must say that I also had doubts about it. I’m very glad that the Organisation rejects it, because in my opinion this fact may facilitate its activity considerably. For instance, if A could be not‐A then because the members of the Organisation are not the soldiers of the Enemy, they can in fact be its soldiers. In my opinion, if you kill each other, you can save a lot of resources, because the Enemy would be right within your reach. Plus, there will not be a risk of any casualties, since all the men that can possibly get hurt will belong to the Enemy’s forces. The element of members risking their lives while infiltrating the Enemy’s lines will not exist either, nor will the possibility of the Enemy bombarding you.”

“Amazing!”, cried the commander as he stood up in excitement. “Why didn’t I think of that before? I’ll make sure your proposal is implemented right away, and I’ll inform all the other posts and the Organisation’s headquarters about it. It will be a turn‐point in our war against the Enemy. I thank you, the ex‐Member, you have truly enlightened me.”

“The pleasure is all mine, sir. Bye!” I told him while rising from my chair.

”Good bye to you, too.”, he said while barely interrupting the arrangements he started in order to implement my proposal.

I left the room and then spent some time at the rest of the post. I parted from the other members, and also found the other member that resigned that day. I suggested to him that we’ll go back together, and we indeed left the post’s yard and started walking on the path that leads back to the village.

We started chatting, but five minutes did not pass, before we heard a sound of an explosion coming from the post, just as we climbed a hill that overlooked it. We turned around and watched in terror how the members of the Organisation, the ones who served in the Post, started killing each other. They split into two opposing sides and fought each other to the knife with every weapon in the post: guns, grenades, mortars, bombs. They even blew up the missile storage.

Eventually, only one member was left alive, and he stood on the roof of the post’s ruin and jumped happily while holding his machine gun over his head. Then, the commander came out of his room and shot him three times at the stomach using a pistol. The member fell to the ground, dead.

The commander returned his pistol to its sheath, and went back into his office. We heard him write something on his typewriter, and after he went out, he placed a letter into the mailbox of the post. We assumed it was a report, intended for the Organisation’s headquarters, regarding the successful operation we had just witnessed. After he put the letter in the mailbox, he turned towards his office while rubbing his hands. Afterwards, he took out his pistol, turned around, and shot a bullet at his head.

After the other ex‐Member and I witnessed all this, we shrugged, turned around, and continued to walk towards the village.

After we arrived at the village, we parted and each one of us returned to his house. It was approximately 7 am, when I opened my house's door. No one was in the living room, so I sat on the coach, took off my shoes and, as I was used to, placed my feet on the table. Then I remembered that this was not appropriate for someone who lives in the house, so I took my feet off the table, put my shoes back on, and placed my feet back on the table.

I started to hum a popular tune, like I used to do many times after I returned home after an exhausting day of work at the Organisation. I must note that despite my extraordinary intelligence, even I sometimes forget stuff. In this case I forgot that during the previous times, I returned home only during the evenings.

A few seconds after I started to sing, I heard some noise from the adjacent room and then several whispers, which seemed like they were coming from the direction of the corridor.

“Why the hell are you making noise now?!”, shouted in whisper a feminine voice, that I recognised as the voice of my younger sister.

“I’m making noise? I was sleeping like a baby. You were the one who made the noise!” my brother, who is younger than she is, replied to her.

“And you think that I wasn’t sleeping? I don’t know, maybe you talk while being asleep.”

“How do you know that you don’t talk in your sleep?”

“Stop it, will you? I made the noise.” I shouted towards them in whisper, “And come to talk here, so you won’t wake up Mom by mistake.”

I saw my two younger siblings hesitantly take a look at the sofa from the opening of the corridor. When they saw it was I, they looked at each other and then looked back at me. “The Member, why are you back home at such an hour?”, my sister asked in a surprised manner.

“The ex‐Member.”, I corrected her.

“Oh… you quit? That explains it. Well, on a normal condition I would have congratulated you. If a congratulation is suitable after a resignation. In any case, I’m too tired to think and I want to go back to bed.” and so they both returned as they came.

A little later that morning, the whole family (including me) sat down near the dining table to eat breakfast. “Can someone pass me the butter?” I asked a short time after the meal had begun.

“There you go.” my mother told me while she was passing the butter and putting it on my side. “I understood you resigned from the Organisation.”

“Yes.”, I replied and started to spread the butter on my slice of bread.

“So, what are you planning to do now?” my father asked me.

“I have not really given it a lot of thought. I suppose I’m going to look for a job.”

“Very good.”

After we finished breakfast, I went out of the house and went to the other villagers to look for a job. The first villager I approached was a farmer that lived several houses away from us. When I reached him, I saw that he was doing some work in his crop field. “Good morning!” I told him as I approached him.

“Good morning, the Member of the Organisation!” he replied.

“Actually, it’s the ex‐Member, and that’s the reason why I turn to you right now. You see: I’m looking for a job.”

“I am very sorry, I would love to offer you a job, but my business has not been very good lately. Because of the Enemy, of course.”

“But Sir, not a single missile that the Enemy shot on this village had ever hit your land or even fell close to it.”

“Nevertheless, the noises that the missiles emitted caused the crops not to grow properly.”

“But according to my knowledge in acoustics, the resonance of the seeds is far higher than the frequency…”

“What difference does it make? The Enemy is responsible for all that, any way you look at it.”

“I see. Have a good day.”

“Yes. And good luck to you in finding a job.”

I went to another farmer, who lived farther from my home. When I reached him he was also busy taking care of his field. “Good morning, the Member!” he greeted me as he noticed me approaching him.

“Good morning!” I replied. “In fact, I quit from the Organisation today and I came to ask you if I can work for you.”

“Unfortunately, the crops in my field, because of the Enemy’s activity, were not as successful as I hoped for. Therefore, I cannot offer you a job.”

“But the last missile which the Enemy fired and which hit your land was 7 years ago.”

“Still, the explosives remained in the soil.”

“I’m afraid I disagree. The amount of work you put into removing them, not to mention the erosion during all that time, were supposed to leave only a minute amount of them in the field, if at all. And, besides, there is no indication that harvest that grows on a field with a small amount of them will not grow normally.”

“Never mind. I still think that there was a long term effect.”

“Okay. I’ll try someplace else. Bye!”

“Good bye to you too.”

 And so I went to look for a job at the village’s grocery. I had to stand in line and when my turn cam the grocer said to me: “Good day to you! We don’t see you around here often since you joined the Organisation.”

“Actually, I quit this very day. I was wondering if you have any job for me.”

“Thanks to your wonderful organisation — I don’t. Do you remember that, three weeks ago, the post next to the neighbouring village tried to fire a missile at one of the Enemy’s posts but instead it hit this grocery store by accident? The missile ruined half of the ceiling and reaped a large hole in the west wall. The renovations here cost me a fortune, and although I could really use some help here, I really don’t have the money for a worker’s wage. Maybe some other time.”

“That does it!”, I thought to myself. I had to react to such a crime against logic. “Sir, ” I told him firmly, “I’ve heard some rather weak excuses for a weak financial status today that I decided to keep silent about, but I’m not ready to simply resume my daily agenda after such a poor excuse.

If your business is in bad shape, try to find out what you didn’t do well and don’t blame someone else. This excuse is non‐factual, not to the point, inconsistent and simply unconvincing. Even a bad politician would not have used an excuse like that.

Even if you had had a job to offer me, I wouldn’t have agreed to work for you. Have a good day. Maybe I’ll come back in the evening, listen to you telling me what happened to you today, and then I’ll be able give you another ten excuses why your financial status has been recently. And believe me that all of them will be better than the one you gave me this instant!”

And so I left the place in anger. A complete lack of reason is always an irritating thing, not to mention that there was a personal insult involved in it as well.

After I went out, I noticed that there were a senior mature officer and a group of soldiers from the Occupier’s army standing at the end of the street. It seemed to me like they were asking the residents of the village something, and then I saw that one farmer pointed straight at me in answer to their questions, and that they started walking towards me.

The Enemy holds a small part of our country, which is close to its border, claiming that it needs it to protect his border settlements. The Occupier, on the other hand, holds half the nation directly, and the other half of my country is ruled by a government that it assigned and supervises. Hence, the men of the Occupier’s army can do within my country as they please.

In any case, after the group of soldiers got close enough to me, the officer spoke to me and asked: “Are you the ex‐Member of the Organisation?”

“In the flesh.” I answered.

“In that case, we have a few questions to ask you. The post in which you served, was found today in an almost destroyed state, and most of its members were lying around killed. Do you know anything of the post’s destruction?”

“Yes, what do you want to know?”

“For instance, what caused its destruction and the killing of all the members of the Organisation that served in it. One of our investigators claims that all evidence point to the fact that they fought each other, yet we thought it was very inconceivable.”

“Actually, it’s very conceivable. It was a constructive outcome of my efficiency improving proposal.”, and I went on to tell him the rest of the story.

“But it makes no sense.” cried the commander.

“Look,” I replied “You must understand that for every logical claim you can think of there’s an opposite claim which is not logical. The conclusion is that half of the claims in the world are illogical. You should probably encounter them every day.

Let me give you an example: principally speaking, is it moral that another people, say the Enemy, will hold and tyrannise the country of another people, say the Occupier?”

“Damn no!” said the commander firmly. “If they dared to do so…”

“And yet you yourself are doing it to us, even though you don’t need to do it for a long time!”

The younger soldiers started to laugh maniacally until the commander turned his angry look towards them and they silenced.

He returned to me, “In any case: it was not the handiwork of the soldiers of the Enemy’s army?”

“Not as long as they are defined according to Aristotle’s Organum.”

“O.K. You are free to go.”

“Thank you.”

And so they went away. It seemed to me like the soldiers continued to giggle or were at least smiling to themselves.

I couldn’t find a job that day, but when I returned home that evening I was told that a I had received a telegram from the leaders of the Supporter, the country that finances the Organisation. I opened it and started reading it. The telegram read:

After I considered it during the evening and discussed it with the members of my family, I finally decided that I do want to go there and meet with them. The next day, I travelled to the airport by car, and boarded an aeroplane that flew there.

The flight lasted only two hours, and the aeroplane landed at an airport near the capital city of the Supporter. A car of the Supporter’s army waited for me there, and it drove me to the chief headquarters of the military. On the way, I had the chance to look at the surroundings.

The Supporter Country belongs to the same part of the world as my country, but because they have an even greater talent of causing the other part of the world to hate them, I realise that the economical state of things I saw outside the car was even worse than that of my country. Poverty and hunger were seen almost everywhere.

After a while, the car stopped in front of the headquarters’ building, and then they instructed me to exit the car. Two soldiers entered the building with me, and led me through several corridors until I arrived at a door that opened to a room. Inside the room was a long and large table , and around it sat senior officers as well as a number of men wearing civil clothes. At the head of the table sat a very senior officer with a stern and grave appearance. I assumed it was the head of the department of external security, who sent me the telegram. The soldiers sat me in a seat far from him, and then left the room and locked the door. It was probably a confidential meeting.

After a few seconds, the senior officer started to speak: “I’m glad you agreed to come here, the ex‐Member, because at the moment, we find ourselves in a very grave situation — all because of you. For years, the Organisation has operated with an extraordinary efficiency and methodology. As a matter of fact, it was one of our most efficient weapons for venting our anger against the Enemy. But now — you — you alone, have cast a heavy shadow on its future.

I’m afraid that unless you find a way to work around your proposal, then the results will be catastrophic: not only for the Organisation but for all our other projects around the world, that are a model for harmfully and irrationally unloading bad feelings. Moreover, I’m afraid the proposal you suggested would have some consequences to our very reign here!

So, the ex‐Member, what do you have to say about it?”

“Look, ” I addressed him, “I take full responsibility over the proposal I gave you and its consequences. In my opinion, it is an excellent one, but since you, for some reason, don’t seem to think so as well, I could help you find a way to bypass it. The first option is simply to accept Aristotle’s Organum.”

“I’m afraid it is impossible. It contradicts our law book.”

“May I take a look at your law book?”

“Certainly.” And he ordered one of the other officers to fetch me their law book. I opened the book and saw that the first act read as follows:

“1. The assumption that ‘A is A and that A is not not‐A’ is not necessarily true. (or maybe untrue)”

“Why can’t you change the law book?” I asked him.

“Because then we will have to accept the fact that there’s morality in the world. Then, according to the forbidden books No. 34 and 139, which are evil and unholy writings, but correct in every word, we would be unable to kill people unless for self‐defence. It is hard for me to believe that the Enemy will independently attack the Organisation’s soldiers, if it knows that they have no intention to independently attack it.”

“I understand. But if I study the writings you mentioned, I believe I can find there something that will allow such action, because I have an extraordinary talent to find faults in written material. In fact, I contemplated becoming a lawyer, but I eventually preferred to join the Organisation, as I figured out it would bring me more satisfaction.”

“From the mental aspect?”, one of the less prominent officers asked me.

“No, from the physical aspect. I caused more damage this way.”

“Let’s get back to our subject:” the Head of the Department of External Security said, “you cannot inspect the forbidden books, because they are so dangerous that merely thinking about their content can cause a man to lose his integrity, much less reading them. I’m afraid that if you read them, they may affect you, and then you’ll give us a bad piece of advice.”

“But, Sir, I was never less honest than I am today.”

“Even though, I’d rather not.”

“In that case,” I addressed everybody, “the only option you have left is to accept my proposal, which in my personal opinion is perfectly fine!”

A grave silence prevailed in the hall and all the participants seemed like they were stunned. After a while, the senior officer said: “We’ll seriously consider your proposal, and I believe you will soon know what we have decided to make of it.”

“Okay, I think that I can now return to my country and my village. By the way, how many forbidden books do you have?”

“Oh,”, one of them said to me, “their number is growing geometrically. When I checked two weeks ago, their number was 2,148,763. A week ago there were 4,278,109 forbidden writings. Now there must be about 8,600,000 ones.”

“You are wrong.”, I said to him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“There are now exactly 8,517,559 or 8,517,560 forbidden books.”

“Why is it so important?”

“Why, it means that, for the time being, you have 82,440 or 82,441 extra books which you can read at bedtime if you can’t fall asleep!”

They gave me a ride to the airport where I boarded the first plane that flew back to my country. I arrived home at night‐time, after I took the car ride from the airport back to the village. Since nobody was awake except my father, I immediately went to sleep. I assumed I could wait until tomorrow to tell my experiences from the trip.

At eight o’clock, I was awaken by an increasing noise that I managed to identify as that of vehicles, as well as of talking and adjustment of recording and broadcasting equipment. When I went outside I saw that all the field outside the village was full with broadcasting vehicles of various media networks. According to the emblems on the vehicles, I recognised that most of them belonged to companies from the other part of the world. A large number of reporters, interviewers, cameramen and technicians stood outside the vehicles and prepared themselves for broadcasting. The whole place was abuzz.

I pondered what was the reason for that commotion. After a short moment of thought I rejected the possibility that they came to cover the recent birth of our village head’s youngest son, and assumed they were looking for me. I immediately became fearful that the amplification of the electromagnetic activity, that was caused by the crowding of the broadcasting vehicles and radio equipment at the place, will cause another decline in the crops’ measures. This in turn will make it even harder for me to begin working again. Thus, I decided to make them leave as soon as possible.

After I returned to the house, got dressed, and went out, I approached one of the teams which belonged to a prominent channel in one of the countries of the other part of the world. The reporter there was about to start broadcasting and another woman from the team helped her arrange her look before she gets on air. When I passed by them, the reporter sprang towards me and asked: “Sir, I assume you come from this village. Have you seen the ex‐Member of the Organisation lately?”

“I haven’t seen him since the last time I looked at the mirror.”, I answered.

Then her eyes lighted, the cameraman started taping us and all the crew members turned to look at me. “So you are the ex‐Member?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t have deduced it from what I said.”

“I don’t understand.”, she said while looking a bit puzzled.

“Over 99.9% of the world population have never seen the ex‐Member, much less since the last time they looked at a mirror. Most of the people that did see him, have looked at a mirror since then. Moreover, a large part of the people that routinely see him, tend to look at the mirror every morning in order to dress and comb themselves, and probably didn’t see him yet.”

Some of the crew members lowered their hand to indicate their desperation from me, and turned their looks away, but the interviewer still continued to interrogate me. “Nevertheless, are you the ex‐Member of the Organisation?”

“Hmmm… now that I think about it: yes.”

Immediately, all the crew members whispered my name to one another and concentrated around me. The rumour quickly passed on to other crews and very quickly a large crowd of reporters, cameraman, recorders and broadcasters gathered in a large semicircle around me.

They immediately started to ask me questions at a dazzling rate:

“The ex‐Member, do you think the Organisation will accept your proposal?”

“The ex‐Member, why did you decide to go to the State of the Supporter?”

“The ex‐Member, what will become of the Organisation?”

“The ex‐Member, what do you think about the situation that prevails in this region?”

I raised my hand to silence them, and after a few minutes they all silenced. “I’m sorry that you had to travel until here,” I said, “but I’m not ready to answer your questions at the moment.”

Some of them seemed a bit overwhelmed from the answer. “Wait a second,”, asked a young reporter, “will you be willing to answer some questions in the future?”

“There is a possibility that I will.” I answered him.

“Are you conditioning it in something?” he continued to ask.

“Yes.”

Silence prevailed. “Wait, wait, wait, ” another journalist said, “are you implying that you want money for an interview?”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I meant.”

“Ahh ha.” The journalists began to disperse and each one returned to his broadcasting vehicle and I saw that they were trying to contact their news corporations’. Eventually they all left the place, which created a serious traffic jam at the way out of the village for a long time.

I went back home and ate breakfast. I spent the morning searching for a job in the vicinity of my home, and again was not able to find anything. When I returned home for lunch, my young sister sat in the living room and prepared her homework. “The ex‐Member,  I prepared a list of broadcasting networks that propose to pay you for an interview. It is over there, on the table.”, she said all of a sudden, and then returned to prepare her home exercises.

I looked at the list, picked up the telephone and dialled the first number of the media corporation. I got a reply after a few seconds:

“Hello, I am the ex‐Member of the Organisation; you contacted me so I will give you an interview. I want some details about the payment you are offering me.”

“I see.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, that sounds rather nice, I’ll call you later and tell you what I decided about it. Good bye.”

I hanged up the phone and called the next network on the list.

“Hello, this is the ex‐Member of the Organisation, you contacted me so I’ll give you an interview, and I’d like to enquire about the size of your offer.”

“Ahha.”

“O.K. Maybe you’d like to know that the other company offered me more money.”

“Yes. Roughly this amount.”

A few seconds elapsed…

“Oh, you have a better offer.”

“How much?”

“Hmmm. Doesn’t sound bad. I’ll call you later to let you know of my decision.”

I called the third company, and again received a better offer. Then I called the first company again, and told them about the proposal of the third company. As I expected, they gave me an even better offer.

And so I went on, for a day and a half, with short discussions with an increasing number of large media networks, and I kept receiving increasing offers of payment for an exclusive interview. In my opinion, it was very sincere of me to tell each company about the offers I received from the others, but for some reason, they didn’t sound too enthusiastic when they realised I was doing it on a regular basis.

“Sir, your offer sounds very tempting. In fact, it’s almost as tempting as another offer, which I received a couple of hours ago. Wait a second, are you saying that you have a better offer? Really? Yes, it does sound better. Just give me half‐an‐hour to consider it. Yes. Yes. Goodbye to you too.”

And a few minutes later: “Hello, Madam! I’m glad that I was finely able to reach you. You won’t believe it but I was this close to accepting your offer when the telephone rang, and I was offered an even better one. I’m sorry, but it’s really nothing personal. Really? Let’s see, in comparison to the other offer it’s…”

Anyway, I eventually got tired of this multi‐sided negotiation, and decided to take the most attractive offer up to then. This offer included a very large amount of money, even relative to what people of the other part of the world are used to. Moreover, it included a flight to one of the big cities there, and an accommodation at a five star hotel, at the expense of the media company of course. There I had to be interviewed at an evening show of one of the most famous hostesses in the other part of this world. This was a hostess of whom I was particularly fond. The main reason for that was that I had never seen any of her shows and so did not change my initial opinion.

So it happened that I had to leave my country for the second time that week. After I packed my belongings, and said goodbye to my family and my neighbours, I went to the airport by car, which was also prepared and financed by the media company. At the airport, I boarded a plane that flew towards the city in which the interview was about to take place.

The flight, that lasted 11 hours, exhausted me completely, and I was glad that they took me straight to the hotel, where I fell asleep right after lying on the bed. After I woke up at a late hour of the morning, I ordered breakfast, and then decided to go on a half tour/half shopping spree in the city. Even though I was supposed to get most of the money only after the interview, I have already received a decent amount of money in advance. The show for which I was going to be interviewed, was scheduled for that night, and I understood that I had very little time for touring and shopping.

The tour of the city was very interesting, and I was able to see wealth and luxury that I never had a chance to see, at least not since the time I was a little boy, before my country was torn by guerrilla organisations such as the Organisation. The luxury of the hotel was also way beyond what I was used to in my house, but I was sure that in the other part of the world, most people could not afford themselves such luxury in their houses either.

The time passed very quickly and it was time for the interview. Two hours before it was held, they drove me in a limousine to the company’s studios, where the show was shot live. I was brought to the makeup and dressing room where I was dressed for the occasion, had makeup applied to my face, and was prepared for the show.

In the middle of applying the makeup, the makeup lady asked me: “Do you feel like you’re ready for the interview?”

“I think so.”, I told her.

“Are you calm and everything?”

“Yes. Do I have any reason to be nervous?”

“Maybe. Did you have the chance to see one of the shows of this interviewer?”

“No. Why?”

“She’s just a tough interviewer and is very candid with her guests. If there is an embarrassing or a controversial issue in their background, she will not hesitate to ask questions about it. Many people don’t feel comfortable with her.

Maybe you want to see a recording of one of the shows to prepare yourself?”

“No, that’s O.K. I love surprises. In fact, I noticed that I respond better after something unexpected happened than after something that I knew was already going to happen.”

“As you wish. By the way, how much did you get for the interview? Really?!”

After they finished dressing me and making me up, there was still some time left until the beginning of the show, and I spent it in the studios. I was offered to meet the interviewer before the interview, but preferred not to, as being spontaneous requires a little planning. Then the show started, yet I wasn’t the first person to be interviewed there (out of rating considerations). The interviewer first interviewed two cinema actors who came out with a new film, a psychologist who published his first book, and a physicist who recently publicised a finding that his colleagues and he discovered. I was supposed to enter after the interview with the physicist was finished, the physicist being present during my interview.

“So,” the interviewer asked the physicist towards the end of the personal interview with him, “what would be the implications of the discovery on the industry?”

And he replied: “Well, the material is useful in many areas of the industry, but because until now its price was relatively high, companies used cheaper alternative materials instead of it. Our discovery, which lowers the price of its manufacturing, will allow factories to use it instead of the alternative materials and thus improve the quality of their products.

My labs are in the advanced stages of writing the patent on the improved manufacturing process, and I hope my colleagues and I will receive a generous sum of money from the royalties on the patent.”

“I hope it will be so, because you probably invested a lot of works in its development.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“That’s all for now, Doctor. I ask you to stay here in the studio to receive our next guest, which many of the viewers waited to see the interview with him impatiently. This is a man who is frighteningly logical. A man, whose actions have implications on the whole world. A media hero, that a week ago no one knew who he was. Is he a hero for a moment, or has a new star been born in the skies of the world’s politics?

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the ex‐Member of the Organisation!!”

This was my cue to come in, and so I entered the studio to the tempered claps of the audience that sat there. I advanced towards the interviewer, greeted the people who were present, and shook the interviewer’s hand and the hand of the physicist. Right after that, I sat down in the vacant chair next to the physicist. And then the interview began.

The interviewer waited for the end of the hand clapping, while moving her gaze from the audience in the studio to the physicist and me. After silence prevailed, she looked towards me and said: “The ex‐Member, I must say we are very happy to have you here on our show. Tell me: how do you feel here, in the other part of the world?”

“Excellent. The conditions are much more comfortable than what I’m usually used to.” I answered.

“Very well. ”, she said, “Please tell us a bit about your service in the Organisation? How did you feel back then?”

“Oh, it was definitely an instructive service. However, there was one thing which bothered both me and my late comrades: they kept lecturing to us how bad the Enemy was, and why we must fight it. I think half of our training time was wasted on such lectures. We knew the Enemy was bad, and that was the reason why we joined the Organisation in the first place!

In my opinion, it was completely unnecessary. Perhaps they thought that without those brainwashes we would have reached the conclusion that there is no rationale behind the activity against the Enemy. Most of us reached that conclusion a few months, if not less, after we joined the Organisation and we still kept fighting. So they didn’t have a reason to go to this length and just bother us.”

“Yet, you are content with your retirement from the Organisation and with your interesting suggestion for improving the efficiency of its actions?”

“Of course.”

“Tell me: do you, personally, hate the Enemy?”

“Sure. That’s why I proposed my constructive suggestion, which will allow the Organisation to fight it better.”

There was a short pause. “Can you tell us, following your visit to the land of the Supporter, how they eventually decided to handle it?”, she continued.

“Actually, I could tell you. We reached the conclusion that my suggestion corresponds to the philosophy of the Supporter and of the Organisation, and it will probably be implemented to a greater extent in the Organisation and in other establishments of the Supporter worldwide.”

The Interviewer then said: “Speaking of the philosophy, according to many people who live here, in the other part of the world, both the philosophy and the actions of the Organisation are completely irrational.”

I replied: “The Organisation anticipated that such a thing might happen, and therefore it printed its philosophy on a note.”

The interviewer then responded: “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how it contributes to its validity. Everyone can write the world’s biggest nonsense on a note, and yet it will remain illogical and subjective to whoever said it.”

“Yes,” I said, “but this note was printed in eight milliard copies, and thus there’s plenty of it for every man alive, which makes it objective for all practical reasons. You can receive it from the Organisation for free, by enclosing mail payment only. Likewise, you can find it on the Internet in the following address:

http://www.the-organisation.org/reference/anti-something/Aristotle/Organum/our_philosophy.html.”

The interviewer seemed shocked for a moment. Some media experts would claim it was unprofessional, but in my opinion, it was pretty much in place. “Indeed a strong argument, and I’m sure many of the viewers would take your suggestion, and will check the philosophy of the Organisation themselves. Whether they will accept it — that it is a different question.”

“Well, the objectivity of a certain thing is not dependent on people accepting it.”

“Of course. Let me move on to the next question, which interests me and probably many other people very much. It is known that both the Enemy and the Occupier invaded your country, after actions of terrorist organisations such as the Organisation caused it to lose stability. Both countries had one share or another in its destruction. Today, the Occupier occupies a large part of your country directly, and controls most of the other part with a puppet government. The Enemy, on the other hand, occupies only a small part of your country which is close to its border, for security reasons, and the condition of the people who live there, is, as far as I know, not so bad. Why, if so, do the residents of your country act mostly against the Enemy and not against the Occupier?”

“An excellent question, Madam. There is, probably, some activity against the Occupier’s army, but it is much limited and doesn’t receive as much media coverage. Furthermore, it is a lot easier to fight the enemy, because the Organisation receives the support of the Supporter and the acceptance of the Occupier. Moreover, the Enemy’s country, as opposed to the Occupier’s country, is a free country, and therefore is committed to behave in a moral manner, even towards the members of the Organisation, that are, out of self‐definition, immoral.

If those reasons are not enough, then since the beginning of the Occupier’s occupation, our country has been peaceful, which was disturbed only by the activity in the southern border. The civilians are happy that there’s peace at last, and so they don’t really mind that the country is under foreign occupation.

In my opinion, even if we had all the reasons to fight the Occupier, then like the man who looks under the light of a street‐light for a coin he lost in the dark, we would have still preferred to fight the Enemy. It’s much more convenient, and still satisfying.”

“In that case, ” the physicist said, “from what I understood from what you said, the war against the Enemy doesn’t bring your country much good, and it would be better better if you did not fight it at all.”

“Definitely Not!” I replied to him vigorously “The very fact that it would be better to fight the Occupier, doesn’t mean that fighting the Enemy, even tough it isn’t beneficial for us in the long run, or even the short run, is useless.”

“O.K., we could say you cleared that point.” The interviewer said and continued, “Several forces in the Enemy’s country suggest that the Enemy’s military will retreat from the security‐zone that they hold at the moment in the south of your country, and will try to protect their civilians only from within their sovereign territory. This action might stop the fighting between the Enemy and the Organisation, because the Organisation reasons the continuation of the fighting in that it does it to liberate that territory.

Yet, the Supporter’s country despises the Enemy, not because it hurt your people or holds part of your country, but out of ideological motives. Therefore, its interest is that the fighting against the Enemy will not be stopped at all. Moreover, even for the Occupier, the withdrawal from that territory will not change anything, and it will still want the fighting to go on.

Thus, assuming the Enemy withdrew from that limited territory he is controlling at the moment, do you think the Organisation would continue its activity against the Enemy?”

Undoubtedly, this was also a very good question. I thought about it a little and replied: “Look, it’s not a small dilemma. On the one hand, it would be more difficult for them to get support for the actions from the civilians, unless they will manipulate the desire for revenge on the Enemy’s past crimes. Still, both the Supporter and the Occupier, which now sanction the aggressive activity of the Organisation, will want the Organisation to keep on fighting out of their own motives.

As you may well remember, I met with those who are responsible on the Organisation’s activity in the Supporter’s government and I concluded that except for the fact that they reject Aristotle’s Organum, they are very reasonable people. Therefore, I am forecasting that in such a case, they will take the reasonable decision. For people who reject the Organum, of course.”

“That is, will continue to fight the Enemy?”, the physicist asked.

“Or vice versa. When the Organum is rejected, it’s difficult to tell.”

“I’d like to ask the ex‐Member a question.”, the physicist said.

“Please do.”, the interviewer said to him.

“Some of the actions of the Organisation were followed by bombardments of the air force of the Enemy’s military, which were, at times, even very massive. These bombardments sometimes caused civilians of your people to get hurt. The Organisation knew in advance that such bombardments could come as response to its activity, and yet didn’t stop it. In your opinion, can one say that the Organisation is responsible in killing its own people?”

“No!”, I replied to him, “It is absurd to believe that if someone performed an action with an expected cause, then he’s guilty of the cause. Thus, for instance, as opposed to common belief, Adolf Hitler is not responsible for instigating World War II. All he wanted was for people to hear his command to invade Poland!

Furthermore, a man who positioned a gun at the forehead of another man and shot him, is not responsible for killing him. All he wanted was that the bullet will be emitted from the barrel, or even just for the trigger to be set backwards!”

“Speaking about bombardments,”, the interviewer said, “many criticisms were directed at the Enemy for hurting the civilians among you, although they are only trying to hurt the Organisation’s soldiers. As someone who is now an objective viewer, do you think those criticisms are justified?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, “I have always been completely objective.”

“But you served in the Organisation!” the physicist burst, “The Organisation tries to hurt the soldiers or even the civilians of the Enemy, who are innocent. In my opinion, you were a criminal.”

“You are right,” I told him, “But I have been a criminal from an objective viewpoint.”

“Let’s get back to the question. Are the accusations against the Enemy’s Military justified?” The interviewer addressed me again.

“Absolutely.” I replied, “Even if they were completely accurate, they would have hurt the Organisation’s soldiers and kill them.”

“But we just agreed they were criminals!”, the physicist said in half‐bewilderment, half‐anger.

“And wait — is it justified to kill a criminal? Is the stealer from a thief exempt?”

“So, you are a pacifist?”

“No. After all I served in the Organisation.”

“Very well.” Said the interviewer to both of us, “In my opinion, we, more or less, saturated the political aspect of this conversation. The ex‐Member, would you allow me to ask you a couple of personal questions now?”

“Wait a second, do you think the questions so far were not personal?”

The interviewer stopped for a moment and moved her hands, “No. What kind of questions do you consider as personal?”

“I consider all questions as personal except for the questions ‘Is question X a personal question?’ and ‘Is question Y not a personal question?’. You see, I don’t want to create a private case of the Russell Paradox.”

“Well, so let’s proceed with your permission with some further personal questions.”

“Please do.”

“How do you describe your outlook on the world?”

“Well. In my opinion, everything in the world ranges from the very stupid to the completely illogical.”

“That is a bold statement.”

“No it’s not! It was a stupid and irrational statement.”

“Oh yes, it makes sense.”

“If you say so. In my opinion, it’s just stupid.”

“Speaking of lack of logic: many told me that they found your behaviour very… ahem… unusual and your logic also seems to them to be very insane.”

“I agree with them.” I replied to her. “Had I not already been insane, I would have long ago driven myself mad.”

“Do you have any plans for the future?”

“Absolutely. I intend to publish a book with my memoirs from the last period. In my opinion, it will be one of the most revolutionary books since Aristotle’s Organum, and I hope it will help lower the prestige of the last treatise. I noticed that the contents of this treatise receives an almost full consensus, even in the wide public, and this is despite the fact that most people had never read it. Doubtless, this treatise had an enormous conscious and subconscious effect since it was written — unjustifiably in my opinion — and I hope my book will help decrease it in considerably.”

“Tell me, the ex‐Member, do you have any hobbies? What do you do in your spare time?”

“Among the activities I do in my spare time I can list the following: finding closer and closer solutions to a set of differential equations from the second degree. I also deal in trying to understand the sentences I said in the past. Aside from all that, I planned a political simulator that forecast the two World Wars after I entered all the relevant data until the year 1000 AD.”

“Do you have a computer at home?”

“Oh, no! At present the program is written on a paper. Don’t ask how much time it took me to fully eliminate all bugs out of it. But it was great fun!”

“Is that all?”

“No… there’s another thing. Let me just remember what it is. I also like… come on… ”

“To try to disprove the Theory of Relativity?” suggested the interviewer.

“To plan how to take over the world by investments in the stock market?” the physicist said.

“Ah… I like to play the guitar!”

A few laughs were heard from the direction of the audience, while the interviewer and the physicist silenced for a few seconds. “Interesting habit.” Said the Interviewer.

“I would have never guessed you did such a thing.” The physicist added.

“Why?” I asked with wonder, “As far as I know, many people play the guitar.”

“You know:”, the physicist said, “in my opinion since you left the Organisation you acted without thinking a lot before you did things. I would describe your behaviour as deriving from spontaneousness and fickle‐mindedness that border rashness. Do you also think so?”

“Of course!” I answered him, “Except for arrogance, rashness is my only defect!”

“Gentlemen, I would have been glad to continue this interview and I’m sure the viewers would have wanted to learn more about the exciting life of the ex‐Member of the Organisation. However, I am being told that our program has reached its end.”, the Interviewer said after I finished my sentence. “Dear Doctor and the ex‐Member of the Organisation, I thank you for getting interviewed here with me. As for you, the viewers in the homes and in the studio, I hope you enjoyed the interviews that were in the show. We wish you a good evening and a pleasant continuation of viewing.”

And then came the signal that ended the show, and the ending music was broadcast around the studio. The audience in the studio began to clap their hands, while the interviewer, the physicist and I went on to sit in the studio for a few minutes. Then we went backstage.

“Madam, I think it was an excellent interview!” I said to the interviewer while the three of us were standing backstage, along with the guests that had been interviewed before, and discussed the program that was just broadcast. “The questions were really top of the line, and I believe that it was a challenge to answer them, even for me. Doctor, you had your share of brilliant challenges too.”

“Thank you.” The Doctor said.

“Likewise.” Added the interviewer and said: “Your answers were also very… unusual.”

“Although this description cannot testify on their quality, I take it as a compliment.”

Then, one of the production people approached her and gave her several video cassettes. “Here”, she addressed me as she gave me one of the cassettes. “This is a taping of the show which we prepared for the guests.”

“Well, I don’t have a VCR at home right now, but thanks, anyway.” I thanked her and started to walk in order to get out of the studio. But then I stopped for a moment and turned to her: “By the way,” I said, “I still have not understood why the questions you asked me during the first part of the interview were more personal than the questions you asked me at the second one.”

The Limousine drove me back to the hotel, and there I went to sleep, after barely taking off my clothes. I slept a lot that night. When I woke up in the morning it was already Ten O’clock, and I decided to order a small breakfast to my room. The flight back home was only due in the evening, so I had plenty of time; usually I would have used the opportunity to continue my tour of the metropolis, but the interview and the preparations for it exhausted me physically and mentally.

Therefore I decided to stay in my room and watch television. I was happy for the chance to see so many series at once, something that was not usually possible in the village. When I saw sitcoms I decided that I’ll keep trying to guess what the next punch‐line would be. All in all, I was successful 23.3 percent of the times. Not bad for a beginner.

Eventually I got tired of watching television, and I went down to the hotel’s lobby. While I sat there, I thought about the book I was going to write about everything that happened to me. I started planning the style in which I would write it, how I’ll negotiate with the publisher, how much money I should demand as an initial offer, and what circulation it would have. But then I realised something: despite the fact that I am one of the men who had the most enormous effect on worldwide politics in the last few years, if not in the last few decades, it wouldn’t be probable that my book would be very successful. First, I wouldn’t be able to describe many events in it, because the majority of the readers would not want me to describe the period in which I served in the Organisation. Moreover, I came to a realisation that there is another aspect of the affair which I did not cover yet.

Therefore I reached the conclusion that in order for the book to succeed, I must visit the Enemy’s country. I realised that I also have a patriotic motive to do this, because I could integrate the collection of important intelligence information about the Enemy, into the visit. So, I rose from my seat, went out of the hotel, ordered a cab and went to the Enemy’s embassy.

I entered the embassy, and the way embassies are I had to stand in line in order to talk with the clerk. After I waited in line for about half an hour, I managed to speak with her at last, and declared my desire to visit the Enemy’s country. She gave me a form and asked me to fill in my details. I carried the from to a table, took out a pen from the pocket of my shirt and started to fill the form. In my opinion, it was a very inefficient form, and a practically unnecessary one. Judge for yourself:

“Private Name:”, in this field I wrote: “The ex‐Member of the Organisation”.

“Family Name:”, in this field I wrote: “The family of the ex‐Member of the Organisation”.

“Address: Home of the family of the ex‐Member of the Organisation; The Village; The Country”.

“Sex [also species]: Human (Homo Sapiens).” It was hard for me to believe that there is, at present, another species of organisms that can fill the form, but I let it slide.

“Citizenship: The Country.” I assumed that it existed for diplomatic purposes.

“Marital Status [= Familiar Status] : son, brother, grandson, nephew, uncle, cousin, brother‐in‐law.” I assumed they were not interested in more distant relations.

“Purpose of the visit:”, I decided to be honest with them, so they won’t cause me trouble so I filled in “hostile espionage” in this field.

“Criminal record:”, since all my activity as a member of the Organisation had been performed on a national background I wrote: “None” in this field.

“Duration of stay:”, it was hard for me to estimate it so I wrote: “Undefined, unknown, inaccessible, and/or cannot be approximated or extrapolated.”

After I finished filling the form, I waited in line for another clerk. When my turn arrived, I gave her my form along with my passport and told her I wish to visit her country. The clerk looked at the form and then distorted her face from perplexity. “Sir, I’m afraid this form is not filled properly.”, she told me.

“Really?”, I answered, “Why not?”

“For instance under ‘Sex’ you were supposed to write if you’re a male or a female.”

“And I thought it meant a biological species. The name of this field mislead me. In my opinion, you should change it to ‘sexual status’ or ‘sexual tendency’.”

“Ah hah. I’m afraid some people will interpret those terms in a completely different way.”

“In that case, what do you think of ‘gender’?”

“A correct but infrequent term. I’ll forward your suggestion to the higher levels.”

“I thank you in advance, on my behalf and on the behalf of the future patrons of this embassy.”

“Yes, and, aside from that, in ‘Marital Status’ you were supposed to fill in if you’re single or married, with or without children, and so on.”

“Oh! If I had been married, I would have also written there that I’m a husband, son‐in‐law, brother‐in‐law and so forth, while if I had had children I would have also put ‘father’.”

“O.K., but it seems to me that there is a more serious problem. You are the citizen of the Country, which is in a state of war with the Enemy; you were a member of the Organisation and took a part in terrorist activity that was aimed against the Enemy, and if that’s not enough you write that the purpose of your visit is ‘hostile espionage’. I don’t think we can let you in our country that way.”

“In my opinion, you should have an interest to let me in and now. After all, I am the ex‐Member of the Organisation, a person with a central role and a long‐term effect on politics. If I stood in charge of your security institutions, I be very happy if I had been able to interview myself, and I can’t see a better chance to do that than if I visit your country, where you’ll have a legal privilege to do so. Aside from all that, I must note that my espionage methods are too sophisticated for me to have to take illegal espionage actions, such as obtaining secret documents, or listening to conferences behind closed doors.”

“Oh. Do you mean that you only intend to do things that a regular tourist is freely allowed to do?”

“Absolutely.”

“Ah, hah.” The clerk said and thought for a moment. “Know what? I am going to pass on your request to the higher levels. In case you get an approval to enter the Enemy’s country, I’ll let you know about it by phone, as long you stay in this country.”

“I would very much like to visit your country and therefore I’m willing to wait here om this city, even a few days.”

“All right. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye to you too and thanks for your help.”

I went back to the hotel, and extended my stay (out of my own packet this time) — it was hard to know how long they will consider if to let me in the Enemy’s country. I decided to continue my tour of the city, and returned to the hotel only in the evening. Afterwards, I was informed at the reception that I got a message from the Enemy’s embassy, which informed me that I was allowed to enter the Enemy’s country.

So, next day’s morning, I went to the Embassy and filled all the other necessary forms. After the visit to the Embassy, I managed to order one of the last tickets to a flight that left that very evening. I went after a few hours to the airport, where after some arrangements that were longer than usual (due to the special permit I was given), I boarded an aeroplane that flew directly to the Enemy’s country.

After I landed in the airport, I reserved a hotel room in one of the main cities in the Enemy’s country, and took a cab that went there. On the way I was able to see the view around, and despite the closeness to my country, it was much different from what was known to me. I’m not talking about the climate — the country was simply more developed. The economy of the Enemy’s country is far from being perfect, but it is still considered to be one of the countries of the other part of the world.

After I got up in the morning, and started to tour it (with a direct intention to gather intelligence information), I noticed that the atmosphere there was not much different from what I remembered in my country. However, it bothered me that all the people I asked accepted Aristotle’s Organum without a doubt. I assumed that that what would happen, but I hope the publication of my book will change this fact even there.

It was in the middle of that day, when a black car stopped next to me, and a man that wore sun‐glasses came out from the seat next to the driver’s seat. He said to me in a thick voice: “The ex‐Member of the Organisation, in order to prevent unpleasantness, please enter the car and sit at the back.”

“Sir,” I replied, “, I have a natural tendency to create unpleasantness, but I am willing to suppress it for the while, so I’ll cooperate.” I said that, and entered the car through the back door which was already open. I saw that outside the car, the man that wore the sun‐glasses, closed the back door, and entered the car as well. The car drove away, and after a short drive stopped in front of a fortified building.

I was instructed to get out of the car and after I went out, the guards in the entrance to the building let me and the man from the front in. He led me in a couple of hallways until we reached a door. The door opened into a window‐less room, which had a desk inside. On one of its sides, sat a man, that I assumed was the investigator, and in its other side was a vacant chair. The man that escorted me, told me to sit there, and then closed the door in which we entered and sat down on a chair at the side of the room.

The investigator addressed me and said: “Are you the ex‐Member of the Organisation?”

“Yes, sir.”, I replied.

“We would like to ask you a few questions regarding the Organisation and we hope, for your and our sake, that you will cooperate with us.”

“I’ll do the best I can. Normally, I tend not to cooperate even with myself. That way, if I decide to do a foolish thing — I don’t get hurt and can’t be blamed for causing it either.”

“Very well… I apologise that we brought you here so urgently, but you must remember that if it were not for this interview, you would not be able to visit here, and we wanted to interview you before you start touring our country and we will lose track of you.”

“Sir, the only person who ever lost track of me is myself.”

“I understand, but since you’re already here, I’ll begin the interview anyway. First question: why did you resign from the Organisation?”

“Because I wanted to resign from it.”

“And why did you want to resign from the Organisation?”

“So I’ll have a good excuse if somebody asks me why I resigned from it.”

The investigator seemed a bit confused but went on to investigate me: “Very well. Please describe to us your service in the Organisation, in general terms.”

“Generally, I served in the Organisation by following my commander’s orders in our trial to kill as many soldiers from your army as possible.”

“Would you be a little more specific?”

“But you asked me to describe the service in general.”

“All right. Can you describe it in a more detailed way?”

“Of course. I remember what happened in a rather detailed manner. I started to serve in November 5, 1996 at 8:03 exactly. For five minutes, I waited outside the registration room and then I was let in. The interviewer asked me for my name and I replied. Then he asked me for my address, my telephone number, my marital status… ”

The investigator interrupted me: “O.K.! O.K.! Forget it. Please estimate the amount of motivation the members of the Organisation had to fight.”

“Look, I only know for certain what was the motivation of my comrades from the post, may they rest in peace, but because they are not longer among the living, I don’t think it would be very helpful to you.”

“And what about those who serve in other posts?”

“It changes from post to post. The mutual relationship between the commander of the post to the members of the Organisation that are under his command can very much affect the willingness of the members to fight the Enemy.”

“How?”

“If the relationship between them is good, they are more willing to do so.”

“Ah hah. Can you tell me what was the attitude of your comrades toward the Enemy, the Supporter, or the Occupier?”

“Yes. From what I recall, we hated the Enemy and despised the Occupier, even though we acknowledged the fact that he allows us a freedom of action against the Enemy.”

“We already know that!”

“Excellent! Now you have a more solid basis to assume that.”

“Very well. Tell me: what weaponry and equipment, and in what quantity, did you have in the post?”

“All the weapons and equipment that we had were destroyed because of the tragic battle that occurred there between the members of the Organisation who served in the post to themselves.”

“Can you tell me anything about the equipment and the weaponry that is kept by other posts?”

“No. I wasn’t interested in what went on in other posts, because I was too concerned with the affairs of my own post. You see, I never thought I’ll ever have to give intelligence information for the other side.”

“I see. How would you rate the fighting ability and the level of the fighters who served with you in the post?”

“In my appreciation, the fighting ability of my comrades ranged between an excellent fighting ability to a very low fighting ability, with a tendency to concentrate in either of the two extremes, or in any level between them.”

“Do you have any other information that can aid us in our struggle against the Organisation?”

“Of course, I can explain Newton’s Second Law of Motion to you. It’s a very useful law and is almost compulsory for effective military warfare.”

“The men of our military already know and understand Newton’s Second Law of Motion, very well, and I’m sure they use it a lot for many purposes in the routine management of the military.”

“You see: even you agree that it’s useful! But since you already know it, I don’t suppose that there’s a use for me to explain it to you. I can guide you in other fields of physics with which I am familiar.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’m afraid I ran out of questions to ask you.”

“Excellent.” I replied, “Because I ran out of replies too. I made an effort that they will be as to the point and as informative as possible, but at a certain point, I too ran out of available knowledge.”

After the interview with the intelligence agency, I decided to continue my tour of the Enemy’s country with the emphasis on collecting important intelligence information in indirect means. I started my intelligence work in a visit I conducted the next day’s morning in one of the water parks of the country. I always wanted to visit a place like that and to amuse myself in it, and I assumed I can conduct some serious espionage over there. I continued with guided tours in the main cities and in the ancient cities, a visit to the theme park, and meals at fancy restaurants. One of the most dangerous espionage missions I took was a guided tour for expert hikers that included cliff‐hanging. Of course the rest of the tourists that participated in the tour could have done the same intelligence work I did, but they were not aware of the great intelligence potential that it had.

After I completed all those missions, I possessed a large amount of intelligence information about the Enemy. The only fact that could shadow the success of my mission was that that information was not substantially different from the information I had before I visited its country. In any case, all those missions exhausted me and I decided to continue in the tour in a less intensive pace. As a result, I decided that I would just tour the cities of the country in my own pace, without a defined cause.

So, I had the opportunity of visiting various places, most of which were completely mundane for the locals, but still pretty interesting for a stranger. Thus, for instance, I was present in a political assembly of one of the country’s political parties. I saw the leader of the party give his speech to the loud voice of the encouragement calls of those present. I decided to try my arithmetical skills in calculating the sum of the independent opinions of those present in the crowd, but even I realised that it was hard for me to work with such low numbers. After I had to change the digital precision three times during the calculation of the sum of the first ten independent opinions, I realised it would be too hard for me.

However, I managed to make it up to myself on this failure during that tour. Two days after that, I visited one of the universities there and noticed a sign that announced a large seminar that took place there that day: “‘Out of the north an evil shall open’: a symposium regarding the political status between us and the Occupier and the Country”. I decided it was something I had to be present in, and so I immediately bought a ticket for that and went into the lecturing hall.

I noticed that one of the lectures was already in session, and the professor who lectured was just explaining why the present situation made it difficult on signing a normalisation treaty between the Enemy and the Occupier. I found a vacant seat and sat there. To my side, sat a young man that wrote notes in a notebook he held in his hand. I assumed he was a student. After a few minutes he turned his look towards me and then his face enlightened from surprise. “Wait a second,” he said “You look familiar. Are you by any chance a famous person? Wait a second, aren’t you the ex‐Member of the Organisation?”

“The answer to the first question is ‘Yes’.”

“So you’re not the ex‐Member of the Organisation?”

“I wouldn’t have deduced it from what I said.”

“So you are the ex‐Member?”

“That’s not something that is derived from what I said either. Sometimes it just amazes me… ”

But he did not stay to hear the rest of the sentence, but rose up and advanced towards the aisle. He probably identified me with confidence, or alternatively assumed I’m the only man in the world, who might answer in such a cryptic way. He hurried to the front of the hall where he spoke with some of the organisers of the study day. After they consulted between them quietly, one of them went on the stage and whispered something to the lecturer. The lecturer stopped lecturing, pondered for a moment and then said: “Gentlemen, I was informed right now that the ex‐Member of the Organisation, that as we all know is visiting our country now, is at the moment present in this hall. Due to the important part he took in shaping the political status we are discussing today, I ask him to get on this stage and present us his opinion regarding the Organisation and the political state that prevails in the Country.”

And so I rose and advanced toward the stage to the hand‐clapping of the audience in the hall. After I went on the stage, the professor shook my hand, presented me with the microphone and went off the stage himself. I rose my hand to silence the hand‐clapping, waited until they stopped and started to speak:

I saw that some people from the audience raised their hands and I gave the permission to speak to a student that sat in front.

“I just wanted to ask”, she addressed me, “who said all the sentences you quoted?”

“Why, I said them!”

“Were you also the first who said ‘Give me liberty or give me death’?”

“Oh no! That was Patrick Henry, one of the leaders of the American Revolution.”

I saw there were no further questions and so I got off the speaker’s stage to the sound of the hand‐clapping of the audience. After I shook the hands of the professors who organised the study day, and stayed to talk with them a little, I went on my way.

The next day I saw a picture of me giving the speech in the university appear in the front page of the main newspapers, and from what I understood, a videotape of the lecture was distributed to the various broadcasting networks in the world. I thought about claiming percentage off the profit to myself, but eventually I reached the conclusion that the profits from the book, that will naturally include the speech, will compensate for the anguish.

Two days after the study day, I decided to return home, and therefore I travelled by buses until the northern border of the Enemy’s country, in order to cross the border to my country. The last bus stopped right next to the border pass that allowed passage from the Enemy’s country to the security zone in the south of my country, that as I mentioned before, the Enemy had under its control. In fact, citizens of my country who inhabit the security zone make constant use of this border pass, in order to work in the sovereign area of the Enemy’s country.

The border guards did not detain me for long, after they understood I was the citizen of the country in the other side of the border, but they advised me to get out of the zone they possessed as soon as possible. I took one organised ride that took me outside the security zone, and then I found another car that was about to go in the direction of my village and took it. After I got out of car, I walked for a short while by foot until I reached the outskirts of my village, during the late afternoon.

The village seemed more deserted, and the amount of people who hung around its streets was smaller than usual to that hour. When I came near my house I understood why: half of my village gathered by my house in what looked like a party that was conducted for my return. A few seconds later, some people noticed me and their calls (“Look over there, here he comes!”) spread the news among the entire crowd. Most of them turned their look toward the street in which I walked and some of them even advanced toward me.

So I found myself surrounded by many blessings, questions and shoulder taps, but aside from the basic reactions (“Thank you.”, “Excellent.” and many smiles) I focused on getting a way through the crowd to reach my family. After I got there at the end and stood in front of both my parents, I told them: “I’m back.”

After two minutes of blessings, hugs, calls and remarks like “How we missed you.” coming from the parents and the more distant family, that stood by them, my father got to the point:

“So, tell us how it’s been!”

The crowd slowly silenced and waited in anticipation to my answer and the next answers that would come.

“How what has been exactly?” I answered.

“Oh, you know…” my mother asked, “How was the interview?”

“Oh! I have a videotape with the interview right here. Didn’t you see it?”

“Of course! And to be honest, we asked someone to tape it for us, too.”

“So you know how it’s been.”

“Well. So, how was the visit to the Enemy’s country?”

“Oh, the Enemy’s country — that’s an entirely different story. Yes. I have something very important to tell you about the Enemy country. In fact…”

“So get on with it and tell it already.”, one of my cousins cried.

“All right, I’ll get to the point: I came.”

“Yes?”

“I saw.”

“Yes?”

I understood, after a moment, that they expect to say another thing.

“That’s it.” I said.

“And isn’t there something else you would like to tell about it?”

“No, because I assume you have already seen the speech I gave during that seminar in the university.”

And so the reception returned to its course, as I frequently answer people’s questions regarding the trip I took abroad. “Why did you visit the Enemy’s country at all?”, I was asked after a short while and I answered:

“Well, the main reason was that I wanted material for my future book. However, I integrated into it the collection of valuable intelligence information about the Enemy, in a manner that is not considered as illegal by the authorities. Although I managed to get a lot of information without many disturbances, the results I came up with are not very satisfactory.

As I made it clear to myself, most of what I know now, was already known to us, or we assumed it was like that in the first place. In fact, had I writter a report on the information I know about the Enemy, then 48 out of 51 pages, would have already been known to us before I took the trip.”

“And what about the three remaining pages?”

“Oh, they contain a summary, conclusions and a bibliography.”

Some time later, when I took part in a conversation with my mother, my sister, a friend of mine, from the village and two neighbours, my mother burst and said:

“Oh! I forgot to tell you until now, but I talked with our truck driver, and he said he will probably be able to hire you as his employee.”

“Very good.” I told her, “But, to be honest, I think of starting my own business. The money I got for the interview in foreign currency is considered a fortune around here, and it will certainly suffice for starting to build the business.”

“In what did you consider to deal with?” My friend asked.

“Honestly, I didn’t really give it a lot of thought. I’m so talented, that I don’t have enough talent to determine which one of my talents I work at for a living.”

He sat on a chair under an arbour in a middle of a European‐styled garden. He was a rather short man with black hair and a small and funny black moustache. When I saw him, he already finished eating his breakfast, and he drank coffee and read the morning paper while wearing army uniform.

It was Adolf Hitler. I decided to approach him.

“Sir,” I told him, “I am a big fan of yours.”

“Really?” he said as a smile of pleasure came up on his face “I’m very glad to hear that. Come sit, I always have time for fans.”

“Even though I’m not too fond of your actions as a whole, your contribution to philosophy was quite impressive.”

“Pardon? To what contribution are you referring?”

“No; you should not be modest, Mr. Hitler. You should not deny that you contributed a lot to the establishment of a thesis, which is one of the most important philosophical theses in the last two hundred years. Yes… it’s obvious to me that you must be feeling…”

“Excuse me again, but I don’t understand which philosophical contribution you are praising at the moment. To praise me is, of course, something that is always desirable, but I also want to know for what I am praised. I cannot think of any special contribution which I contributed to worldwide philosophy.”

“Seriously? ” I called in wonder, “I never assumed a person like you will not know of something so significant that he is responsible for. Sir, you were one of the central philosophers who claimed that morality is equal in fact to `no morality´.”

“Did I claim that?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Allow me to quote you:

Well, don’t you agree that you are saying here that the morality, which one should act upon, is lack of morality?”

“No. This is indeed my quotation, but it does not mean that I think the Aryans should behave in an immoral way. You see, in this passage I meant that the members of the Aryan race can, or even should, take those actions in their struggle against members of lesser races, or against Aryan nations which stand in the way of Nazism.”

“So you mean a Nazi cannot kill another Nazi, but he is allowed to kill a Jew or a Negro, or even another Aryan who actively opposes the Nazism?”

“Yes, you can interpret it that way, if you generalise it from international politics to the private plane.”

“Mr. Hitler, thanks to your response, your claim seems a lot more humane to me now! I take back saying that you claim that morality in fact equals to `no morality´.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Yes. Yes. It can be seen that all the time you acted out of that ideology, and not out of the simplistic ideology that I, by mistake, thought you held earlier. There’s definitely much more reason behind your actions now that you’ve enlightened me.

Of course an outsider, who didn’t have the chance to speak with you yet, could have reached the same conclusion I reached based on your actions. After all, Nazi Germany attacked and destroyed countries, that were mostly Aryan, and caused the killing of many, among them pure Aryans.”

I noticed he was opening his mouth to say something, but I did not let him speak. “Yes, I know it was done because those countries acted out of Anti‐Aryan interests. Or just because their conquest benefited the welfare of the whole Aryan race in the long term. I will also not discuss much detention camps, `purification´ acts and other such organised actions in which a large number of members of Aryan peoples were killed. It`s obvious that they can be justified by similar arguments.

However, I am interested in several hypothetical situations, that did not occur in real‐life. I`d love to know how you would have acted in them.”

He seemed a little pleased with my speech: “I agree to enlighten you, so you’ll witness the moral righteousness of the National‐Socialistic ideology.”

“I thank you.”. I took out a notebook and a pencil from my pocket, and opened the notebook in its first page. “Let’s start: What would you have done in case of an ideological attempt of a coup d’etat?”

“What do you mean?”

“Imagine a group of activists, which was active until now in secret, that energetically opposes your ideology. It turns out, that because of an intelligence failure, a large percent of the population now supports its views and it has a large number of enthusiastic and active supporters, who are active for the advancement of their cause.”

“And what is the nature of those activists: Socialists? Communists? Liberals? … ”

“Let’s say, for the sake of simplicity, that they are people of my intellect, only that, as opposed to me, they are sane.”

“Okay. And what are their arguments against the Nazism?”

“Well, they claim that the Nazism was meant to enforce the dictatorship of a ruling and a corrupt group. This thing is done by manipulating common psychological weaknesses and destructive mental tendencies. This political and social doctrine is based on a basic mistrust in the ability of the individual to decide for himself, and a total belief in the ability of the leader to decide for the public. Likewise it opposes the freedoms of the individual but believe in an absolute manner that the leader, who is also the founder of the doctrine, is free to do as he pleases. The ideology of the Nazism is, in their claim, incredibly subjective, and is based on superstitions that lack any basis in reality.

They also have some criticism against you: they claim you are charismatic and manipulative, but incompetent for any practical purpose, obsessive and with a chronic lack of self‐esteem. Your racism proves, in their opinion, that you are infected by the disease that you are spreading, and the number of yells that you cried out of your free will a long time ago exceeded the boundary of good manners.”

“Wait a second, and people agree with them?”, he said in a weak voice as he moved uncomfortably on his chair.

For the first time in all the events which were depicted in this book, I did not respond, but remained silent and smiled a wide smile.

“O.K. And you want me to tell you how I plan to react against them?” the dictator asked.

“Yes. But you should also know some more facts: in their claim, the Nazism is very destructive and if people will let it go on, it could lead to the loss of millions and even dozens of millions lives of people. Because of that, and because of the danger it hides to the individual rights and his freedom, one must fight the government as powerfully as possible, even through self sacrifice.”

“And you want to know how I am going to deal with them?”

“Of course! But don’t you want to know first the percentage of those who support them?”

“Ahhh… yes.”

“Let’s start with 10%.”

“Then for what do I wait for God’s sake? I’ll go to the army, to the SS and tell them to execute or imprison every leader or activist in this movement we know of. I’ll offer large sums of money to those who will hand over the activists who are hiding. Mass arrests, questionings…”

“According to what the army and the intelligence estimate, such activity will lead to a civil mutiny from the side of these supporters.”

“I am aware of that. But one should remember that at its end, Germany will be purified from those destructive creeps, who have handsome amounts of Jewish bloods in their veins.”

“Ahhh… did I already mention the fact that the leaders of the movement are pure Aryans?”

“No.”

“O.K., allow me to mention it: the leaders of the movement are pure Aryans.”

“And what does this fact have to do with anything?”, the dictator said angrily.

“Did I say it has anything to do with anything?” I replied in a question.

Hitler looked confused. Actually, I was also confused. But I didn’t show it.

“O.K.,” he said “is there anything else you want to know?”

“Yes. What would you have done if the percentage of the supporters had been 20%?”

“I told you… executions, arrests…”

“And 30%?”

“Likewise.”

“40%?”

He stood up and said: “The same thing.”

“O.K.” I said to him, “You clarified your position sufficiently. I understand your decision, because people from all the political wings agree that one has to take any measures against ideological activists whose ideology poses a threat to the proper regime. I’m sure that about a military coup d’eétat, your decision would be completely different.”

“Wh… Wh… Wh… ”

“ ‘What’ ? ”

“Yes. What do you mean by ‘military coup d’etat‘? Do you mean some kind of ‘Sunday’s coup’, where a couple of military officers try to assassinate me or something like that?”

“No, of course not. In fact Göring and several generals of the Warmacht lead this coup. They intend to preserve the Nazism but are not content from you as their leader.”

“And what are their arguments against me?”

“Well, they use a more popular terminology than the first time — they just claim you’re mentally ill, capricious and delusional. Luckily for you, part of the people still support you.”

“Really? How many?”

“10%, for a start.”

“From where do you pull out those situations? O.K. — so I go underground, wage a war against the people who betrayed me and the forces that support them, and try to become ruler again.”

“Interesting. And what would you do if 20% support you?”

“Excellent! That would give me a better chance of succeeding!”

I wondered if he noticed the downside of the matter. “30%? 40%?”, I asked him.

“Even better!”

Apparently he did not.

I continued to present hypothetical situations to him, and to ask him what he would do if they happened. As time went by, he became more relaxed, responded with less emotion, and sat comfortably in his chair. It even seemed to me that he enjoys the whole deal. After a small hour I finished questioning him, and then I turned back the pages in my notebook, studied what I noted down for a while, and closed the notebook. I lifted my head and said to the dictator:

“Mr. Hitler, I must remark that, aside from your great contribution to modern philosophy, I am beginning to think you also have an extraordinary gift for diplomacy. Despite all the things you’ve said, I am still convinced that your doctrine is not based on the assumption that morality equals ‘no morality’. You wanted millions of Aryans to fight each other, whether in battles between armies, civil mutiny or even gang wars. You’ve come to dividing Germany and even the entire Aryan race to two camps, equal in their size and power, which were willing to fight each other until dusk. All that I’ve mentioned was done for the sole cause of you staying to rule over Germany.

But bloodshed was not the only act which you rationalised with such a brilliant strategy. In the course of the investigation, you reasoned how you would team together with Jews, Communists and/or Democrats in order to serve your interest; how you would agree to be the leader of a large group of clear anti‐Nazis, in hope you would be able to convert them to Nazism later. You even agreed to give speeches that boldly deny the Nazi theory in case it would have left you as a ruler.

If another person would say all that, then most people would think he was the most selfish and power‐hungry person they met. But because of your extraordinary diplomatic talent, I am still convinced that you are doing it out of high morality, and for a noble cause! I do not have enough words to describe the deep impression I have from the way you said those things!

Do you have anything to say about it, Mr. Hitler?”

Oh! I wish you could see the look on his face! Actually, I would have also liked to see the look on his face, but just then I woke up from the dream. After I woke up, I leaned on my elbows and looked outside the window. It was before dawn, a few minutes before sunrise, so the sky were a little lit to the east. Many birds twittered their morning twitter intensively — the chill, probably, did not disturb them much. After I looked a little at the village houses, in which most of the people were still asleep, I lied down again on bed.

“Damn it!” I said to myself “I was just beginning to warm up…”

End