Editor Update 2024. This was first published in 2010. In 2018 a synagogue in Tunisia was bombed with a Molotov cocktail. Molotov cocktails have been used to set fires to synagogues in Jaffa, Israel. And also to synagogues in Berlin. The kids who were raised with this kind of propaganda are now 12 years older, in their 20s. Imagine how this has impacted their worldview.
Publishing a detailed recipe of how to make and then activate molotov cocktails is more suited to a militant underground leaflet than a publication intended for children, but that didn’t occur to the editors of a magazine in Tunisia.
Either desperate for readers or keen to ingratiate themselves with the hardliners emerging in post-revolution Tunisia, the kid magazine Kaws Kouzah not only listed all the necessary ingredients in their explosive recipe, but they also advised children exactly how to throw the cocktail to optimize its destructive outcome.
“Molotov cocktail – is a home-made incendiary weapon which consists of a glass bottle and a folded cloth dipped in a flammable liquid – oil, alcohol, petrol,” read the recipe.
“…the unit should be ignited and thrown at the enemy. After the initial contact, the bottle breaks and penetrates the target.”
And just to be sure that Tunisia’s children are completely sold on the legitimacy of this fun new game, which was published under the magazine’s knowledge section, a brief history was included in the brief.
“The name was coined by Finnish soldiers in World War II in honor of Vyacheslav Molotov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union during the Winter War, also known as the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940.”
Fortunately the Ministry for Women and Family affairs discovered the unfortunate recipe and sued the magazine both for endangering children’s lives and inciting terrorism and vandalism.
We had hoped it was fairly obvious, but perhaps we ought to be more clear: don’t do this. Molotov cocktails are dumb. Instead, publish something a little more useful, like a DIY guide to building space rockets powered by trash maybe?
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
