Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a tiny island far far away from the rest of the civilised world.

It was a beautiful fertile green country with eye-catching mountains, meandering rivers and picturesque valleys. 

It was also known as the Land of Blind. 

There, many were suffering from partial blindness due to hereditary, ethnic, racial, religious, political, and caste effects. It was said that international health experts concluded that it was a rare form of Glaucoma, causing them to have tunnelled vision. 

As an amazement to the rest of the world, the islanders were so proud of their vision impairment. Apparently, they were the world’s best tunnel visionaries of their own fields of expertise. The rulers of this island set their own humanitarian standards, discarding the same of the rest of the world. However, islanders enjoyed the physical and mental torture by the rulers willingly, as their ‘fate’. They willingly became slaves and the rulers rewarded them with perks and privileges as an acknowledgment of lifelong slavery. 

The rulers even formed an invisible open prison for the rest who were reluctant to become slaves. The uneducated and incompetent majority could not swim out of the island because no ruler taught them how to swim. Akin to the frogs in a well, while separating and fighting each other on petty things, they roamed in the island happily, celebrating the history. 

There was a huge grain silo near the main seaport of this island.

It was their main source of food and considered as a symbol of pride for the islanders. The silo was managed by the rulers and the islanders were issued a bucket of grains at a reasonable price for their daily consumption.

One day the officer in charge of this silo woke up from his deep slumber and reported, the level of the grains in the silo was half the capacity of the silo. It was a half-year audit. He alerted islanders that there would be a possibility of price increase for the second half of the year. He knew that he had to increase the price and cook the books to cover the pilfered loads of grains so far.

The islanders started crying.  

The ruling politicians panicked and summoned the officer. After demanding half of the pilfered money, they directed him to display a signage in front of the silo, “Current Status – The Silo is half-full”. He complied.

The politicos did not stop there. A group of ruling politicians held a meeting in front of the silo and explained to the islanders that because of the sound economic vision of the rulers, the grain quantity was at the current level and assured that the islanders were in safe hands. 

The islanders applauded. 

One of the politicians in the group was so happy with the crowd response and smelled an opportunity. He promised that he would build a new silo as the existing silo was too old fashioned. He further said that he would make sure it would be a modern silo, the best-looking silo in the region and a digitally operated one.

The islanders applauded. 

He promised that a new manager would be appointed and he would ensure the silo will be full always. He even showed a photograph of a silo installed in a faraway country. 

The islanders applauded and expressed their pleasure. Some even screamed that they would elect him with the ruling elite at the next election to ensure this promise would be delivered. 

The opposition political parties overheard what was going on and hurriedly organised a meeting near the silo and displayed a huge banner behind them, “Current Status – The silo is half-empty”.  

They explained to the islanders that the silo was half-empty, not half-full as the government claimed because of the current rulers’ grain supply mismanagement and corruption. The opposition politicians said that if they had been elected at the previous election, this silo would not have been half-empty. 

The supporters of the opposition political parties applauded and applauded and applauded. 

The media outlets manipulated by both the rulers and the opposition, reported their own distorted versions of the situation.

The islanders were clueless who was telling the truth.  

A group of kids held a meeting and explained to the islanders, both could not be correct at the same time. The slaves screamed in anger and demanded kids to mind their own educational business. The rest laughed at the kids.

The kids did not give up and displayed a laser projected message on the sky “Rulers are naked”. After many days, seeing the message continually, the rulers started doubting themselves whether there was a truth behind this claim. Some hid in their houses being afraid of exposure of their nakedness.

Upon strong demand from the islanders, the rulers appointed a retired politician of their ranks to do “an independent professional assessment” on this. This “professional” calculated inflow and outflow of the silo and declared the input rate was higher than the output rate so that the silo was being filled daily and the trend was positive. Hence, he declared the silo was half-full, not half-empty. He said that what matters was the ‘trend’, not the current status.

The supporters of the rulers clapped and screamed how genius he was and demanded the rulers to nominate him for an honorary degree. Some even predicted that he would be in the next year world’s top five percent scientists list.

The opposition political party did not want to give up the fight and said the outcome of the assessment report was wrong and they would prove it. 

They appointed their former leader who was in his 90s to analyse the silo operational status. Although he was suffering from dementia, he clearly remembered the term “inflation”, he used to utter during his whole political life. He explained that the cost of grains was ascending possibly due to the inflation and the allocated budget would not be enough to buy grains for the next two quarters. 

He predicted that the purchasing activity of grains would be ceased in two months so that the storage level would go down afterwards if the consumption remains at the current level. Hence, he declared it was definitely half-empty and also boldly predicted that the islanders would be starved to death in the near future due to the shortage of grains. 

The islanders started crying, embracing kids. 

The supporters of the ruling political party became vocal about the opposition’s analysis and declared that the opposition inculcated undue fear in islanders’ mind so the opposition should be dealt with the new “prevention of fear mongering law”. 

The rulers said that it was a totally false claim that money would be run out as money can be printed at any time or else can be borrowed from friends, so that there won’t be any issue with filling the silo. Further, they declared that the eating habit by spending borrowed money, was a unique traditional cultural characteristic of the island nation and such cultural elements must be preserved and enhanced. 

The proud islanders applauded again.

Time went by.

When the islanders found the price of grain bucket has gone up, they started stealing each other’s grain buckets. 

Kids were worried about elders’ behaviour and requested an independent professional to do the analysis. A female expert volunteered and analysed the situation more holistically and found the islanders consume a variety of grains and the variety stored in the silo was an unhealthy variety but it was chosen by the majority due to its affordability. Hence, she predicted that in the long run, the demand for this grain would be less due to the future health effects. So, the producing or importing of alternative grain varieties would be needed and the continual storage of this grain variety using borrowed funds would be a waste and an unwise decision.  

Then, both the government and the opposition politicians rejected her findings and declared that she could be either an agent of a radical political party or an agent serving the interests of the importers of other grain varieties.

The islanders could not decide whether to cry or rejoice.

Islanders were so confused being unable to decide who was right. Some islanders started fighting each other to promote their own preference of the assessment reports to protect their revered politicians.

This situation became known to international agencies located on civilised land. A few islanders who swam out of the island many years ago also started commenting on this situation and demanded that an international organisation must intervene and do an independent analysis.

Even they expressed their willingness to fund the assignment. 

Finally, an agency came forward. 

When the external agency sought the historical and current data on the wide range of grain productions, imports and on the island’s fiscal and economic policy from the relevant authorities, such data was not available. The agency collected data as much as possible from various sources and analysed data, after making certain assumptions and qualifications. The agency looked at the whole economic situation of the island and declared the problem was not about the capacity of the grain silo, but about the people who managed the economic activity and the people who made policy decisions on economic activity. 

The agency declared that all the government and opposition politicians alike in the island and the entire public sector officials were responsible for the current situation. The agency explained that this island nation mistakenly identified the symptoms of problems as the problems and treated the symptoms for 74 years, and the patient; the island was truly dead or bankrupted and the rulers; the walking dead, would not be able to revive the patient.

Many islanders fainted while reading the report and the rest who recovered from the shock, demanded that all responsible should be sacked and replaced anew.

All the opposition and the ruling politicians of the island panicked and got together to announce that they formed a National Government. 

Afterwards, they issued a joint statement condemning the international agency report saying that the agency was a cat’s paw of the Western world and the report was an attempt of the Western world’s conspiracy to tarnish the image of the island. They further emphasised that the Westerners were envious of the island’s proud history and unique culture. 

Islanders applauded and some even cried remembering the ancestors. 

Then, they marched in front of the local office of the international agency displaying banners condemning neo-colonialism. 

Thereafter, they lived happily until death in sleep. 

PS:

This island no longer exists in the world and it is said that many islanders fought each other and only a few remained at the end. It is said that it went under water a few centuries ago because nature could not bear the damage. 

Historians found the traces of a huge silo under water in the Indian Ocean and argued that there must be some truth of the existence of this island. This fable is cited generations to generations internationally by the so-called decedents from this island. Some decedents even claim that they have royal connections to the rulers who fled this island. 

However, some cast serious doubts about the existence of such a country in history as humans could not ever have been that stupid to behave the way described in the story.

(The writer is a Professional Engineer working in the Australian NSW Local Government Sector. He intends to share his views on various social development areas, in addition to his chosen professional discipline to inspire youth to think differently. He is contactable via [email protected].)