Jarama Mawdo Baba Jallow Jerry
Muhammad Bai Drammeh
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 16/11/16, Baba Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Subject: [G_L] Smiling Forest Revisited - 4
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wednesday, 16 November, 2016, 14:55
Chapter
Four
What Talkmuch Dolittle failed to see
and how he administered
a historic test of
loyalty
Meanwhile,
Talkmuch Dolittle nonchalantly ruled on. As the years
dragged by, the aging monarch got increasingly divorced from
the realities of
the ordinary animals of Smiling Forest. A thick wall of
sycophants surrounded
and shielded him from the harsh realities on the ground and
fed him with
multi-colored layers of convenient truths about the state of
the common
animals. Everything, they told him, was fine and dandy and
that in fact, all
the animals were ecstatic about the qualities of his great
leadership. Some
animals, they reported, had gone so far as to erect
monuments in his honor to
which they paid daily homage. He was now a god, ever right,
above error. They
narrated fictional stories about how some animals were so
well fed and happy that
they went around Smiling Forest singing Tesiti
yeh doku bakeh, Talkimuchi lemu na kaira
ti! (Tie
your waist and work hard,
Talkmuch is our peace!)
The reality on the ground, however, was far from
rosy. Living standards
were falling at an alarming rate and government corruption
and redundancy were
rocketing at breakneck speed. Discontent over Talkmuch
Dolittle’s apparent
condoning of corruption among top government officials bred
ever-increasing
bitterness among the lower animals. Even traditionally quiet
and apolitical
animals like Toothy the boar, Samo the elephant and Momba
the tortoise became
disenchanted with what they saw as the corruption-condoning
policies of
Talkmuch Dolittle. The fact that top officials that stole
and were found guilty
of public theft were simply re-deployed to other lucrative
posts within the
Smiling Forest administration greatly angered the animals. A
thick cloud of
resentment shrouded the bright landscape of Smiling Forest.
A dark foreboding
cast its ominous shadow across the land, presaging an era of
even greater
discontent whose seed had already been planted with the
coming of Loony the fox
into Smiling Forest.
Also, Talkmuch Dolittle had
grown old and had been in power
for far too long. The animals wanted a change of leadership
and loudly gossiped
about the fabled king who developed a sweet tooth for power
and forgot his
duties. And in spite of the fact that Talkmuch Dolittle
became aware of talk
about change of leadership, thanks to the likes of Cheku the
parrot and Chokie
the bush fowl, he nevertheless turned a blind eye and blind
ear to all such
noises and convinced himself that he knew what he was doing
and that only the jealous
animals were talking and all they could do anyway was simply
talk.
One year, to test the loyalty of the senior
members of
his government, Talkmuch Dolittle declared in one of his
state of the forest
addresses that he was going to step down in a few months. He
had, he said,
served Smiling Forest long enough and it was time to pass
the baton of
leadership on to a new younger generation of leaders. He had
no doubt, he
declared, that Smiling Forest had great animals who could
take on the heavy
mantle of leadership from his tired
shoulders.
While this
historic announcement was greeted with applause
from the majority of common animals and a few top government
officials, the
greatest show was put up by a number of animals who declared
that they were
totally opposed to any such thing as retirement for the
glorious leader. This
pack, led by Chokie the bush fowl, loudly wept and wailed
and pulled their hair
and begged the great leader never to say such a thing again.
Taking the stage,
Chokie the bush fowl loudly wept and called Talkmuch
Dolittle father. He
dropped on his knees and begged the Great God Yallah to
please change the great
king’s mind. Saa the snake frantically hissed and wiggled
and twisted and
turned and loudly wept and cried “my lord, my lord, please
lord don’t go!”
Jumbo the peacock, generally quiet on account of his slow
mind and overly
preoccupied with oiling and brushing his beautiful feathers,
plunged into a
stinking pool of dirt and loudly wailed and dragged himself
around, eventually
falling into a frightening swoon that could not fail to
catch the attention of
the great king himself. Cheku the parrot wept so hard that
he also swooned and
had to be carried off the grounds for urgent medical
attention. Tan the
vulture, Barr the alligator, Njogi the owl, Bahi the crow
and Sindah the lizard
all loudly wept and blew their noses and pulled their hair
to demonstrate their
grief at the monstrous prospect of the great king’s
planned retirement. The
myth that only Talkmuch Dolittle was capable of ruling
Smiling Forest had long
been propagated in the land, but that was the first time it
was so strongly
expressed. It was clear that many of the animals feared
change. Change would
mean they might lose their jobs, and would cease enjoying
all the juicy perks that
came with being close to Talkmuch Dolittle. In the light of
such an outburst of
passion, Talkmuch Dolittle announced that well, he had no
choice but to succumb
to the wishes of the patriotic animals of Smiling Forest to
stay on and lead
them unto more power and glory. “Eh,” he sighed. “If
your own animals beg you to stay,
you must accept because the will of one animal is the will
of all animals. Nii mang koo keh koo
tayla.
Therefore, I
am not stepping down anymore.”
A few days later, most of
the animals who wept and begged
Talkmuch Dolittle to stay on, including Chokie the bush
fowl, Saa the snake and
Jumbo the peacock were given big promotions while those
animals that did not
cry or that applauded his planned exit were demoted,
marginalized or listed in
the fabled Black Book of Smiling Forest as opponents of the
great king’s
infallible philosophy of Sweaty-Sweaty.
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