A Tale of Two Cities: A Parable
Something off the cuff. No revision. Make of it what you will, it is exactly what you think it is.
There were once two cities.
The first was in a place far away, close to the centre of governance. Its people were content. Educated and affluent, businesses booming, their coffers swelled with the fruits of their labours. Who cared if the streets weren't really paved with gold? The people looked to their promised future with hope. No one cared about what filth might be strewn in their path, their eyes fixed only upon the good in their lives. Vibrant, the city pulsed with life. Things are good, they would say to themselves, not great, but good and, as is the way of the optimist, they would tell themselves that things could only get better. Such are the thoughts that help the optimist to sleep at night.
The second city had once thrived. A place filled with hard-working people of pride. Far removed from the presence of governance, under which the first city flourished, its people made the best of their lot. Over time however, decay set in. Where once the second city had boomed with industry, everything slowed. The governors of the land dictated that those places within their leadership no longer needed such industry. They focused only upon the vibrancy of the first city. Blinded by its opulent radiance, they decided that the industries of those hardworking citizens were merely secondary. We don't need them, they would say. Let them fend for themselves. Still they took from those men and women of labour, giving less and less in return.
In time, the work slowed. Starved of much needed resources, the tools needed for industry ground slower, rusted and no longer maintained. Pah! said the governors, we don't need them! Their work is of no use to us! We have opulence! We have vibrancy! We have knowledge and education! They have callused hands and minds suited only to labour.
At last, the work ground to a halt completely. The factories and tools, once wielded proudly by hardworking folk, now fell into disuse and disrepair. The hearts of the men and women grew cold and hard, beset with the knowledge that they were forgotten. The city, once proud and bustling, fell into decay. Its machinery silenced, its chimneys stalled. All that remained were the walls of its once great buildings and the cobbles of its roads, ingrained with the soot and filth of its labour.
For many a year, the people of the second city were left to feel that their work was ignored, that it was never needed. Their pride turned into bitterness. They gazed upon their once proud buildings, now merely ruins. Their streets were also caked, not in gold, but in filth and shit, the result of decades of toil. There was no opulence, only the long faded glint of sweat and labour. Their jobs fell, as did their sense of hope, of being.
In time, some of the young of the second city strove to find another way. We will become educated, they told themselves. The old ways are gone, it's up to us to forge a new path. But for the elders it wasn't so easy. Instead, they clung to the old ways, a simmering resentment for how things once were, and how those things had been allowed to become lost.
Sometimes, anger and bitterness are the easiest things to hold onto.
The first city continued to grow, a hub for all of those things to which so many people aspire: richness, diversity, vibrancy. Ho! The old men in power, told themselves, they would have us believe that we never needed the second city! Perhaps they were right after all!
Then came The Salesman.
A man from the first city, The Salesman came with words, and sometimes words are all that is needed, if you know which ones to use.
He spoke to the people of the second city in a tongue that made sense to many of them. Your voices have been ignored for too long, he told them. I will listen to you in a way that no one else does, he said. With smiles and handshakes, he spoke of things that he insisted must have brought about their downfall. The governors don't care for you. They care only for the first city. They care only for its vibrance and its diversity. I come from it, yes, but my eyes are opened to its evil. I come to you to tell you there is a better way, if you only place your trust in me.
The peoples’ hearts were hardened by years of resentment, so difficult to forget. Yet here was a man who spoke to them of better things. Dare we trust him, they asked themselves, when he comes from that very same place that has ignored us for so long? The Salesman spoke not wisely, but cleverly. The words of the ancient serpent, he spoke of seeing through the grime and neglect. He spoke of seeing only the pride that had long since been forgotten. He spoke of the enemy. He even gave it names: It was Diversity. It was The Other. The men and women of the second city were blinded by their bitterness. They didn't see the opulent suits of The Salesman. They didn't see his money, his business dealings, his actions. They heard only his words.
He is right! they would say. He has shown us the face of the enemy that brought about our ruin! He is a man of the first city, yet he alone has heard our cries!
Some of the youngers of the second city, with their eyes opened by their education, questioned the words of The Salesman. He is not one of us, they said, he is one of them. The worst of them. He cares not for our struggle, only for himself. He seeks to divide further, to blame an imagined enemy. We see his bank balance, we see the coldness behind his smile, the hatred and contempt beneath those carefully chosen words of his. He doesn't seek equality or fairness, he seeks only power.
Nonsense! The elders decried. You have become too versed in the ways of the first city. You believe that your education has made you better than the hardworking men and women! Why should we listen to you? Turncoats!
The people of the second city threw their lot behind The Salesman. They embraced his words, they took his beliefs to their bosom, not because they made sense, but because, for the first time in so many years, they no longer felt ignored. He wanted allegiance, they gave it freely. The young who dared to question his motives were ignored, mocked, denounced as being too young to understand the impact of the loss of those old ways. We finally have someone who understands our plight, they said. We have someone who believes in us.
They ignored his expensive suits. They turned a blind eye to his education, his wealth and his expressions of hatred. They heard only his carefully chosen words of empty hope.
Because sometimes hope is all that a person has to cling to. So long as there is a thread of hope, no matter how fine, then all else will be ignored.
The Salesman wanted power. The Salesman wanted money. The people of the second city, they gave all they had, placing their faith in his words, not in his deeds.
The Salesman returned to the first city, flushed with power as the old governance was swept away, its staidness and complacency had long become its own undoing. Money? He had more. Power? He had more of that, too.
And nothing else changed.
***
Comments
Post a Comment